Making Decals with your Cricut

Today let’s look at making decals with your Cricut! This is a great way to personalize things like tumblers. Decals are also a great way to decorate a laptop. You can also use this same method for creating car decals. Today I am going to be making decals with my Cricut to put on a CD cover. I put some old family photos on to a CD and wanted a to make the cover pretty.

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. You can think of affiliate links like tipping your waitress, only it does not cost you anything extra! Thank you for shopping with my links!

Supplies for making decals with your Cricut

• Permanent vinyl – I am using holographic permanent vinyl for this project
• Transfer paper or clear contact paper
• Weeding tool

Before you start making decals with your Cricut, it is always a good idea to clean the surface you will be applying the decal to. This help to make sure there is not any dust or dirt on the surface. A small amount of rubbing alcohol will make sure you have a clean surface without leaving any residue behind.

More info and Savings on Vinyl!

I prefer to use Siser brand vinyl for my iron on projects. I feel that is the best quality brand of iron on vinyl out there, and it weeds the easiest. For permanent vinyl I like StarCraft vinyl. People have asked me why not Cricut brand, since I use a Cricut machine. Personally I just do not like the way the Cricut vinyl cuts or weeds. I think you should find the brand you love and work with that product. Test things out for yourself. Sometimes it is just a personal preference like how some people would rather have Pepsi products over Coke products.

So once you find your brand of vinyl, where should you buy it? If your favorite brand is sold at the local craft store, then you are lucky in the fact that you can pretty much garantee that you can run to the store and pick up vinyl when ever you need it.

For me, Siser was not always sold in the stores, as it is now, so I had to get it from online retailers. Again, this is where you can either go with your personal preference of stores or go where the best deal is. One day the best price might be at one store, and then the next week it might be from a different retailer. We all do this when we sometimes pick up toliet paper at the grocery store, but then we also get it at Target when it is on sale.

I also love that I can order large rolls or small sheets when ordering Siser online. This can give you a larger variety of choices and allow to to save money on larger orders. To make sure you are getting the best price for your vinyl, make sure to check out my Vinyl Buyers Guide. Because of that, I will always share all of the different resource I am connected to and you can choose which one is best for you!

When I first started this site, I had not even heard of MyCraftSource, and now I am an influencer for them! Since all of their inflencers have a special coupon code, that means when you shop at My Craft Source you can get an extra 5% off your order just by using coupon code ShawnMosch at checkout!

Heat Transfer Warehouse is another supplier that I love, and they are actually somewhat close to me. Their headquarters are in North Dakota and I am in Minnesota. They even have their own line of vinyl, and they are partnering with other companies to really bring you a wide variety of products.

You may have noticed that there are a lot of retailers that only ship to places in the United States. This is because shipping prices can really add up. I want to be able to help my followers find their products no matter where they live and that is why I was happy to find some retailers that ship world wide! That is where the next two compnaies come in as options.

Let me introduce you to Expressions Vinyl. When you go to their site, make sure to check out the rewards program. This way you can earn points as you purchase products! Then those points can be redeemed on future purchases.

Another retailer that I work with is Vinyl and Tulle. Use coupon code SHAWNMOSCH to save 10% off your order!

Cut the decal

I started off with some holographic vinyl. I love the sparkle in this! Since my decal is a very simple design, I thought it would be fun to add some extra interest to the project with this vinyl. Before making decals with your Cricut, measure the size of the CD case that this image is going to be placed on. This helped me to determine how large to make my design.

The next step in making decals with your Cricut is to do a test cut. This will help you determine the best cut settings for your vinyl. Then I cut this with the Cricut on the vinyl+ setting.

Weed the decal

The next step in making decals with your Cricut is the process of weeding the vinyl. This is where you pull away and remove all of the parts that you do not want in your final project. This leaves you with just the white backing sheet with the design you cut. For this design that included things like the center of the A and the loop inside the letter M. I used my Cricut weeding tool in order to pick away these pieces.

Transfer the decal

Next, we need to transfer the design from the white backing sheet to the final project, which for this decal is the front of a CD case. You can purchase transfer tape, but sometimes transfer tape feel too sticky and seems hard to work with. I have had great success with using clear contact paper instead of transfer tape. I also recommend the StarCraft transfer tape when making decals with your Cricut.

I cut a piece of orange glitter cardstock and placed that inside the front of the CD case. This gave a nice contrast to my purple holographic vinyl, and helped to hide the boring CD inside the case.

Then I applied a piece of clear contact paper over the top of the decal. I typically rub my finger over the top of the design to make sure the contact paper is really sticking to the decal. Some people will rub over the top with the Cricut scrapper or a plastic card.

For this next step I like to flip the whole design over, as shown in the images below. Then I start to peel away the white backing sheet. As I go along, if there are any parts of my decal that are not sticking to the contact paper, I can use my Cricut weeding tool to help get those sections to release from the backing sheet and stick to the contact paper. When I am done, I am left with my whole decal on the sticky side of the clear contact paper, as shown in the image below (right side)

Place the decal

Since the contact paper is clear, it allows me to more easily see where to place my decal. I try to place the center of the decal first and slowly smooth over the whole thing from the center out to the edges. This help to keep your vinyl from getting little bubbles in it.

Next, after you have rubbed over the whole decal to make sure that it really adhered to the project, you can start to slowly peel away the clear contact paper. If any part of your decal starts to lift up, just press it back down or use your weeding tool to help it release from the clear contact paper.

Make sure let your decal cure for 72 hours. There is nothing you have to do for this, except to make sure that it does not get wet and you don’t touch it. This helps to make sure that it is really attached to the final project. There is no need to add any sort of sealant over the top of the decal.

I have had a decal on my car for almost 4 years now. It has held up just fine through rain and snow. If you are making decals with your Cricut for things that will be washed, like a tumbler, I would recommend hand washing those just to be safe. I hope this tutorial helped you understand the process for making decals with your Cricut.

Making Decals with your Cricut for Ornaments

The holidays are a busy time for making decals with your Cricut since they are a great way to embellish an ornament. In this video I give you some bonus tips and tricks for making decals with your Cricut and applying them to an ornament.

---

If you found this helpful, you should join my Teach Me Cricut Design Space Facebook Group. You can ask me questions and I will share all of my best tips and tricks with you. Or if you want a more personal experience, you can join my Patreon group.

I also have a lot of great resources on my Classes page of this website including my Teach Me Cricut Design Space Online Course. In this course I take you step by step through how to use every button and function in Design Space. I have compiled the most frequently asked Cricut questions along with the answers to those questions into one online course. This is my most in depth and detailed Cricut resource ever! It contains over two years worth of Cricut knowledge and research in one course!