Shawn Mosch

Grandma Shirt

If you are looking for a great Mother’s Day gift idea, you will love this Grandma Shirt project. It is created using the knockout text process that I taught you in my last post. If you missed that tutorial you can click HERE.

By the way, this post contains Affiliate Links to companies I have partnered with, such as Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. You can think of affiliate links like tipping your waitress, only it does not cost you anything extra! Thank you for shopping with my links!

Grandma Shirt Supplies:

Shirt
HTV/Iron On Vinyl – you will need two colors for this project. I use Siser vinyl, and provided links for you below.
Weeding Tool
Parchment Paper
Heat Source – I recommend a Heat Press
Cricut cutting machine
Cricut cutting mat

Optional supplies:
Shirt Alignment Tool
Shirt Form for pressing

I prefer to use Siser brand vinyl for my iron on projects. I feel that is the best quality brand of iron on vinyl out there, and it weeds the easiest. For permanent vinyl I like StarCraft vinyl. People have asked me why not Cricut brand, since I use a Cricut machine. Personally I just do not like the way the Cricut vinyl cuts or weeds. I think you should find the brand you love and work with that product. Test things out for yourself. Sometimes it is just a personal preference like how some people would rather have Pepsi products over Coke products.

So once you find your brand of vinyl, where should you buy it? If your favorite brand is sold at the local craft store, then you are lucky in the fact that you can pretty much garantee that you can run to the store and pick up vinyl when ever you need it.

For me, Siser was not always sold in the stores, as it is now, so I had to get it from online retailers. Again, this is where you can either go with your personal preference of stores or go where the best deal is. One day the best price might be at one store, and then the next week it might be from a different retailer. We all do this when we sometimes pick up toliet paper at the grocery store, but then we also get it at Target when it is on sale.

I also love that I can order large rolls or small sheets when ordering Siser online. This can give you a larger variety of choices and allow to to save money on larger orders. To make sure you are getting the best price for your vinyl, make sure to check out my Vinyl Buyers Guide. Because of that, I will always share all of the different resource I am connected to and you can choose which one is best for you!

When I first started this site, I had not even heard of MyCraftSource, and now I am an influencer for them! Since all of their inflencers have a special coupon code, that means when you shop at My Craft Source you can get an extra 5% off your order just by using coupon code ShawnMosch at checkout!

Heat Transfer Warehouse is another supplier that I love, and they are actually somewhat close to me. Their headquarters are in North Dakota and I am in Minnesota. They even have their own line of vinyl, and they are partnering with other companies to really bring you a wide variety of products.

You may have noticed that there are a lot of retailers that only ship to places in the United States. This is because shipping prices can really add up. I want to be able to help my followers find their products no matter where they live and that is why I was happy to find some retailers that ship world wide! That is where the next two compnaies come in as options.

Let me introduce you to Expressions Vinyl. When you go to their site, make sure to check out the rewards program. This way you can earn points as you purchase products! Then those points can be redeemed on future purchases.

Another retailer that I work with is Vinyl and Tulle. Use coupon code SHAWNMOSCH to save 10% off your order!

Cutting Your Design

We are going to jump right in to cutting the design for your Grandma shirt, since we already covered how to create the design in my last tutorial. If you missed that one just click HERE and then come back for putting the project together. Since we will be putting this on a shirt, we are cutting the design from iron on vinyl, which is also called heat transfer vinyl (HTV).

Make Sure to Mirror or Flip your Design

When you look at HTV you will see that one side is shiny and has a plastic feel. This is the clear carrier sheet that comes attached to the HTV. Place that side down on your Cricut cutting mat. We will want to cut our design into the other side of the HTV. Because we are cutting into the back of the HTV, we need to mirror our design, otherwise t will cut out backwards.

There are two ways you can do this. Before you hit Make It in Design Space you can use the Flip button and flip your entire design horizontally to mirror it. I do this so that I do not have to remember to click Mirror for every mat I am cutting. I show this in the image on the left below. The second way is to hit the little Mirror button in the mat preview screen of Cricut Design Space. I show that in the image on the right below.

I use the Siser EasyWeed HTV, and I love it. I cut it on the iron on setting on my Cricut. Once I cut my vinyl I like to trim the sheet straight across so that I can work with just the small pieces I need.

Another retailer that I work with is Vinyl and Tulle. Use coupon code SHAWNMOSCH to save 10% off your order!

Weeding Your Design

Now we have to weed our design. Weeding is the process of removing the parts that you do not want to go on your project. For our Grandma shirt we are going to just want the letters and words on the shirt. I like to start by weeding out the centers of my letters. This helps me to better see what I need to weed away. Another thing you can do is go back and look at your original design in Design Space. This is another reason I like to make my colors match as close as I can to the actual vinyl I will be using for the project. That way if I have to go back and look at the original design I know I want to KEEP anything that is colored in my design.

For this Grandma shirt project, since we did the knockout text method, part of the center of that A actually connected to the knock out part, so when I pulled out the center it really helped to get the weeding for the rest of the Grandma letters going.

Pressing Your Design

Once everything is weeded it is time to press your design on to the shirt. Make sure to give the shirt a quick press before applying the first layer. This makes for a nice smooth surface. I started with the word Grandma just so I could center that and get it positioned perfectly. I used my Planet Flame Heat Press and followed the directions on my Sister vinyl packaging, placing a piece of parchment paper over the top of the design.

After I removed the clear carrier sheet, I let my Grandma shirt cool down to the touch. Then I place the inner names on the design and pressed these. If you are at all worried about melting your HTV when doing additional layers of colors, you can reduce your press time slightly for each layer as you go. Then at the end run your fingers over the design and if there are any portions that feel like they are lifting up, press it again.