diy star wars inspired bb-8 t-Shirt

When I asked my youngest son what he wanted on his blank t-shirt I was not at all surprised when I hear – Star Wars!!! He is hooked on Star Wars at the moment so I sort of knew this was coming.

Since my favorite color is orange and all of us have a soft spot for the newest android in the Star Wars family, BB-8 was chosen.

I had also seen a cool shirt with ‘Join the Resistance’ on it and I knew I wanted to include that too.  That’s when I had the idea for the small image on the back of the shirt.

materials

The BB-8  t-shirt has lots of little parts and does take some knowing your way around a personal cutter.  So here is what you are going to need:

• Cricut or Silhouette personal cutter – There is no way around this for this project.
• HTV Vinyl – You will also need 4 colors.  My estimates are for a child’s small shirt.
  • 10″ x 14″ piece of white heat transfer vinyl
  • 12″ x 5″ piece of orange heat transfer vinyl
  • 12″ x 3″ piece of gray heat transfer vinyl 
  • 3″ x 2″ piece of black heat transfer vinyl  (for fun I used black glitter heat transfer vinyl)
• T-shirt – Choose a t-shirt size of your choice.  If using cotton remember to wash the t-shirt before applying the vinyl to account for any shrinkage.
• Teflon sheet or Parchment Paper – When heat pressing the vinyl onto the shirt this will make sure nothing sticks to anything that it shouldn’t.
• Heat Press or Iron – A heat press makes thing sooooo much easier but there is no reason you can’t just use your personal iron.  I use a 15×15 inch clam shell that isn’t too expensive and I have to say I love it.  Make sure to get one with a digital pad for setting temperature and timer.

creating the elements

creating a cutting file

You do need to be pretty skilled at using a graphic design program, like Adobe Illustrator, to make this from scratch.  I took elements from the original Star Wars logo, the Join the Resistance Logo and a BB-8 graphic to come up with my design.

If you want to let me do all the work and you are a newsletter subscriber I have the cutting file all ready to go.  (your welcome!)

cutting out all the parts

Once you have downloaded the svg cutting file, load it into your personal cutter software and re-size to the dimensions you want.  Then cut away.

determining the size of HTV needed

getting ready for assembly

Once you have all the parts cut out start to weed.  As you know I love this part… so sit back and enjoy that zen feeling of just pulling away all the extra bits of vinyl.

weeding the vinyl

final assembly

Finally you are ready to put the t-shirt together.  If you don’t have a heat press, do not worry. A home iron works just fine.

For this image you are going to have to apply in layers.  Place the bottom layer of heat treansfer vinyl (HTV) on top of the shirt.  Place the teflon sheet or parchment paper on top as protection and heat press away.  The heat press set at 310 degrees should take 12 seconds to complete.

Remove transfer tape (the plastic coating on top of the vinyl) and lay down second layer of heat treansfer vinyl (HTV) and repeat applying hear.  If you can add multiple items on at one time go ahead and do that.

Repeat this step until all layers have been applied.  Flip shirt over and repeat.

the finished t-shirt (and newest member of the rebel alliance)

Once the t-shirt has cooled you are all ready to go.

My son was over the moon (or the Death Star) with his new shirt.  He actually liked the back of it more than the front.