Make Your Own Finding Dory Swim Shirt

This shop has been compensated by Collective Bias, Inc. and its advertiser. This post is sponsored by Huggies Little Swimmers. All opinions are mine alone. #WaterThemDailyCB #CollectiveBias

After many ups and downs in the weather, so typical of the Midwest, I finally feel safe in calling it:

IT’S SUMMER!!

Summer time means lots of things for our family; soccer games, barbecues, campfires, and of course, our favorite retreat – the pool! We don’t have one of our own, but our local pools are pretty well equipped, and we’re minutes away from the largest water park in the state. So we rarely lack for swimming opportunities.

Obviously, there are many things you need to pack for an outing at the pool. There are many blog posts devoted to the subject, lots of tips and tricks for safe summer fun in the sun and at the pool. Since H hasn’t begun potty training yet, a must have for us is swim pants.

We’ve used Huggies Little Swimmers ever since J was a baby – I’m very loyal when I find a product that works for my family. It’s always more fun for the kids when they can wear their favorite characters, and the Huggies Little Swimmers are perfect because they don’t swell up from the water and give my kids the appearance of giant bottoms, haha!

With Finding Dory about to open (I AM SO EXCITED!!!!), it was no surprise to find our favorite fish adorning the swim pants this year. I also love this refillable plastic wipes package, perfect to throw in the pool bag!

I’ve always insisted my boys wear swim shirts along with a healthy application of sunscreen for added protection from the sun. J has had a plain blue one for the last two years, but H already outgrew his Mickey swim shirt and shorts from our Disney vacation last year.

A quick run to the store netted a poor selection of swim shirts, but I did manage to snag a pair of Finding Dory swim trunks for H, and matched it to a basic yellow and blue swim shirt. I grabbed a new pair of trunks for J too, since his are starting to get a bit tight.

With the fun Disney trunks, I got the idea to go all out with the Finding Dory theme and decorate the plain swim shirts myself. Time to pull out my Cricut!

I had a pretty decent selection of iron on vinyl left from my previous efforts (my Vegas tank, J’s super shirt), so I got right to work. I used my Pixar images in Cricut to create my design.

I love that my Cricut Explore will separate all the layers for me – all I have to do is load my vinyl and cut! (Be sure to flip your images when working with iron-ons, so they go on correctly when you apply them).

For H’s shirt, Dory was a natural fit, with all the blue and yellow. I went with Nemo for J’s, to “pop” against the blue. Plus, we all know J has a history with Nemo; his Nemo birthday party, his Nemo tee. . .

For these characters, it requires a layering of colors to create. (It didn’t occur to me that I didn’t have two shades of blue for Dory, but I think she still looks ok.) After weeding out the excess vinyl from the cut design, I flipped it over onto the shirt and ironed it on.

I repeated the step with the rest of the layers, and J’s shirt. Let the design cool a bit before peeling back the plastic cover and moving on to the next layer. Never lay the iron directly on the previous vinyl, always have the plastic sheet between it!