How to Make a Custom “Lake Life” State Onesie

How to Make a Custom “Lake Life” State Onesie

The Midwest summer has officially wrapped us in a big ol’ humid hug. As I was sweating my buns off chasing my kids around the playground this morning as the temperatures climbed near 75 degrees, I was struck by the primal need to go jump in a lake. Enter the “Lake Life” State onesie…

With summer in full swing, these customized “Lake Life” state onesies are a cool addition to a little one’s wardrobe. Heck, I’d love it as an adult t-shirt too! How cute would it be to replicate the “Lake Life” on the front and the “Lake Bum” on the back of an oversized t-shirt and use it as a beach cover-up??!!

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Make this Minnesota "Lake Life / Lake Bum" state onesie using the complete Cricut tutorial at www.nataliemenke.com

The Origins of the “Lake Life” State Onesie

A friend asked me to customize a onesie so she could give it to family friends in Minnesota (big Twins fans, obviously, hence the red, white and blue color combo – but totally appropriate for an all-American summer). The family has a girl and newborn boy. So for the older sister, I made this “Lake Hair Don’t Care” t-shirt, while the baby boy got this “Lake Life” state onesie. I couldn’t help myself and added a cheeky little “Lake Bum” to the butt of the onesie.

Replacing the “A” in “Lake” is easy to do for almost any state (maybe not Hawaii??), but how appropriate is this for Minnesota – the land of a 10,000 lakes? You can easily find free svg’s of states online (I provide a link to the one I used below). Then, it’s just a matter of adding text in the font you love, busting out your Cricut and heat-pressing this bad boy together!

Make this Minnesota "Lake Life / Lake Bum" state onesie using the complete Cricut tutorial at www.nataliemenke.com

MAKE THIS “LAKE LIFE” STATE ONESIE WITH ME!

Follow along below with the step-by-step Cricut tutorial to make your own “Lake Life” state onesie. This process is so easy, you’ll have these shirts whipped-up in no time! While you are at it, follow the similar steps included in my Cricut tutorials for any of the t-shirt/onesie images below:

STEP 1: GATHER YOUR SUPPLIES FOR YOUR “LAKE LIFE” STATE ONESIE

GRAB THE EXACT SUPPLIES I USED AT AMAZON.COM:



Make this Minnesota "Lake Life / Lake Bum" state onesie using the complete Cricut tutorial at www.nataliemenke.com

STEP 2: DOWNLOAD THE FONTS & UPLOAD THEM TO YOUR CRICUT DESIGN SPACE

I used a font called Lemon/Milk for this project, which is not a standard font in Cricut Design Space, but you can get it for free from dafont.com and upload it to Design Space.

Once you have Lemon/Milk downloaded, check out these other great projects you can make with the same font!

*Always double-check the licensing for the fonts you download. I am using these fonts for personal use and will not be selling these shirts for profit. However, there are plenty of completely free fonts on dafont.com.

Download directions:

  • Go to Dafont.com and search for “Lemon/Milk” or click on the links above. Next, click on the gray “download” button to the right of the font.
  • Once the zip file has downloaded to your computer, open the file and double-click on the TrueType font file to open it.
  • Then hit the “install” button at the top of the document.
  • Once the install is complete, open Cricut Design Space and select your new font from the font drop-down menu. (If you are already working in Design Space, you’ll want to refresh it or log out and back in so you can see the new font selection).

STEP 3: DOWNLOAD YOUR STATE’S SVG & UPLOAD IT TO CRICUT DESIGN SPACE

Have you used onlinewebfonts.com before? In addition to having a ton of free fonts to download, they also have a whole icons section, which is where I found this Minnesota state svg.

Free Minnesota state svg from https://www.onlinewebfonts.com/icon/467353

To add it to your shirt in place of the “A” in “Lake”, you’ll want to:

  • Go to onlinewebfonts.com and download the svg to your computer.
  • Open Cricut Design Space and in a New Project, click on the “Upload” button on the left sidebar.
  • Click on the “Upload Image” button and then the “Browse” button to navigate to where you’ve saved your image.
  • Double click on the file
  • Add an image name and tags and click “Save.”
  • Now your image will be saved to Recently Uploaded Images under the Upload tab.
  • Click on your image and hit the “Insert Images” button, which will take you back to your canvas for further manipulation.

STEP 4: ADJUST THE SIZING OF THE GRAPHIC AND ADD YOUR TEXT

Once you have both the graphic and text uploaded to Design Space, play around with the sizing until you are satisfied with the overall look. Once you have everything in its proper place, rubber-band select all the text in “Lake Life” and the state svg replacing the “A” and select “Group.”

Screen shot of the Minnesota "Lake Life" state onesie Cricut tutorial at www.nataliemenke.com

For a 3-month onesie, entire “Lake Life” graphic was 3.5″ x 5″. The “Lake Bum” graphic was roughly the same size.

STEP 5: CUT & WEED YOUR HEAT TRANSFER VINYL

Make sure your Cricut is set to “Heat Transfer” and each image has “mirror” selected.

Screen shot of the Minnesota "Lake Life" state onesie Cricut tutorial at www.nataliemenke.com

Once the decal is cut, remove it from your cutting mat and weed the excess vinyl leaving only the mirrored vinyl on the plastic vinyl sheet.

STEP 6: IRON/TRANSFER THE DECAL

Place a thick towel or your Cricut EasyPress Mat on a sturdy work surface, and preheat your iron or Cricut EasyPress to 315 degrees. Transfer away!

If you end up making this project or using my tutorial as inspiration for your own creation, I’d love to see! Feel free to leave any questions in the comments below!

More later! The craft room is calling, and I must go…

OTHER T-SHIRT PROJECTS YOU MAY LIKE:

Natalie Administrator
Natalie Menke, the self-proclaimed Gift Guru, is always thinking about the next gift she is going to give. Her hope is to provide boundless inspiration for completely customized and personalized gifts. Happy gifting!
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