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Cricut Easy Press Gadgets Explained for the Non-Crafter

Posted on November 7, 2018November 7, 2018 by Jessica

The latest generation of the Cricut Easy Press is on the market, here’s everything you need to know even if you are a Non-Crafter!

Easy Press Gadgets Explained

They are here! The new generation of Cricut heat presses, Cricut Easy Press 2, are now available! I am pleased to be able to share these with you! I love my Easy Press, but I love the Easy Press 2 even more. What’s the difference? Here’s the low down, explained for even the Non-Crafters out there! There’s also a few new projects in this post, stay tuned for the how to! This post is sponsored by Cricut. I was compensated to write this post in someway. Any opinions given are completely my own. For a complete list of disclosure rules, please see the disclosures page.

Cricut Heat Presses, Compared

Other than the color, these two heat presses look pretty similar. The original heat press is blue, the new heat press is red. These are both 9″ x 9″ in size. The main difference in the design here is the temperature settings. The original heat press heats to 320 degrees in just a few minutes. However, the Easy Press 2 heats up 25 percent faster, and can reach temperatures of 400 degrees. The Easy Press 2 rivals the commercial heat presses that can heat between 375-400 degrees. Commercial presses are large, expensive and certainly not very efficient. The Cricut Easy Press 2 can do the job so much easier!That’s impressive! I love this medium Easy Press size for making small to medium size t-shirts, tote bags, tea towels, etc.

I used the original Easy Press for my original t-shirt collections, such as my #Yoga Life t-shirt collection. You can read that tutorial here. The original Easy Press heats up very quickly, and I found that I didn’t need to waste energy by turning it on too soon. This is great since my studio space is small and this little press heats up my entire room if it’s on too long. Another feature that I love, it automatically turns off after a period of inactivity. This has been a real life saver for me, since I tend to get side tracked by other things and forget to turn it off at times. Does anyone else do that?? Such a great feature!

My first t-shirt with heat transfer vinyl, or HTV vinyl was made using a regular iron. It was a disaster! I learned very quickly that a household iron does not work the same way! My iron takes forever to heat up, and is so small it only covers a very small part of the Heat Transfer Vinyl (or HTV) t-shirt design. I had to press, and press and repress to get the vinyl to adhere. It was frustrating!

When you compare the bottom of the Easy Press or Easy Press 2 and the bottom of a household iron, you can see the difference. An iron is designed to produce streams of steam with holes and indentations. It is also pointed at the tip for fine pressing. The Easy Press is perfectly square, flat, and has more surface area to come in contact with the vinyl. Therefore the Easy Press produces a better result with less effort. Another interesting fact, a household iron only reaches a maximum of 190 degrees Fahrenheit. The Easy Press 2 heats up to 400 degrees, that’s a HUGE difference in temperature! It’s no wonder that first t-shirt peeled apart in short time, my iron just wasn’t hot enough to make the vinyl stick.

I use the 9″ x 9″ size for small to medium size t-shirts.

My latest Toddler size shirt was made with the Cricut Easy Press 2. Faster and hotter, I whipped this shirt together in record time! You can get the free #Team Dark Meat graphic design from my Cricut page here!

Right Size for the Job

It is not necessary to own more than one Heat Press. However, I will say it makes things so much easier! The new Easy Press 2 devices include an extra large 16″ x 10″ size which is great for XLL t-shirts, tote bags, pillows, and banners. I used the large Easy Press for this XXL T-shirt. I always size my t-shirt graphics accordingly to the larger size shirts, since that is mostly what my family wears. With a smaller Heat Press, I would have to press this design in at least two places, but the extra large heat press does it all in one pressing. I also used this large size for my recent Christmas Snowflake Pillow project here.

Like this Thanksgiving holiday t-shirt? You can download the design file here!

The Mini Heat Press is Mighty

I saved this one for last, the mini size Easy Press 2 is 6″ x 7″. So adorable! It’s the perfect size for making baby onesies, baby bibs and make up bags. This Easy Press 2 has all the great features of the other Easy Press 2’s, just in a compact size. So handy! This little baby Onesie came together in a jiffy using this mini press! Get the Thanksgiving Dinner Onesie design download here!

Each Easy Press size has a coordinating Easy Press mat.

Each size Easy Press has a coordinating size mat. I like organizing the mats by size so I can easily grab the one that I need for my project. The different sizes are so handy, I use them all the time! Cricut also has a handy guide for selecting which temperature setting to use for your type of vinyl, you can find that guide here.

I hope that answers all of your questions regarding the Cricut Easy Press projects. Let’s get crafty! Don’t forget to share your shirts on social media with my hashtag #Chambraybluesshirt for a chance to be featured on my Instagram page! Thanks to Cricut for sponsoring this post!

