Cricut Design Space

I hope that you have been enjoying my 25 Days of Disney Christmas crafts! Not only have you be able to see some great projects you can make with your Cricut, but you have also learned a lot of information about how to use many of the functions in Cricut Design Space.

Isn’t it great when you can sneak some knowledge in with the fun! In case you missed it, I am going to detail out all of the different functions of Cricut Design Space that I have talked about in the past 24 days. Then I will link back to those projects so that you can refresh your memory on the process of each function. I think that is why I came up with the name Teach Me Cricut Design Space for my series of handbooks and resources.

By the way, this post contains Affiliate Links to companies I have partnered with, such as Amazon. As an Amazon Associate I earn from qualifying purchases. Thank you for shopping with my links!

How to use Images in Cricut Design Space

Did you know that there are over 150,000 images in Cricut Design Space? If you want to look for images to use for your projects, just click on the Images button on the left side of the Design Space screen. I have a video that talks specifically about how to find images in Design Space HERE.

Now, I showed you how to use a LOT of images over the past 24 days, so I am not going to list every project here. Every time I used a Cricut image, I tried to also give you the image identification number. When you have this number you can type it into the search bar in the images section to quickly find that exact same image.

I do want to point out there were two projects that I shared over the last 24 days that involved almost no changes to the original image. That was my Mickey Mouse Christmas Tree Skirt. For that project, all I had to do was get rid of the layers that I did not want to use, resize the image and cut. The Wood Slice Ornaments were another example. I allowed the patterned vinyl to be the focus for that project.

Not every image you find needs to be altered or adjusted for your project. But once you know HOW to edit and adjust things that is when you can really get creative like I did with all of my Disney Christmas Crafts!

How to use Text in Cricut Design Space

When you are working from the computer version of Cricut Design Space, like I was for all of my Disney Christmas craft projects this year, the Text button will be located on the left hand side of the screen. Once you click on the Text button you can start typing up whatever you want. You can also change the font to give your project a more unique look.

We talked about using text with the Joy Disney Christmas card, the Disney Santa Sack project and we talked about how to find a writing style font for the Mickey Reindeer Gift Tags.

How to use Shapes in Cricut Design Space

On the computer version of Cricut Design Space, the Shapes button is also on the left hand side of the screen. It is right under the Text button. We talked about and used Shapes a few times over the past few days. I showed you how I created a box using basic shapes the very first day with the Disney Christmas Countdown Calendar. I also used a lot of basic shapes for my various Disney Character Christmas Ornaments such as Baymax, Buzz Lightyear and Mike Wazowski.

I also showed you how you can unlock and change a shape. For example we unlocked a square so that we could adjust to to be a rectangle. That rectangle was then used to connect the eyes for the Baymax Christmas ornament, and again to connect the two halves and create the loop on the Minnie Mouse leather keychain.

Another way I used Shapes was when I was slicing things. When you want to slice away half of an image, it is really nice to be able to insert a square and place it over half of your image to slice. I did this for the Mickey Mouse Christmas Ornament.

How to use Upload in Cricut Design Space

Upload is another one of the buttons on the left hand side of the screen when you are using the computer version of Cricut Design Space. Upload allows you to upload images or svg files. Remember, there is a big difference between an image and a svg file. I have a lot of information on that HERE.

I showed you how to upload an image, clean it up and save it as a cut file when I made the Christmas ornament inspired by Lilo’s dress. I also showed you how to upload a svg file when we started off with the first of the Disney Character Christmas ornaments and then again for the Mickey Mouse Christmas Gift Exchange Bag. On the Disney Santa Sack I also used an svg for part of the image, so that would be another project we used Upload on.

How to use Align in Cricut Design Space

Align is a feature that is on the top panel of Cricut Design Space when you are using the computer. I love to use this tool to make sure everything is centered and lined up nicely. I showed you how to use Align when we were making the Mickey Mouse Reindeer Gift Tags. Align also came in handy when we were lining up the eyes and line that connects them on the Baymax Christmas Ornament.

How to use Group in Cricut Design Space

Group allows you to select multiple images or pieces of your design and make them work together as one large image. I showed you how to use this in the tutorial about the Mickey Mouse Reindeer Candy Holder. One great thing about Group is that you can use it to make layers that are different colors work together, and each layer will retain their assigned color.

How to Duplicate in Cricut Design Space

Duplicate is just like doing a copy and paste, but it is all in one move. There are two ways to duplicate things. You can either click on the item you want to copy and then click the Duplicate button in the upper right corner of the screen in Design Space or you can right click on the item you want to Duplicate. When you right click on the item you will see a list of different choices pop up, and you just have to pick Duplicate.

I show you how to use Duplicate on the Joy Christmas card, and for the antlers on the Mickey Mouse Reindeer Candy Holder, and when I created a second layer for the Mickey Mouse Mandala Blanket.

How to Slice in Cricut Design Space

Slice is how we cut things in Cricut Design Space. I actually showed you how to use this in several of the projects over the past 24 days. I used it to get the antlers from a reindeer image to add to the Mickey Mouse Reindeer Candy Holder, and again when we added antlers to Pluto on the Disney Christmas towel and Disney Santa Sack.

