Make your own USA Rocks T-shirt using an iron-on heat transfer. It’s an easy way to make a custom t-shirt to celebrate the 4th of July or other patriotic holidays.
For the 2nd year in a row, I made Carter a custom patriotic shirt for the 4th of July. Last year I used a bleach pen, this year I used an iron-on transfer made with my Silhouette Cameo.
I use my Cameo all the time to make stencils for various projects. This is the 3rd time I’ve used their iron-on heat transfer material. The first was Carter’s St. Patrick’s Day “Iowish” shirt.
I was originally planning on making my own design as I usually do, but I was running a little short on time, so I browsed the Silhouette store for pre-designed options I might be able to use. I settled on the USA Rocks design. Since I wasn’t printing the design, I did a little adjustment to account for this being just one color. Then I reversed the design and put the Cameo to work cutting it.
After I weeded out the negative spaces, I was ready to iron.
You need to put a towel or other cloth barrier between your iron and your transfer. The directions say to press firmly for 30-45 seconds across each section of the design. I found that I needed to do this several times for much longer to really get the design secured down. It probably took 5-7 minutes of ironing for this design.
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After that, I fully peeled back the plastic sheeting and the t-shirt was done! As always, Carter was being silly when I asked him to pose in his new shirt! This is a really easy and fairly quick way to create custom shirts that look professional. What I like about this design is that he can wear the shirt anytime, and not just the 4th of July.
Overall we had a great holiday weekend. It was pretty jam packed, but we had a lot of fun with friends and enjoyed some good quality family time. Here’s a few pics from the weekend.
Todd golfed for a few hours on the 4th, so Carter and I decided to enjoy the many miles of bike trails close to our house and explore some parks along the way we don’t go to very often. The weather was too gorgeous to not take advantage of it!
We met some friends to enjoy fireworks on the 4th. This year we tried a new vantage point, which was a little farther away from the launch area than where we normally go. Carter seemed a lot less interested in the actual fireworks than he did the sparklers he was lighting.
On Sunday, we had our annual day for my company at Adventureland amusement park. Carter is at a really fun age to enjoy quite a few of the rides. He was so excited to be tall enough to ride a few of the roller coasters. This kid has no fear as he embarked on his first ride on the “Tornado”. He immediately declared afterward “THAT… WAS… AWWWWESOME!
How is it that long weekends are just never long enough?!
