Fields Of Heather: Cricut For Beginners Lesson #2

This is a very simple, basic, project meant for those who have been afraid to take their cricut out of the box. You'll learn to upload a free image, cut it, weed it, and apply it to a Dollar Tree Candle Holder.

Supplies Needed:

1 Square Dollar Tree Candle Holder (or any similar item you already own)
Vinyl - it can be 631 (temporary) or 651 (permanent) for this project, it does not matter. We are not using HTV (Iron On) for this project. That works a bit differently.
Transfer Paper (Buy a roll of Magic Cover Shelf liner, clear contact paper, while at the Dollar Tree for your candle holder - it works great!)
Free Snowflake SVG NOTE - The file I used for this tutorial is no longer free! That means this entire posts needs a bit of a rewrite. I'm working on it!
A weeding tool (Although not always a fan of cricut products, I love their tool set and use it constantly - The Nicapa brand is identical to the Cricut brand, and $3 cheaper, on Amazon)
A Scraper (If you do not have the tool set, a pampered chef pan scrapers and credit cards work well)

SUPPLIES:

These square candle holders are absolutely perfect for a beginners project.

The round candle holders are slightly, only slightly, more challenging, because it's not a flat surface. But this candle holder will give us four surfaces to practice on. For this lesson we will be decorating just one side - we'll add on in future lessons.

For your vinyl, you can use whatever you have on hand. 651, or 631, it does not matter. You can just pick up a roll at the Dollar Tree, if yours carries it. If you are ordering vinyl, I suggest the Frisco brand of permanent vinyl. It's inexpensive, weeds great, and holds up wonderfully. Personally, I do not like Cricut Vinyl. I find it to be overpriced, and it has not held up well for me. There are a lot of sites with great sales, but until I pay shipping, it's rare that anyone beats the prices on Amazon.

Uploading The Image To Design Space

Go to Design Space, If it's your first time, you will need to create an account
Go To Design Bundles, Download the Free SVG (Again, you may need to create an account - this is a GREAT site, you'll want a free account here for their weekly freebies!)

Download The Free SVG

The file will download as zip file, and will likely go download to the downloads folder on your computer, depending on your device and system.

Unzip The SVG

Once it downloads, you will need to unzip it. (Most likely you can right click on the file and choose extract, but you may need to download software to unzip files).

I have a very detailed step by step on unzipping and using free svgs in Design Space, if you need more visuals - https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2019/01/how-to-download-install-svg-to-design.html

Open Design Space.

It may look slightly different than this, they are constantly doing updates, and I am using a beta version here, but it will be similar to this. In the top right choose "New Project".

Now you have your Design Space Canvas. This is where you create all of your designs to cut with cricut. We won't be designing anything today, merely uploading - so click on the upload button on the bottom left.

Browse to the folder where you have unzipped the downloaded svg, and locate the one that looks like an html file. I use Google Chrome as my browser, so for me this is a chrome icon - it's the bottom file here, and it says "chrome html file" under type. SVGS are html files.

Once it is uploaded, click on it, and then on the bottom right choose "Insert Images".

When the image is in Design Space, you will see it is way to large for our candle holder. At the top of the screen, where it says size, make sure the lock icon is "locked". Click on it, and you will see it lock, or unlock.

In 2022, it is currently unlocked by default for newly uploaded images. Locking it keeps the size ratio. If you want to change JUST the height, then unlock. If you want to change the height and keep the width ratio, resizing the entire image without stretching it out, you want to keep the size ratio locked.

For this project, with the lock ON, in the box beside the w type 2.5

This image has uploaded in a blue color. You can change the color in design space if you would like (top left hand of the screen) but there's no need when your design is a simple one color design. It is going to cut out of whatever color vinyl you put in the machine, no matter what color is on the screen.

Cut The Design

Place your vinyl on the cricut mat, hold it up to the rollers and push the arrow button on the right of the machine. This will pull the mat in under the rollers, your vinyl is now "loaded" and ready to be cut.

I used a Cricut Air 2 for this project, so if you have a Maker, your dial will look a bit different. On the Air2, set the dial to vinyl. Then go back to Design Space, and on the top right click "Make it" and then on the bottom right, choose "continue." The machine will cut your design.

I own both a Maker and an Air 2, but I find the Maker to be so much more temperamental, and so much fussier about which settings are needed. I VERY MUCH prefer my Air2.

Weed Your Design

When you remove the vinyl from the mat, cut the design off the roll of vinyl - so you have a square like on the left. Then use your tool an separate the vinyl from the backing, starting at the top corner and working on the diagonal.

You will be left with a vinyl "sticker" on the backing.

Transfer Your Design

Next Cut a piece of your transfer tape (Dollar Tree contact paper works well) a little larger than your design.

Remove the back from the contact paper - but save it, you can use this over and over until it is no longer sticky. Place the clear contact paper over top of the design.