Take Me to the Beach Crab Shirt with Iron-on Vinyl

Make the special kiddo in your life this adorable Take Me to the Beach Crab shirt. Using iron-on vinyl and my Cricut machine made it a quick project. This post contains affiliate links which, when purchased through, add no extra cost to the consumer but help support this site.

Here in the south, heading to the beach for summer vacation is a fairly common occurrence. My Facebook feed has been filled with family beach vacation photos for several weeks now. It’s not unusual for our family to receive multiple Christmas cards at the holidays that are of family beach photos from the past year’s trip. It’s as if everyone has the same thought– Take Me to the Beach!

My boys and I were talking today about different ocean life that they would be able to find at the beach. The subject of crabs arose, something that both interested and terrified them! It amused me to hear them talk about it. When I started to design a summer beach themed shirt for a kid, those red crab pinchers were on the forefront of my mind. Around the same time, I received an email that this cute crab was the week’s free download at DesignBundles. Score!

Supplies:

Cricut machine (I’m using the Cricut Explore Air 2)
Cricut StandardGrip Cutting Mat
Cricut Weeding tool
Cricut Iron-on Vinyl, red
Cricut Iron-on Vinyl, Black
Shirt
Home iron or Cricut EasyPress
Measuring tape
Optional, but very useful: Cricut EasyPress Mat

I downloaded this cute crab with sunglasses image file from DesignBundles. I’ve been creating with their SVG files for a few weeks now. You may remember the Mermaid Water Bottle Tracker and the Americana Cow shirt. I like their files because they come with a premium license that allows for commercial use (in a certain quantity. See their licensing terms and conditions for more details). The site also has free designs and/or fonts each week.

After downloading the image file to my computer, I extracted it to my computer. When downloading images, this is a step that crafters forget sometimes. Any ZIP file image must be extracted in order to be uploaded to Cricut Design Space.

Once the file extracted, I followed these instructions here to upload the SVG file to Cricut Design Space. I like using SVG files when possible because they will separate into layers that I can manipulate (like the images found within Cricut Design Space).

Measure the front of the shirt to determine the size that you would like the image to be.

Open up a new project in Cricut Design Space. Place the crab onto the canvas.

I did not want to cut the white vinyl for the glasses, so I used the “slice” tool to make slits in the top of the glasses. I deleted the slice result and the white portion.

Type the words “TAKE ME TO” above the crab and the words “THE BEACH” below the crab. Use the “Curve Text” tool on the Text editing panel at the top to curve the text around the top and bottom of the crab. If you need help with anything int he text editing panel, be sure to see this in depth post.

Attach all the words, the sunglasses, and the smile.

Group all the attached elements and the crab together. Resize the image with the wording to the size that you determined by measuring the shirt previously.

Send the image to the Cricut machine. Cut, making sure to mirror the images.

Center the crab on the appropriate place on the shirt. Use the home iron or Cricut EasyPress to adhere it the the shirt.

Remove the liner from the crab.

Place the words and glasses portion on the shirt, making sure the glasses are on the proper place on the crab. Use the home iron or Cricut EasyPress to adhere it to the shirt.

Remove the liner.

Turn the shirt inside out. Use the home iron or the Cricut EasyPress to firmly press on the back of the design for about 10 seconds.