Making HTV Shirts with the Grands - Part 1

As I mentioned in this post, B made himself a pair of shorts when he visited this summer.  Naturally, we needed to make a shirt to go with it.  I had a red shirt his size in my stash (and now I know that red is his favorite color!) and we headed to the Silhouette Design Store to find the perfect design to go on his shirt.  Of course we decided on paw prints to match the shorts.

I don't use my Silhouette Cameo very much - in fact, it was a Christmas gift from husband in 2012 and I'll bet I haven't used it a dozen times - so I tend to forget exactly what to do to make this process go smoothly.  Luckily, A helped me make our shirts last year, so she remembered a lot more than I did.  B really wanted a red paw print on the front of his shirt - did I mention red is his favorite color? - and I said I didn't think it would show up.  He said, "Grandma, couldn't we put black behind it so it would show up?"  I hadn't tried layering vinyl in this way before, but it worked marvelously.  He obviously has some of his mother's and sister's design savvy. 

Last year during the Amazon Prime Day sale, I had bought a Cricut Easy Press at a steal of a deal.  I had looked at the larger presses, but I have no room for one, and I honestly don't use it that often...  In fact, I hadn't taken it out of the box until the day we made this shirt.  But WOW!  Does it make a difference!  Last year, I tried to press the designs with my steam iron and it was a nightmare.  The press makes it so much easier.  If you can afford one, I highly recommend getting a press.  (As I linked to Amazon just now, I noticed that there are several knock-offs of the Cricut press, and I have no idea if they are as good as the original, but the Cricut is easy to use and I got great results.  Just be sure to keep the time/temperature card handy.)

A and B both helped me weed the paw prints, and B thought it was great fun to use the Easy Press, so this turned out to be a super-fun evening activity with the kids.