Easy Press Explained|Chambrayblues|chambrayblues.com — Pin this post!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

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Make a Chill’n Cricut T-Shirt Collection with #YogaLife

Posted on October 10, 2018October 10, 2018 by Jessica

T-shirts are part of our everyday wardrobe, here’s how you can make your own #yogalife shirts with your Cricut Maker!

Yogalife T-shirt collection|chambraybluesblog|chambrayblues.com — This fun t-shirt collection has something for the entire family!

T-shirts are something we wear every day.

I often wear t-shirts to bed, to the grocery store, and certainly to yoga class. Sometimes I sew my own, but I have found that by using the Cricut Maker I can be creative and not get overwhelmed by yet another sewing project. Making t-shirts has become a phenomenon as you can see if look at the Cricut website. Some folks even make t-shirts as part of their small home businesses. Cricut has been asking me to share my T-shirt collection designs with you, all you have to do is login to Design Space on the Cricut website, and click Make it! This post is sponsored by Cricut. Any opinions given are completely my own, for a complete list of rules see the disclosure page.

Yoga Life T-shirts|Chambraybluesblog|chambrayblues.com — Camisole style t-shirts can be found at your local Walmart.

Sources for Supplies

My blank T-shirts come from the shelves at Walmart. I am sure you can find them in a store near you. I look for different styles and colors but keep in mind most t-shirts shrink at least 10-20 percent in the laundry. It is best if you can wash and pre-shrink your shirt before putting the graphics on it. The Cricut HTV (Heat Transfer Vinyl) Iron-On vinyl is a very impressive product. It adhere’s easily and washes well to cotton and blended fiber shirts. However, for durability, drying them on high heat is not recommended. Tumble dry on low or hang dry for the best results with the colored vinyl. The metallic vinyls are more delicate and should not go in the dryer at all. I do not recommend using generic vinyls in any form, they will not hold up as well and you will wish you had used the Cricut brand.

Here’s my process for designing and creating these shirts:

#YogaLife T-Shirt Supplies Needed (affiliate links included for your convience):

White or Black adult sized t-shirts, (mine were size LT)

Activewear camisoles, gold and burgundy (I used size XL)

White Toddler Size T-Shirt (I used a 4T)

White Baby Onesie (mine was a 3T month size)

Cricut Black and White Iron on HTV-Vinyl

Cricut Rose Gold Metallic Iron on HTV-Vinyl

Standard Grip Cutting Mat (green)

Cricut Maker or other Cricut Machine

Cricut Easy Press and pressing mat

Yogalife t-shirts made with Cricut|Chambraybluesblog|chambrayblues.com — This shirt uses Cricut Brand Rose Gold Metallic HTV vinyl

#Yoga Life Adult Shirt Directions:

Chose which shirt you want to make and download the design file from the Cricut website below:

• #YogaLife design file

• Yoga Posse design file

•Yoga is my happy place design file

•White Medallion Circle of Life design file

•Rose Gold Circle of Life Medallion design file

Choose your iron on vinyl color. Cut the vinyl to fit on the 12″ x 12″ mat. Place vinyl with shiny side down on the mat. Roll with a brayer to smooth out and remove any air bubbles.
Insert the mat in the Cricut, follow the prompts for cutting the vinyl. Be sure the “mirror image” button is selected for designs with text. Remove the vinyl from the mat after cutting.
Weed out the negative space in the design with the weeding tools. I find it’s easiest to do this under a window with good light. You can tape the vinyl to a bright window for weeding out the medallion designs that are more complicated.

Tip: Weed from the outside of the design towards the interior of the design in a circular motion. This keeps you from getting confused, making a mistake and removing parts of the vinyl that are needed for the design. When the design is more intricate, this is even more important. Those medallions take a bit of patience to weed out! I enjoyed working on them while watching tv.

4. Cut away any excess plastic from around the design. Gently, place your design on your shirt to determine placement. Use 2-3 finger widths as a guide under the neckline determine where to put the graphic. Be sure your design is centered left to right, use the armpit area of the shirt for a visual to center the design.

5. Heat up your Easy Press to 320 degrees, or heat your iron on the hottest setting. Cover the design with a pressing mat or press cloth, press for 20 seconds. Turn the shirt over, cover with the pressing mat and press an additional 20 seconds.

6. Remove the mat, let the shirt cool slightly. Then gently pull off the plastic vinyl backing being sure all vinyl is adhered to the shirt. Your shirt is now ready to wear!

Here’s how I design my t-shirts in the Cricut Design Space. It’s very easy to use and so much fun that I had to make a video to show you!

Children’s Shirt Directions:

1.Download your chosen file from Design Space from the link below;

•Child Pose shirt design file

•Warrior pose shirt design file

2.Depending on what size you are making you may have to adjust the size of the graphic a bit larger or smaller for your shirt. Then, follow the directions for the adult shirts listed above. I use the same 2-3 finger placement technique under the neckline to place the graphics.