I showed you how to slice an entire design or pattern into a Mickey Mouse shape when I created the design for the Engraved Ornament. And don’t forget the hole we had to slice out of the center of the Mickey Mouse Reindeer Candy Holder. Slice also came in handy for the Minnie Mouse pajamas, to slice the black part of Minnie’s face out of the pink circle. Slice also helped me to cut the inside liner piece for the Joy Disney Christmas card down to size.

The most important thing to remember when using slice is that you can only have two items selected for it to activate and work. If you have more, or less, than two items selected then Slice will always stay grayed out in Cricut Design Space and you will not be able to choose it.

How to Weld in Cricut Design Space

Weld allows you to join things that are touching or overlapping. When I first started to use Cricut Design Space, weld was my go to function to use to join the letters of my fonts together. This allowed the Cricut to cut out full words instead of separate letters. I actually have a great video that shows this HERE.

I showed you how to use Weld for several of my Disney Christmas Crafts, including when I showed you how to weld Mickey Mouse ears on to a snowman or a snowflake. We used weld to join all of our images together for the Disney Christmas Towel with Mickey and Pluto on it. We did the same thing again for the Disney Santa Sack.

I think the easiest project I showed you was when I welded a rectangle between two circles to make the Baymax Christmas ornament. We used Weld in a similar way when I showed you how to make the loop for the Minnie Mouse leather keychain. For that project I had to weld a rectangle between two Minnie Mouse images.

How to use Attach in Cricut Design Space

Attach allows you to hold the placement and position of things from the design canvas to the cutting mat. I showed you how to attach writing to the Mickey Mouse Reindeer Gift Tags. I also used Attach in the Easy DIY Disney Christmas Ornaments to hold all of the letters and little Mickey Mouse icons in place so that I could easily press them onto the fabric.

How to Contour in Cricut Design Space

Contour allows you to turn on and off different sections of a design. If you are using what I call a coloring book style image, where it is just a black outline of an image, Contour can allow you to create colored layers in your designs.

For the Mickey Mouse Mandala Blanket I used Contour to create a second layer. Then I even made it so that that the red of the blanket would show through to be the red of the tongue. On the Mickey Snowman Card I used Contour to turn off the little swirl design that was on the original snowman image I picked out. I used Contour again on the Joy Disney Christmas Card when I wanted the second inside layer to line the inside front of the card to be a solid piece. For that we used the Hide All Contours button.

There is even MORE to learn!

I know that all of this sounds like a lot of information, and you might even think that after following along with these tutorials that I have covered every possible topic there is about Cricut Design Space. Guess what . . . I have not! I did not have time to do any print then cut projects, and I did not use offset at all. Honestly, I feel like I could do a whole class just on uploading images and svg files because there is so much information to learn.

That is actually why I started this website, and created my Teach Me Cricut Design Space Online Course . . . because I wanted to really help people to learn to use Cricut Design Space. I feel that once you learn and understand the different functions in Design Space it opens up your creativity. The projects I shared with you over these past 24 days is a prime example of that!

If you would like to download my free Cricut Reminders Cheat Sheet, which will help you remember what many of the functions we used over this past month do, you can click HERE to download that. This is a great reminder that you can tape to the side of your Cricut or have by your computer while you work in Design Space.

Do you want to learn even MORE

I want to help you take your Cricut crafting to the next level. I want you to be able to look at a project and think “I can make that” or be able to break the project down into steps and even combine images you find from different resources to create your own truly unique projects.

That is why my special Christmas gift to you today is a discount on my Teach Me Cricut Design Space Online Course! Normally I sell this course for $47, but starting today until January 31, 2022 you can purchase it for just $25!

I have described this course as a download of everything I have in my brain on the topic of Cricut Design Space. You will finally understand what every button does! The best part of this course is that you can complete it at your own speed. And if Cricut comes out with a new update or feature, I will add that to the course and then the next time you open it up there will be new information there for you to learn.

One person that used this course told me that when they were working on projects while doing this course, they often found themselves saying “What would Shawn do?” and when they would read the section in my course specifically on that topic they were happy to see that the answers to their questions were already there! This course is kind of like having me sitting there with you, pointing big blue arrows at the buttons you need to click, in the order that you need to click them. Many people have told me that they learned something new about Cricut Design Space in each and every section in the course!

My Teach Me Cricut Design Space Online Course is designed to teach you everything from the computer version of Design Space. I do this because the computer version is more complete and includes more functions than the mobile Cricut Design App that can be used on your phone, tablet or iPad.

I do have a Teach Me Cricut Design Space for iPad handbook that you can download which will show you where the buttons for the app are located. Cricut Design Space looks very different on the computer than it does on the app, and that may confuse a newer user of the software.

I cannot wait for you to get started on your Cricut journey. Thank you for making me a part of it! I would also like to invite you to follow me on social media and shop at my Amazon store. You can find all of those links by clicking HERE.