Personalize Your Cricut Machine with Cricut Vinyl Decals

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Expecting a new Cricut machine this Christmas? Well lucky you! You'll soon be on your way to making all sorts of personalized crafts, home decor, gifts, and more. Imagine designing your own greeting cards, t-shirts, or even wall art! Cricut lets you add a personal touch to almost anything. You can personalize clothes, bags, mugs, phone cases, and more with your own designs, names, or monograms. You can even personalize your Cricut machine!

Join me in crafting a vinyl decal for your Maker, Explore Air or Joy machine using your favorite Cricut Vinyl.

Materials:

Directions:

Create your cut design in Cricut Design Space or go directly to this project. I have gathered templates for 3 Cricut machines there for you to use when designing your decals - Maker, Explore Air and Joy:

Cricut Explore Air Machine Decoration Guide #M28407974
Cricut Maker Machine Decoration Guide #M2840799F
Cricut Joy Machine Decoration Guide #M28407982

Select one or more cut designs from your Cricut Access Subscription and add them to your canvas.

Browse to available images from the Images icon in the left side menu and enter your search term(s).
Select a cut design (marked by a scissors icon) and add it to your canvas.

Personalize Your Cricut Machine with Vinyl Decals

Or upload your own SVG or PNG design to Design Space as shown in our video, How to Upload Files to Design Space.

Select the template that matches your machine type and use it to size your cut design(s) and their preview layout. I feel in love with this simple sun design when making another project and opted to use it again for a machine decal.

Personalize Your Cricut Machine with Vinyl Decals

Hide the template by clicking the eye icon in the layers panel and follow the prompts in Design Space to make the project.

Personalize Your Cricut Machine with Vinyl Decals

Personalize Your Cricut Machine with Cricut Vinyl Decals

Cut the design from your choice of vinyl. Use Cricut Removable Vinyl for temporary vinyl decals (that you might like to remove or change in the future) or Cricut Permanent Vinyl for a permanent decoration. Wouldn't the colors in this Beach Day Vinyl Bundle be super cute with this design?

Cricut Smart Permanent Vinyl 3ft Beach Day Bundle

Weed the vinyl using your favorite weeder tool to remove vinyl in the areas around your design that you don't want on the final decal.

Work on a clean, well-lit surface. Good lighting will help you see those tiny details. And if you have older eyes (like me!), you might especially be interested in one of Cricut's craft light options - their lightboxes called BrightPad or BrightPad Go or their LED Table Lamps or Floor Lamps.
Carefully lift a corner of the negative space vinyl with your weeding tool and slowly peel it away from the carrier sheet.
Take your time, especially on intricate designs If you pull too fast, you might accidentally lift parts of your design you want to keep.
For small details or tight corners, use the pointy end of your weeding tool to gently lift the vinyl and guide it away from the carrier sheet.
Once you've removed all the unwanted pieces, toss them in the trash.
Inspect your design carefully to look for any tiny pieces of vinyl that might be stuck to the carrier sheet and remove them with your weeding tool.

Personalize Your Cricut Machine with Cricut Vinyl Decals

Transfer the vinyl to your machine using Cricut Transfer Tape.

Cut a piece of transfer tape slightly larger than your cut design.
Apply transfer tape to your design by gently laying the transfer tape sticky side down over your weeded design.
Use a Cricut Scraper Tool to burnish the transfer tape onto the vinyl, making sure it adheres well.

Your decal is now ready to be applied to your machine! You can see see this in action in our short video, How to Use Cricut Transfer Tape.

Personalize Your Cricut Machine with Cricut Vinyl Decals

And that's it! How fun is that? I'm a firm believer that your craft tools should be beautiful too, and this project is an easy way to match your Cricut machine to your style. Imagine a Maker adorned with a floral motif, an Explore Air rocking a geometric pattern, or a Joy sporting a playful quote - the choice is yours! So grab your favorite vinyl and turn your Cricut into a masterpiece that matches your crafting spirit.

Prefer a video format? Watch Courteny from our Design Team follow all these same steps when adding a cheetah print decal to her Explore Air 2 machine. And happy crafting!