If you’re anything like me you’ve been completely swept away in the Bridgerton craze that is sweeping the nation. The first two seasons have been amazing but as an avid reader I already know that Penelope and Colin have my heart… and season 3 looks like my favorite season to boot!
So clearly we need a few Bridgerton themed t-shirts for our next watching party!
One for me and one for the bestie… and another one for me.
I mean… I’m slightly obsessed with making fun t-shirts for all of my favorite shows and books. Just take a look at the entire collection of shirts I made back in the Game of Thrones hay day. Or this fun Outlander shirt I made last year! Or even the fun Chenford shirts I made for my love of the Rookie.
When it comes to the Bridgerton I whipped up a *ahem* few fun SVG’s but today we’ll be working with three of them. “I have no intention of causing a scandal” “You must make haste!” and my favorite “Colin’s Carriage Ride, Take the Long Way”
Either way you can use any of the SVG’s you like… I’ll stick with these 3 for now.
Ready to get started?
Supplies:
- Cricut Maker 3
- Cricut Roll Holder (for smart iron-on)
- Fine-Point Cutting Blade
- Cricut Standard Grip Mat (that’s the green one!)
- OR Cricut Fabric Grip Mat (that’s the one I use… it’s pink and holds everything)
- Cricut Easy Press 9 x 9
- Easy Press Mat
- Heat Resistant Tape
- SVG Cut Files (you can download these for FREE down below).
- Transfer Tape
- Weeding Tool
- Brayer
- Smart Iron-On
- Rose Gold Iron-On
- Standard T-Shirt
Check Out the FULL VIDEO Tutorial:
Step 1: Upload your SVG’s
Alright y’all first things first, go ahead and download your cut files then you can upload the SVG’s straight to Cricut Design Space. Each design is grouped separately but you’ll want to go into the group and weld each design individually.
Keep in mind that each design is entirely one color so if you’d like to change something to stand out (say you want a gold bumble bee or a floral carriage) you’ll need to change just that icon to have a different color. Then you can continue to weld each of the other letters together.
Since we are doing a floral carriage I changed just that icon to pink (the color doesn’t matter we just need it to cut on a separate cutting mat) and then welded all of “Colin’s Carriage Ride, Take the Long Way” together.
If you skip the welding step Cricut Design Space will try to place all of the letters onto your cutting mat in a way that uses the least amount of iron-on possible. That will make it *ahem* much harder to put together.
Although not impossible.
Confused as to what welding is? Not sure how to group your designs? I show you the entire process in the video up above (and if you’re still confused you can check out my walk-through of Cricut Design Space where we go over every. single. button.)
Step 2: Cut your Designs
Now that alllll our cut files are good to go, ready to roll, hot off the press it’s time to cut these bad boys! I sized all of my t-shirt designs to 9 inches wide and then I selected my Cricut Maker 3 (although you can cut Iron-On or Infusible Ink on any machine you like… even the Joy if the size is small enough) and hit Make It!
Cricut Design Space will ask you if you’re using a cutting mat (with either the Maker 3 or the Explore Air 3)… and I selected on a mat since the infusible ink I’ll be for one of the shirts (needs a cutting mat) and so does the regular iron-on for the other two shirts. If you’re using smart iron-on you’ll select multiple ways so that you can assign each cutting mat directly.
Double check that all your cutting mats look good and that you’ve turned mirroring on for all of your designs (both iron-on and infusible ink require mirroring… without it all your words will be backwards!). Now you can select your material from the drop down list!
Directions for Iron-On:
Iron-on is a fun material to cut because it’s 100% backwards! You’ll load it onto your cutting mat upside down… or in the case of smart iron-on you’ll load it directly into your machine upside down. That’s because all iron-on has a built in carrier sheet (the clear plastic sheet over the iron-on) and you need to cut into the actual iron-on… not the carrier sheet.
So turn mirroring on, flip your iron-on over and load it into your machine. Then you can hit go and watch the magic happen!
Of course, if you need a refresher Cricut Design Space will spell all of these instructions out for you. Go ahead and cut both colors (I used pink and blue for two of my designs) and then we’ll move on.
Directions for Infusible Ink:
Infusible Ink on the other hand is actually ink which means your first instruction is to only handle your infusible ink sheets with clean dry hands. Otherwise you’ll smear the ink!
Yikes!
Go ahead and load your infusible ink sheet onto a cutting mat (ink side up) and smooth it in place. I always use a brayer to smooth out any bubbles and make sure it has a good bond all the way across. Since the infusible ink sheets are stored in a roll and not flat they want to stay rolled up… a brayer helps to straighten them out.
Then go ahead and load this baby into your machine… Cricut Design Space will remind you to load it in ink side up and with mirroring turned on. You never have to remember a direction… it’s always right there on the screen and then you can click go.
Make sure to cut both infusible ink sheets and then we’re good to go!
Step 3: Weed your Designs
Ready to weed? If you’ve never weeded a design before (that sounds so weird!) it’s super easy. Basically we’re going to remove allllll the negative spaces from our design. The excess material around the letters and alllll the interior portions. The dot inside the o, the top of the e!
This is pretty easy but can be a little tedious so put on your favorite episode of the Rookie and let’s get started.