I would love to see photos of your shirts on social media! Show them to me using the #chambraybluesshirts for a chance to be featured on Instagram or join our Chambray Blues Facebook group here for more tips and inspiration!

If you are a blogger and would like to join the Cricut Affiliate program, click here.

Make Yoga Life T-shirts with Cricut|Chambraybluesblog|chambrayblues.com — Pin this Post

Thanks to Cricut for sponsoring! Here are some more great ideas to make with your Cricut:

Flock of Flamingo T-Shirts with Cricut

You Make Patriotic Holiday Family T-Shirts

3 Step Easy T-Shirt Pattern Hack

15 FAQ You Always Wanted to Know About the Cricut Maker

Riley Blake Throw Quilt with Cricut-Part 1

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

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Flock of Flamingo T-Shirts with Cricut

Posted on September 14, 2018September 14, 2018 by Jessica

These cute t-shirts are easy to make with your Cricut Maker. They are just the thing to go with a light sweater and a pair of your favorite handmade jeans!

Flock of Flamingo T-Shirts with Cricut|Chambray Blues blog|chambrayblues.com — The Cricut Flamingo T-Shirt Collection

T-Shirts made with the Cricut Maker

My Cricut has been getting quite a work out lately! These shirts are hot off the Easy Press and very simple to make. I’ve been designing t-shirts for Cricut on the side and I love how simple they are, they always turn out great! The Cricut HTV vinyl is a great product that is fun to use for just about any t-shirt design. I used purchased T-shirts for this collection, rather than sewing from scratch to speed up the process. You can still be creative and not have to sew all the time! (These projects are great to give yourself a break!)

The designs were easy to make with existing fonts and images in the Cricut Design Space. I like to start with a t-shirt template, then add the images. In this case I wanted Flamingos, so I searched for them in Design Space and had lots of designs to choose from. They have thousands of images available to you! After I chose my image, then I added text to go with it. Usually I use one or two fonts before choosing one that I like the best, in most cases I prefer fonts that are easy to read. The majority of my graphic designs have both a print font and a cursive one which gives the design more interest. Sometimes there will be a design all ready made (such as the “I don’t give a flock design”), then you just have to choose your colors for the vinyl. I like simplicity in my design, so I only use 2 colors of vinyl in each shirt to keep it simple. Occasionally the design has to be made larger, which is easy to do in design space with the click of your mouse.

Here’s what you will need to put together your own Flamingo T-shirt collection:

Flock of Flamingos T-Shirts with Cricut|Chambray Blues Blog|chambrayblues.com — This t-shirt uses Pink glitter vinyl and an Aquamarine printed vinyl.

This post is sponsored by Cricut, any opinions given are completely my own. For a complete list of disclosure rules, see the disclosure page.

Flock of Flamingo T-Shirt Supplies

•White or Grey T-shirt, I used XL T-shirt from Walmart

•Pink Glitter Lipstick HTV Vinyl and Aquamarine from the Patterned Iron on Sampler HTV Vinyl collection (order through my affiliate link here)

•Cricut Weeding tools

•Cricut Cutting Mat, cutting blade

General Directions:

1. You can access this design on my Cricut page here. Download the design to your design space page.

2. Place your first color vinyl on the cutting mat according to the Cricut cutting directions. Be sure to use a roller (brayer) to adhere the vinyl to the mat securely before cutting. Place your vinyl with the shiny side DOWN on the mat.

3. Cut with the Cricut Maker, then weed out (remove the extra vinyl) from the outside area around the design.

4. Cut the remaining vinyl piece while you are weeding out the first one.

5. Cut apart the pieces and place them with the sticky side of the plastic down on the shirt. You can move them around a bit until they are centered from the top (I use 2-3 finger widths from the bottom of the neck as a guide). Be sure the design is also centered from left to right on the shirt (use the underarm seam as a visual guide for this).

6. After the design is in place, cover it with a press cloth or Cricut heat proof mat. Press with your Easy Press set to 320 degrees for 30 seconds. You can also use an iron on the hottest setting if you don’t have an easy press (be sure to iron all parts of the design equally).

7. Turn the shirt over, press again on the back for an additional 20 seconds. Turn shirt to the front, peel off the plastic vinyl backing while it’s still warm (you can tell if your vinyl isn’t set completely it will peel off with the backing. You may need to re-press if it’s not completely adhered to the shirt.)

Putting the vinyl on the shirts is more or less the same for each design. The Cricut Maker will tell you which colors to use for each step, just follow the general directions above.

I have already done all the design work, so all you have to do is press “Make It”.

How fun is that??

It’s so much fun to whip up a new shirt to go with your favorite me-made jeans! More on the jeans later!

For this children’s design, I used a 4-5T white shirt that I purchased from Walmart.

