Decorate Your Cricut Maker

You’ve unboxed, set up, and maybe made a test project…but what’s next? You know you have one of the latest and greatest from Cricut, but now that you have it, are you stumped for what to make first? 

Why not decorate your fancy new machine? This easy tutorial will help you get started on your Cricut crafting journey…in style!

Decorate Your Cricut Maker

• Supplies
• Digital Products
• Cricut Design Space
  • Template
  • Designing
    • Mandalas & Flourishes
    • Text
• Cutting and Weeding
• Applying the Decals 

Supplies Needed

• Removable or permanent vinyl
• Digital products: Simple Mandala Flower; Vanilla Cream Font Duo
• Weeding tools
• Cricut cutting machine (I used Cricut Maker)
• Transfer tape
• Alcohol wipes

Digital Products

Make your way over to Creative Fabrica and grab both the Simple Mandala Flower and Vanilla Cream Font Duo. 

• Simple Mandala Flower: In my opinion, this simple mandala is the perfect beginner decal to practice your cutting and weeding skills – the design is exactly as it states; simple, yet oh so pretty! Fair warning though, the lines are a bit thin so that can make it difficult to work with. Using Photoshop, you can easily thicken the cuts by opening the JPEG, choose filter>other>minimum. To see a more detailed tutorial on how to do this, check out Helen Bradley’s video on YouTube.

• Vanilla Cream Font Duo: The Vanilla Cream font duo is one of my very favorite font combinations. Alone, the script is flowy and pretty, and the sans is fun and childlike. 

But together is where this dynamic duo really shines. They offer an air of whimsy and playfulness while still maintaining a touch of elegance. 

Go ahead and download the files, then extract them on your computer and install the fonts. 

Cricut Design Space

Template

Now that you have downloaded the digital products to your computer, open up Design Space and start a new project. 

To be frank, I attempted to use a template from the Design Space “Templates” library, however, the canvas wouldn’t load the machine template. If it does for you, by all means, insert the machine you are working on directly from there, but if it doesn’t don’t worry! There is a workaround that is just as easy!

From your clean canvas, open the Images library and search for “Cricut Maker” or “Explore”, whichever machine you have and want to decorate. Select the image and insert it into your canvas.

Now you will see all four pieces of your Maker on the screen, already sized and waiting for designs! 

This tutorial will only be decorating the front side of the Maker, so you will not need the middle of the template, but if you want to decorate that part, then, by all means, feel free to do so! To remove, simply select it from the layers panel and hit delete on your keyboard.

Now you are left with only the top and front panels of the machine.

Designing

Mandalas & Flourishes

Now that your template is prepped and ready to do, the designing fun begins!

Upload your mandala and insert it to your canvas. Reduce the size to fit the top portion of the machine, then using the “Align” menu, choose to align>center vertically. Duplicate the mandala, select it, then click on the Contour button at the bottom right of the Layers panel. On this copy of the mandala, you will want to hide the foundation piece.

This will result in displaying the same mandala, but an inverted version – creating a beautifully matching mandala set. 

Place the newly contoured mandala at the other side of the template, directly across from the original one. Again, align>center vertically.

For the bottom section, I prefer to display the Cricut Maker branding logo, but if you want to cover it up, simply find another image via the “Images” library. The flourish that I used (#MA4DF334) came in a group of three – so after inserting them into my canvas, I just deleted the two that I did not want to use. Have some fun and get creative! Choose any flourish, image, or design that you would like to use.

At this point, you can change the colors of your designs to get a better preview of how the finished decals will look. I have the rose Maker, so I plan to accent with silver, rose gold, and white pieces of vinyl.

Text

All that is left to do now is to create your inspirational message. Insert a text box and type out the word “creative” – then change the font to the Vanilla Cream script.

Insert another text field and type out the word “be”, changing the font to the Vanilla Cream sans.

Next, duplicate the sans text field and change the word to “every day”. Make the “creative” script text a little larger, and just play with the placement of all of the texts together.

When you are happy with the look of your texts, select all of the fonts and group them together. Place it on your template and resize accordingly. Select only the text and the template, then center.

Cutting & Weeding

All that’s left is to remove the template as you will not be cutting that, then attach the designs by color. I am using silver on the mandalas, white on the texts, and rose gold on the flourish. To save vinyl, you can also opt to cut the mandalas closer together and just place each of the decals manually on the machine. Once attached, click on that “Make It” button!

• 🔔 Remember!: Don’t forget to change the material settings if you are using different types of vinyl! It’s also important to only use removable vinyl if you ever want to change your decals later on.

Once everything is cut, go ahead and weed, then apply transfer tape to each of the decals.

Applying the Decals

Before transferring the decals to your machine, it is absolutely crucial to first give it a quick cleaning to remove any dust or debris that might interfere with the adhesion of the vinyl.

Using an alcohol wipe is a quick and easy way to clean it, but you can also use a very slightly damp cloth too. Just remember to allow the surface to dry before you place the vinyl.

Burnish the decals to the transfer tape, then place them onto your machine as you planned on your canvas. Burnish again to allow the decal to stick to the machine and release from the tape. Slowly peel off the transfer tape.

Repeat for all of the decal designs.

Voila! Your shiny new Cricut is now spruced up and ready for your next creation! 

Keep on Crafting! 💖