One of my favorite craft mediums to work with is Heat Transfer Vinyl. It makes it so easy to create fun and custom projects for any occasion. My younger brother was coming up on some big tests for his economics PHD and I thought he could use a smile, so I pulled together all of these easy economics shirts A custom t-shirt is incredibly easy to make using just text and I have walked you through it below!
These economics shirts are the perfect beginning Cricut project and should come together in less than 30 minutes.
DIY economics shirts
For this project you will need:
- blank t-shirts
- white heat transfer
- black transfer
- a Cricut
When you open the new Cricut Design Space, it will look like the photo above. The top banner will be followed by projects that you have created. You can see some of my latest projects like the Soccer Shirt I just made for my daughter. Below your projects will be Make It Now Projects, a fun variety of predesigned projects that are great when you are looking for something cute and fast to make. To get started in the New Cricut Design Space, hit the plus sign on the left hand side of your projects or the green New Project button in the top right corner.
After you select New Project, a blank canvas will open up for you. The canvas is a grid, so you will be able to see exactly how big your project is. Each of the little squares is an inch.
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Add text by hitting the text button in the far left menu. A text box will pop up and you can type what you want the project to say. I made shirts with the following sayings:
(Front) Why Did The Economist Cross the Road (Back) The Marginal Benefit Exceeded The Marginal Cost with Font Biondi (Cut File Found Here)
Macro> Micro Economics with Font Cricut Sans (Cut File Found Here)
Talk is Cheap Supply Exceeds Demand With Font Arial Black and Bria (Cut File Found Here)
Eat. Sleep. Economics with Font Adobe Garamond (Cut File Found Here)
You Don’t Scare Me, I know economics with Font A Frightful Affair Cracked (Cut File Found Here)
One of my favorite thing about Cricut Design Space is that it will pull up all of the fonts on your computer plus all of the Cricut fonts so you can take your pick of what you want to use.
Select the text box that you want to change the font on and a font box will appear at the top of the page so you can change the font.
One of my favorite features of Cricut Design Space is that when you change the colors of elements in the layers pallet, the program will assume that you want to cut those items out of a different kind of material. To change the colors of something, go over to the far right side and find the element you want to change. For text boxes, they are usually represented by the first letter in the line of text. For images, if will show a small version of the image. Click on the colored black dot and a color menu will pop up and you can change it to another color.
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When your project looks the way you want it, it the Make It button in the top right corner of the screen. Hit the mirror image button on the right hand side, your project will flip on the screen and look backwards. If you are making a project using heat transfer, you always need to mirror the image. Place the iron-on shiny side down onto your Cricut mat and then load your mat into your machine, spin the dial to iron-on and hit the flashing Cricut button. For this project you will cut two different times because we are using a couple different colors of heat transfer.
Peel the heat transfer off of your mat and then weed (peel apart) the heat transfer until just your design remains on the sticky backing. Stick the iron on face down onto your shirt. You will be able to see through the plastic backing so you can put your project together just the way you want it. Just make sure that none of the letters or images are touching the plastic backing of another element or it will fuse to that instead of your shirt.
Heat your iron up to the hottest setting and then iron on straight onto the plastic, making sure each element of the design gets 30 seconds of pressure and hit. Start pulling up the plastic backing and if any of the elements pull up at all, put the plastic back down and iron that area again. Peel the plastic sheet off and your shirt is ready to go! For the shirt with an image on the back, repeat this process on the back. Make sure you put a piece of parchment paper over the front when you iron the back.
What kind of custom shirts would you make?
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