Face the Grandpa Shirt

When Father's Day comes around, getting creative is key, and what better way to show our appreciation for our beloved Saba (Grandpa) than a shirt that says as much with his grandchildren's faces embedded in his very title?

• poly/cotton blend shirt
• HTV vinyl
• Cricut Maker
• Adobe Illustrator

Our grandpa is referred to as Saba around these parts. (Hebrew for Grandpa.) And Sababa means "cool". I love how these letters are mirrored in both words, and of course the meaning as well, so I played with the shadow of how these two words interacted with each other. Because I will later add the grandchildren's faces intertwined among the text, I kept the font rather simple and straightforward in both style and coloring and added the second text as a drop shadow to the prominent Saba which would be the highlight.

Gathered source images for the portraits.

Keeping the drawings simple here to reduce too much busy-ness in the text later on. This can be done by drawing directly over the photos or as an interpretation. I worked in Adobe Illustrator.

• Convert the text to a shape. Object, Shape, Convert to shape. Turning the text into a shape will create an editable vector and keep the image quality.
• Overlay the portraits on top of the appropriate text, and experiment where the paths of the images look best over the text shape being mindful of where the black/white will lay when printed. This is very much a puzzle piecing exercise.
• Some paths in the portrait will be lost entirely. Experiment with hiding paths in the layers panel (I ended up erasing entire head shapes) to better suit the final text image. Also, erase parts of the text that overlap so the vinyl in that area won't cut twice.
• Use the shape builder tool (shift+m) to combine paths into complete shapes for printing.
• Save as a png or svg

Upload file as a simple cut design to Cricut Design Space. Cut image on HTV vinyl. After weeding, lay on material in the center of chest about arm pit level, and heat press. Voila!