Sublimation: Girl’s Long Weekend Shirts

Ladies, we all need them…Girl’s Long Weekends! Not only are they a fun getaway, but they also help to rejuvenate our spirits!

My own girl’s long weekends originally began as a once-a-year event, but we quickly decided to have our mini-vacations twice a year. So this year, gather all of your BFF’s for a fun weekend and commemorate it with these sublimated shirts! 

Sublimation: Girl’s Long Weekend Shirts

• Supplies
• Digital Products
• Cricut Design Space
  • Creating the design
    • Slicing the Nalisha font
    • Long Weekend: Aphasia BT font
    • Adding clipart
  • Printing

• Cricut EasyPress 2
  • Prepare your shirt
  • Pressing

Supplies Needed

• Sublimation Printer (I converted the Epson Eco-Tank 2720)
• Digital products:
  • Fonts: Nalisha Font (Creative Fabrica); Aphasia BT (Design Space)
  • Graphics: Safari Animal Print Scrapbook Paper Set
• Cricut raglan shirts
• Heat-resistant tape
• Butcher or parchment paper
• Cardstock
• Lint roller
• Cricut EasyPress 2
• Sublimation paper (I used A-Sub)
• T-shirt guide (optional)

Digital Products

There is a seemingly endless catalog of fonts over at Creative Fabrica that would work so well for this project, but my personal favorite is the Nalisha Font. I adore the swirly feminine look of this font and when coupled with the Aphasia BT font from Design Space, they become the perfect pair! 

You will also need the Safari Animal Print Scrapbook Paper Set in order to add a pretty design element to the graphic. Once you have downloaded the font and scrapbook digital paper to your computer, extract them, install the font, and then open up Cricut Design Space.

Cricut Design Space: Creating the Design

Slicing the Nalisha Font

Now that you already have your new products installed, start a new canvas.

First, choose which pattern that you like best from the digital papers, then upload it. I chose to go with the “anim12g” pattern, but feel free to choose from any of the patterns!

Once it is uploaded, insert it to your canvas, reduce the size from 25” to 9”, and then create a text field. Type out the word “Girl’s”, then enlarge it so that it fits on top of the animal graphic, now just place it over an area of the pattern that you like.

Select both the text and pattern, then slice. Delete all of the slice results except for the patterned word “girl’s”.

Long Weekend: Aphasia BT Font

Insert a new text field and type out the word “Long”, and then change the font to the Aphasia BT. Duplicate it and change the text to Weekend.

Enlarge the “Weekend” word so that the top of the “W” fit the base of the “O” and “G” in the word “Long”, change the font to black, then weld.

Next, grab the patterned “Girl’s” word and place it over the “Long Weekend” text.

Adding Clipart

If you want to add a little extra flair, and you and the girls like to indulge in a glass (or two) 😉 then you can add a little wine clipart! To use the same design that I did, search for “wine pouring” from the Design Space image library, or image #M28AA7210. I changed the wine color to deep red by selecting it in the layer’s panel, and rotated the image so that the glass of wine sits nicely over the “E” of “Weekend”.

That’s all there is to it! Now all that’s left is to flatten the design, resize it, then print!

Printing

Sadly, Cricut Design Space only allows a printing size of 6.75” wide x 9.25” in length. Because of this, you cannot make your design any larger if you are printing from Design Space. You can, however, use another program to print it, such as photoshop. 

If you do prefer to print a larger image using that method, then go ahead and apply your usual techniques – however, if you are a beginner, then I recommend sticking with Design Space and printing within the maximum size dimensions. 

First, create a temporary template by inserting a square shape and changing the dimensions to the allowable print size of 6.75” x 9.25”, then send it to the back of the canvas.

Now just rotate your design by 90 degrees and place it over the shape. Enlarge it as much as you can while remaining inside the boundaries of the shape.

Delete the shape template and your design is now printable!

Now the real fun begins! Click on that “Make It” button to bring you to the Mat Preparation screen.

• Important! When printing a sublimation design for shirts, you MUST remember to MIRROR your design, especially when there is text on it! Otherwise, all of your words will be sublimated on backward and nobody wants to waste a perfectly good shirt blank!

After ensuring your design is mirrored, click “Continue”, then “Send to Printer”.

When the print setup screen pops up, make sure that the system dialog button is active and the bleed is turned off. Also, make sure that you select your sublimation printer in the printer selection dropdown! There is nothing worse than forgetting to choose the right printer and wasting expensive ink!

Also, make sure you choose the correct printer settings for your type of sublimation printer. This is extremely important so that you get the absolute best results on your printout! If you discover that your printout has white dots or lines, this might be a sign that your prints heads need cleaning or alignment.

Once it’s printed, allow the ink to fully dry, then use your paper trimmer or scissors to remove the black border that Cricut creates in order to cut a print then cut image. For this project, you are only using Design Space to create and print your graphic so you will not need to cut the design out with the machine. 

Be sure to leave enough blank space around the design so that you can put your heat-resistant tape.

Cricut EasyPress 2

Prepare your shirts

To begin the preparation for pressing your graphic onto the shirts, first, get out your lint roller and use it to remove any particles/oils that could interfere with the transfer on your raglan shirt. 

Then, begin heating your EasyPress 2 to 400 degrees for 40 seconds. When the machine reaches temperature, pre-press your shirt to remove any excess moisture. Then center the printout, as evenly as you can, roughly 3-4 inches down from the neckline. I like to use a t-shirt alignment guide that I purchased off of Amazon – I highly recommend adding one to your toolbox!

Pressing

Using small pieces of heat-resistant tape, tape the paper to the shirt to make sure that the printout doesn’t move. Just be careful not to cover any of the ink with the tape as this could interfere with the transfer.

Place a piece of cardstock inside the shirt, then cover the design with two layers of parchment or butcher paper to protect your EasyPress from any ink blowout, then press away!

When the EasyPress signals that the timer is finished, wait a few minutes until it is cool enough to touch and then remove all papers, tape, and cardstock.

Voila! Now just repeat the same process for as many shirts as you are making!

• 👉 Tip: Re-use the packaging that the shirts came in for an added professional touch!

Cheers ladies! 🥂🍷

Keep on Crafting! 💖