Vinyl colors in this shirt are Iron On Light Vinyl in Blush Pink and the Aquamarine from the Patterned Iron on Sampler. You can order them through my affiliate link here.

Your little ones will love wearing their flamingo shirts!

Download this design here!

This T-shirt is also an XL adult size, but you can use any adult sized shirt for this project.

The vinyl colors here are the same as above, Iron On Light Vinyl in Blush Pink and the Aquamarine Patterned Iron on Sampler. You can order them through my affiliate link here.

Download this design here for your Cricut Maker!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.

Thanks to Cricut for sponsoring this post!

Click on the links below for some other great Cricut project ideas:

Riley Blake Throw Quilt with Cricut-Part 1

Riley Blake Throw Quilt with Cricut Maker -Part 2

Riley Blake Throw Quilt with Cricut- Part 3

What You Should Know About the Cricut Maker

3 Step Easy T-Shirt Pattern Hack

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You Make Patriotic Holiday Family T-Shirts

Posted on June 16, 2018June 12, 2018 by Jessica

We love patriotic holidays, it’s so much fun to dress up and go to the parade or family barbecue in style. Here’s my latest project with the Cricut Maker!

Patriotic at Heart

If you have been following me for a while, you will know that I love my Cricut Maker. There are so many great things you can do with this cutting machine! Cricut has selected me and another group of bloggers to design t-shirt collections for their website. Each month a new group of 3-5 t-shirt design files will be chosen from the group and featured on their site for you to make. Not every design will be chosen, just the ones they like. The fun thing is that each collection will include adult and child sized graphics so you can make shirts for your entire family! You can purchase t-shirt blanks without any graphics on them at local craft stores, or Amazon (affiliate link is included for your convenience). For my projects I used some old white t-shirts we had laying around. Why spend money if you don’t have to?

For this Patriotic collection, I designed a number of different patriotic styles but only used the ones I liked the best. The rest will be featured here at a later time. These files are not available on the Cricut site just yet but will be soon if they are approved (cross your fingers!). I also plan to sell my SGV design files in a new shop on here on Chambray Blues which will be coming soon so you can have access to them either way!

Here’s how I made the shirts:

Patriotic T-Shirt Supplies Needed:

• Red and Royal Blue Cricut Heat Transfer Vinyl (affiliate link)

• 2-3 White T-shirts in various sizes. I used a 3T baby onesie, and XL and 2XXL adult sized shirts (affiliate link)

• Cricut Heat Press or iron (affiliate link)

•Cricut Heat Proof Matt or ironing board with heat proof cover (affiliate link)

•Cricut Maker (affiliate link)

•Cricut Ironing Shield or press cloth (affiliate link)

•Light grip matt (affiliate link)

Directions:

1. Choose a t-shirt file to make in Design Space. There are a number of patriotic files currently available. Be careful to select files designed for t-shirts, if the design is intended for other purposes you may have trouble cutting it. It could be too small or have lots of layers that will waste your materials and aren’t suitable for use with vinyl.

2. Cut the files as directed by Cricut on your machine. Be sure to place your vinyl on the grip mat with the shiny side DOWN. Also, be sure your design is REVERSED. If not, select the edit button, then the mirror setting. Cut all the pieces for your design before assembling.

3. Trim away excess vinyl. I like to cut away any extra material and save it for another project. It’s too good to waste!

4. Weed out any “white space” with the weeding tool. That is, from the wrong side (non shiny side of the vinyl) pull away any vinyl that will not be needed in your design. You will end up with your design and a somewhat sticky backing. View it from the right side, the shiny side to be certain it is correct and that it is all intact.

5. Place your vinyl shiny side UP on your t-shirt (the sticky backing will hold it in place). Be sure your design is centered evenly over the center front of the shirt. It is helpful to fold the shirt in half and mark the neckline with a pin so you can get accurate placement. I recommend placing your vinyl about 2″ down from the neckline on most styles. You may need to hold it up to a mirror and check the placement before going on to the next step.

6. Once your design is in place, cover it with the pressing mat or press cloth.

7. Heat your heat press to 340 degrees F (If you are using a different vinyl you may have to adjust the temperature). If you are using an iron, use the cotton or linen setting with no steam.

8. Press your design in place for 20 seconds (you can set the timer on your Easy Press for this). Press the design a little at a time if you are using an iron, be sure to lift the iron up and not rub it side to side or it will affect your results.

9. Turn the shirt over, cover it with the press mat and press again on the back side for an additional 15 seconds.

10. Turn the shirt over, let is cool slightly. Remove the clear plastic material and reveal your design. Check to be sure all edges are adhered to the t-shirt. You can press the vinyl again if needed, or use a weeding tool to hold it down to the warm fabric until it melts in place. Be careful not to over press your vinyl. I have made this mistake and created scorch marks from the iron. If you have this problem, try dabbing the marks with white vinegar until they disappear.