Directions for Iron-On:
You’ll want to grab a weeding tool for this one… then use the sharp end to remove that vinyl! As with any weeding watch your letters as you go so that you don’t accidentally tear off the end of a t or remove the dot of an I.
Once you’re done using your weeding tool to remove all the tiny interior pieces you’ll have your iron-on design left on a carrier sheet.
Wicked!
Directions for Infusible Ink:
For infusible ink you’ll want to skip a weeding tool… you won’t need it and it might rip the paper! Infusible Ink is fairly thick though so your fingers work just fine. Simply pull up all the extra bits of infusible ink and you’ll be left with your design!
Remember how we had to slice up our design earlier? Well this is where that allll gets put back together. Infusible Ink can only be heated ONCE or it will start to lose it’s vibrancy… so after you’ve weeded the entire design you’ll need to combine all the pieces into one piece.
For some of the designs that’s as easy as lining them up and adding a piece of heat resistant tape to hold the pieces together.
So we’ll tape the carriage together with “Colin’s Carriage Rides” and “Take the Long Way” so that it’s allll one image!
Step 4a: Apply your Iron-On Designs (Iron-On on a Standard T-Shirt)
Alright y’all between iron-on and infusible ink, iron-on is the easier medium. But not by much… they’re both pretty simple! BUT as simple as they are we’re going to do them separately since they have different heating requirements. Let’s start with our regular iron-on on a standard t-shirt.
We’re going start by placing your shirt on an easy press mat and lining it up. Then smooth it out and lint roll your shirt to remove any dust or hair that might be on it.
This is just a standard t-shirt I picked up at Wal-Mart so it wasn’t in a protective bag… it needed major lint rolling.
Place your Iron-On Design
Now place your design! In this case I’m using a v neck shirt instead of the u neck shirt I made earlier… so instead of 4 fingers we’re only going to go down 2 fingers… then center your design and smooth it on the shirt.
I always smooth my designs on from the center to avoid bubbles but that is less of a problem here. We don’t need any heat resistant tape here so once it’s on we’re ready to roll.
Use your Easy Press to Set the Ink
Adjust your easy press to 315 degrees with a time of 30 seconds… and once it’s ready make sure to hit your design from both the front and back. You’ll want to use steady pressure here but it doesn’t need to be ultra firm. Normal pressure will do!
Slow, Cool Peel your Iron-On to Reveal the Design!
Let your design cool down and then slowly peel off the carrier sheet! It should come off easily but if it’s catching on any letters hit them again with the heat.
Step 4b: Apply your Infusible Ink Design (Infusible Ink on Cricut’s Compatible T-shirt)
Let’s get started with Colin’s carriage design that we cut our of infusible ink and are putting on our infusible ink compatible shirt.
Quick reminder that you can place iron-on on almost any shirt you want but infusible ink has to be on an infusible ink compatible shirt (which is a fancy way of saying it needs to be mostly polyester… if you want to check out the results of putting infusible ink on bunch of different shirts to see what works you can check that experiment out here).
Place your Infusible Ink Design
Start by smoothing your t-shirt out over a heating mat and making sure it’s dust (dog hair) free. Since this baby came out of a plastic bag it was good to go! Then line your design up with the center of your shirt and press the carrier sheet into place. For a rule of thumb in addition to finding the middle of the shirt I like to place my design four fingers beneath the neck… this seems to be a good distance.
The infusible ink backing sheet is prettttty sticky so it might stay with just the carrier sheet holding it in place but if the design shifts at all during the heating process our design could get hazy… so I always hold it down with a bit of heat resistant tape.
FYI every time I’ve forgotten this step it’s gone badly.
Use your Easy Press to Set the Ink
Now go ahead and heat up that easy press! For our infusible ink blank shirt we’ll need 385 degrees for 40 seconds. This will take a minute to heat up but once it does we’re ready to rock.
If you have the largest heat press you can do the entire design in one go but with the 9×9 size we’ll need to do a few presses. That’s ok… just make sure you hit the entire design. Place your easy press straight down, press firmly for the full 40 seconds and then lift it straight up.
Repeat 2-4 times until your entire design has been hit with the heat… trying not to heat sections multiple times unless absolutely necessary. Then set it aside until it’s cool to the touch… this will take several minutes.
Cool Peel your Infusible Ink to Reveal the Design!
Once everything is cool to the touch you’re good to go! You can peel the carrier sheet away to reveal your design! If everything worked properly the cardstock should have started to peel back on it’s own so by the time you go to remove the carrier sheet everything should just… fall apart.
The carrier sheet peels back and the little cardstock pieces that use to hold infusible ink just scatter!
It’s kind of funny if messy!
Now you’re done!
Which means we can re-watch Bridgerton Season 3… again. *wink wink*
Step 5: Enjoy!
I LOVE how these turned out! Honestly… I was expecting to love that floral carriage the most (with the yellow Featherington colors? I mean come on!) but the metallic blue and shiny pink iron-on?
They kind of stole my heart.
Of course, the pink one will have to steal my heart from afar since it’s going home with my bestie but that’s ok. What are friends for if they can’t make you cute t-shirts?
Let me know your favorite down below!
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