Want to make customized shirts for your next family trip or unique onesies for a baby shower gift? Cricut makes it very easy to make your own iron-on images.
Materials
This works with any Cricut machine including the Cricut Explore Air and the Cricut Maker. Cricut has a wide variety of Iron-On vinyl in different colors, prints and in glitter. You will also need an iron or a Cricut EasyPress. A regular iron works great, but if you are doing a lot of iron-ons, the Cricut EasyPress is the way to go. You will also need some parchment paper and either a t-shirt, onesie, totebag, etc.
Directions
First you will need to make your design in the Cricut Design Space. You can use Cricut’s fonts and images or you can create your own.
Once you have your design ready, you can get your materials set. Place your iron-on vinyl shiny side down on a standard cutting mat.
Set your Cricut to Iron-On. This enables it to make a kiss cut through the vinyl, but not through the shiny liner. If you are using iron-on vinyl from another company, you should test it first to see if you need to set more or less pressure on your blade.
VERY IMPORTANT – Mirror your image before cutting. You are cutting on the back side of the vinyl so your image has to be reversed or your letters will be backwards. There is nothing worse than using up your last piece of iron-on vinyl only to look at your cut image and find out that all your letters are reversed. Reversed works fine for ambulances in your rear view mirror, but not very good for a t-shirt.
Cut your image with your Cricut.
Once it is done, carefully remove it from the mat. If you are frugal like me, you can cut off any large unused portions of the iron-on vinyl to save for another project.
With the shiny side down, start using your tools to weed out all the parts that are not part of your image leaving only your image on the clear liner.
Use the Cotton/Linen setting on your iron. Turn off your steam settings. Preheat the area on the material where your image is going to go for 10-15 seconds.
Place your image liner side up on the pre-heated material. Make sure it is level and centered. Cover the image with two layers of parchment paper. This will keep the area around your image from any discoloration from the heat of the iron. You made need more paper if your fabric is delicate. You should test in an inconspicuous area.
Apply medium pressure with your iron for 25-30 seconds. Flip the material over and use your iron to apply another 25-30 seconds of pressure.
Turn your material back over. Peel off the liner slowly while it is still warm. If your image starts to lift away from the fabric, replace the liner and apply more pressure with your iron over the loose areas for another 10 seconds.
Do not wash your garment for at least 24 hours. When you do wash, turn it inside out to make the image last. If the image starts tom come away when you wash, reapply with your iron using the same method as above.
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