Make a Graduation Year Shirt with this Free SVG

August 9, 2019Allison Murray

Looking for a cute first day of school shirt? Grab this FREE SVG file and you can make a graduation year shirt tee for every graduating class from 2020 to 2040!

Today my nephew went into town and headed to the high school for his orientation. I have mixed feelings about this… I’m stoked for him to start on a new phase of his life, and I LOVED high school so, so much, but I’m also a bit bummed because the kid is growing up. That means that a: I’m OLD and b: it’s only a matter of time before the kid is an adult with all of the obligations that come with that. I am also quite bummed because this means it won’t be long before I won’t get to look forward to him coming to visit me for a few weeks out of the summer. Already I miss him :) I can’t even imagine what his parents are going through. I’m totally getting that the whole “empty nest” thing is totally for real.

Earlier in the summer when he asked me to help him learn some life skills like cooking, doing laundry, etc. he informed me that he didn’t want to be that kid in college who didn’t have a clue how to take care of himself. I was SO proud and only WISH I had been as thoughtful about my future as he is. But then I realized that the kid is legit gonna be in high school and I started to count out on my fingers his graduating class year. And it turns out that four years will be 2023. Aaand, if you’re wondering, yep, I grabbed the wrong file for the wrong year and did 2033 instead of ’23. Gah. I suppose I’m just so heartbroken over being so. darn. old. :)

Oh, and if you’re a math dummy like me, you can totally put the year your little starts whatever grade in whatever year and it will do all the counting for you. No fingers required! Yep, I totally Googled a High School Graduation Year Calculator. And from the ads on that sidebar, they get some traffic, too, so it ain’t just me!

But as I did the math, I remembered where I saw a photo of an itty bitty kid wearing a class of, like 2035 tee, all hanging off of him on Pinterest. And I just knew this would be a fun thing to do with my boys… You know, I would snap a pic of the kid in the same tee-shirt with their graduating year on it at the beginning of every school year until BAM! We reached the final photo… graduation day.

But wouldn’t you know that the oldest boy is far too mature for this business and would have no part in it? No part, I tell you! BUT his younger brother thought this all sounded like too much fun… and so I decided to whip up my very own DIY graduation shirt and I’m pleased as punch with how well it turned out.

I decided that with so many factors in schools and personalities of all y’all’s kiddos, out there, that I should keep this design super basic. Because my thought is this: with so many gorgeously patterned HTV patterns, you could totally find SOMETHING that applies to your kiddo’s school or personality or whatever. Like you could use leopard print if your school is the Leaping Leopards, or, whatever.

See? Isn’t that too freaking cute? Now imagine that fun Leopard Pattern on a wee little kindergartener, all hanging off of them and way too big. Oh, goodness, I can’t even… SUPER FREAKING CUTE, right? Right.

While I was sourcing different sources of HTV I remembered that Cricut has a new material out called Infusible Ink. Now, in all honesty, I haven’t used it yet so I’m hardly an expert, yet. And I say yet because I have a freaking TON of this stuff on order and on its way to my craft room it just hasn’t gotten here yet. But it will and when it does, it is on, my friends.

With all of these gorgeous patterns on their way to me and totally sad that I couldn’t use them for t his project, I decided to cheat my way through this post and mock some business up. So the shirts you see here aren’t actual shirts using Infusible Ink but they are mock-ups of what they should look like when I get my hands on the real stuff. Cool, right?

And when I figured out I could do this I got super excited this design out with, just an absolute ton of the fun patterns the Infusible Ink has to offer. Here we have Infusible Ink transfer sheets from the following collections: Rainbow Cheetah, Shaylee Floral, and Animal Brights.

But, whoa there, Margaret! I am not even joking when I say I went bonkers when I went to the Cricut shop online and browsed all of the different patterns of not only the Infusible Ink but also the regular ol’ patterned iron-on HTV.

I literally MADE myself choose my favorite SIX and said I would share NO MORE! So here’s the last three, the first two are Infusible Inkand the last is HTV and I promise there are a TON MORE I seriously wanted to share. But, restraint, y’all. Trying to use it. So in the pic above, we have Infusible Ink in Mermaid Rainbow and Cabbage Rose plus Patterned Iron-on in: Natalie Malan Juneberry. So pretty, right? P.S. The fun pastel galaxy type of print is from the Infusible Ink Watercolor Splash set. You can snag a red and black houndstooth check like in the other tees here with either HTV in the Rustic Lodge Lumberjack set or in Infusible ink with the Buffalo Check set.

Now I am going to share some quick basics on how to choose the right pattern for your graduation year tee:

Don’t have too much of the tee-shirt color in the design. For instance, a mostly white HTV isn’t going to show up well enough to give your letters and numbers definition on a white tee. Makes sense, right?
If using Infusible Ink you can’t use any ol’ tee shirt. You’ll need to purchase Cricut brand tee shirt blanks.
Also, if using Infusible Ink, you’ll need a Cricut EasyPress 2 or another brand of heat press that can reach 400°. YOU CANNOT USE A HOUSEHOLD IRON. Sorry for yelling, but y’all need to know that. It’s pretty important.
If you don’t want to purchase special blanks or try working with a new type of material, no sweat. There are literally tons and tons and tons of different prints of HTV available all over the internet. Just Google search for something you have in mind and I bet you’ll find it.

Oh my goodness, so. many. words. Let’s get on with things, shall we?

Set up the perfect photo op with these totally DIY Graduation Year Shirts using our free SVG files.

Be sure to wrangle up the right supplies to make your tees:

Cricut Maker OR Cricut Explore Air 2 (or another cutting machine)
StandardGrip Machine Mat (Amazon • Cricut)
Patterned Iron-on Vinyl (Amazon • Cricut) OR Infusible Ink Transfer Sheets
Tee Shirt Blank (love Gildan tees for HTV, must use Cricut Brand for Infusible Ink)
Cricut EasyPress 2 (can use a household iron for HTV but not for Infusible Ink)
Weeding Tools (Amazon • Cricut )