On this week’s installment of DIY projects I’ll be covering MY BACHELORETTE BATHING SUITS! I made them myself & they come in bikini or one piece options…here’s how I did it!
My MOH and besties know me really well and themed my bachelorette party ‘Tacos & Tequila’ with a super fun fiesta theme. I knew I wanted to give them a little something for throwing the whole party together, and it was the middle of summer & hot AF outside, so I figured a cute set of themed bathing suits was 100% needed.
We came up with cute sayings and fun fiesta puns & I got to making my bikini and their hot pink one pieces. Below are the steps (and links) to DIY your own bathing suit!
WHAT YOU’LL NEED
Bathing suits: I used this white bikini for my suit & the hot pink one I used for the girls has sold out but here is a similar one. Both are less than 20 bucks on amazon prime – win!
Cricut or other crafting/cutting machine: This is 100% essential unless you plan to buy vinyl words off etsy (and in that case you might as well just pay the extra money to have someone on Etsy make the whole thing for you…just sayin’). This is the Cricut I have.
HTV (Heat transfer vinyl): Because I wanted our suits to be coordinated I bought hot pink vinyl for mine & white vinyl for theirs. I highly recommend getting the sport flex vinyl for swim suits because it stretches much better than regular HTV.
Iron/heat press: I just used our regular iron on a high setting (not the highest), but a heat press is even better if you have it.
Plain white cloth: Make sure you have a thin cloth handy to layer between your vinyl & the heat source; NEVER put the heat directly on the vinyl.
STEP BY STEP INSTRUCTIONS
- Figure out what you want your suits to say & go into Cricut design space & lay it out. I used a basic bold font and made sure the words (if only one line) were roughly 8 inches wide by 2.5 inches high. This measurement will obviously vary based on the phrase you want & how big the suit is; make sure to measure before cutting!
- Once I had my saying set – we’ll use “CAKE” for example – you go to ‘make it’ and then turn the “mirror” switch on so that your words are flipped. This should always be the setting for heat press projects. Also make sure your cricut dial is set to ‘iron on’.
- Then you take your HTV & attach it to your cricut mat. Make sure that you put it shiny side DOWN whenever you’re doing mirror images/words. Load your paper and hit print.
- Once your word is cut, weed out the negative extra vinyl and lay out the word where you want it on the swimsuit. I think it looks best at least a few inches below the neck line but that’s just a personal preference!
- Once you like where it’s placed, remove it & lightly iron the spot on the suit to warm it up. After a few seconds remove the iron and place the vinyl back in the spot (plastic side up, vinyl side on the suit), put the white cloth over it, and begin to heat with the iron. Hold it until it feels pretty hot (~30 seconds) and then flip the bathing suit so you can heat the back side of the vinyl. Repeat again one more time on the front.
- Your vinyl should adhere now, but start to peel off the plastic and if any vinyl comes up just place the plastic back, grab the cloth, and heat some more.
Wait until it cools a bit & then peel off the plastic and your bathing suit is ready to make everyone @ the pool jealous AF.
