DIY Pregnancy Workout Shirts

I am currently 18 weeks pregnant. I feel like for the past few weeks, whenever I go to the gym, I either look pregnant, or like I partied too hard with a few too many beers!  Since the latter is definitely not the case, I wanted to treat myself to some cute workout tops!  I searched the internet for some, but honestly didn't see anything that was quite my style, so I decided to make my own!

I wanted one long sleeve top since it's still chilly out, and two tanks for my actual workouts.  At first, I was going to use fabric and under wonder to individually cut out and sew letters on the tops.  However, I quickly decided I needed another option. 1) Sewing on a tank you are wearing to the gym is uncomfortable 2) sewing can take a lot of time 3) I really don't enjoy sewing all that much even though I do it all the time!

And there it was, right in front of me at JoAnns Fabric...Cricut Iron-On!  My prayers had been answered! I was going to just use the pre-cut iron on letters I had purchased from Hobby Lobby as I didn't even know that Cricut made iron-on vinyls!  This thrilled me! I ended up purchasing the two glitter iron-on's from JoAnns and the pink from Hobby Lobby!

My world is forever changed! Cricut iron on vinyls are fantastic, easy, and colorful! I simply love them!  First I watched the following You Tube video found here.  And then I watched the first video about how to setup your machine at the Cricut website.

I made the "I'm so crafty I make people" long sleeved top first.  It's my only layered lettered top.  Behind the letters is a large light pink heart my friend had put on the shirt with fabric I had chosen and under wonder.  Remeber, I originally was going to iron on letters, and this shirt was filled with the iron on letters in the same words, but sewing was too challenging so I took them all off and replaced them with the Cricut letters.

I used the Cricut Cartridge "Songbird" for these letters. I liked the flowiness of the words.

You can see in the videos above that the letters are cut backwards with a clear plastic side that you put your iron directly on to heat transfer the vinyl letters.  This is an example from one of my workout tanks!

If you are doing glitter letters, you can only layer them ontop of the Cricut "Ultra-lite" iron-on, not vice-versa.  So I started by cutting out the words in the shadow format.

I completed all of my shadow fonts and proceeded to cut out my regular fonts in glitter gold to go on top.

Just a glitter layer to go!

I tried to place the words as is, but quickly realized the spacing was going to be off, so I cut each glitter gold letter out individually to iron it on.

You can also put a piece of fabric in between your iron and the letters, but I found the clear plastic covering was sufficient.  Here's an example of what I'm saying with the workout tank "Training my future workout buddy"!

I also found it easiest to peel back that clear plastic covering when it was still warm.  If you let this cool too much the letters tended to stick more the the plastic than the shirt, in my own experience.

I then finished up by making my two workout tanks using the Chalkboard Cricut cartridge.

First, I did the "Brewing a Baby not a Lager" and finished with the "Training my future workout buddy"

Which top is your favorite!?!  Would you make your own pregnancy tops?