Heatpressing and sticker making: the circut cutter
Written on August 23rd , 2023 by Laura Weller
The circut cutter can be used for cutting stickers or thermal vinyl to heat press on fabric. Above here you can see a result of that
To use the circut cutter, check out the steps below:
- Take the Circut and place it somewhere in an open space
- Take the circut mat (lightblue mat hanging on the wall)
- Download the circut software: https://design.cricut.com/#/
- Connect with your pc to the software - when you have downloaded the software just go through the steps there
- Choose a material that you want to cut. You have 2 different sort of materials: 1 for stickers and 1 for thermal vinyl. The first one you create stickers with, the second one you use the heatpress with (for example for t-shirt design, etc.). You stick the material on the circut mat.
- Now create you design - the circut works best with svg files. You can create those for example with adobe illustrator. You do this by uploading a black and white image on illustrator > object > image trace > make & expand. Now move your image to the grey area of the illustrator file/screen > right click > ungroup > now delete all the white material in your image one by one > select all the black parts of your material (ctrl A) and move them back on your white screen. Now you can safe the file as an svg file.
- When you are going to use the thermal vinyl and you will heatpress the material, make sure that your design is gonna be mirrored (since the heat press will mirror your design then back)
- If you are heat pressing on fabric, make sure you iron the fabric or wash the fabric before. Some materials may shrink when first time washing and that would mess up the heat pressed print when it is already on your fabric.
- Now in the circut software, choose upload and upload your design > add your design (bottom right). Now you see your design on a canvas. Here you check the measurements of the design to see if they fit on your chosen material
- Then you choose operation: basic cut (top left corner) > attach (bottom right corner) > make it > on mat > choose right mat size > continue > Now choose your material by clicking browse material > matte vinyl. Now you load the material on the circut cutter by cliking the 2 arrows (< >) on the circut cutter and then you press the start button.
- When the circut cutter is done with your design, you start peeling of the layers that you do not want to have on you heat pressed material/sticker with the tools on the left side of the cutter.
Here are also some pictures of my process:
Feel free to share!