Pride is a hugely important protest movement and celebration of identity, equality, and visibility for the LGBTQIA+ community. Cricut hosted an online Pride crafting event this week, where I got the chance to learn from one of Cricut's expert UK ambassadors and discover a quick and easy way to create beautiful custom Pride products in under 30 minutes.
Using one of the best Cricut machines – in this case, the Cricut Joy 2 – Kate Smith (Makery Kate) led a workshop helping a small group of us get our craft on with Cricut's shimmer rainbow vinyl, plus a set of adorable holographic pride-themed stickers, a blank frisbee, and a blank water bottle.
The process was easy for Cricut crafting beginners, and Kate helped us every step of the way, answering questions and sharing tips to help us customise with pride. I've broken this down into a simple tutorial for you all to follow along with below. Simply put: Design it, cut it, weed it, stick it.
You will need:
- A Cricut machine
- A device with access to Cricut Design Space (phone, tablet, or laptop)
- A light grip mat
- Rainbow Shimmer Vinyl
- StrongGrip transfer tape
- For stickers: An inkjet printer + Holographic sticker paper
Once you've gathered your materials, switch on your Cricut machine, boot up Cricut Design Space on your phone, tablet, or laptop and then you're ready to get making.
Prep the canvas
To start your pride customisation, open up Cricut Design Space on your phone, laptop, or tablet. Head to the images section where you can choose options from Cricut's library of assets, or create your own text or upload your own pride imagery. Filter the options and select 'free' if you're not a Cricut Access member, to find usable design elements.
Next, size the images appropriately to fit the blanks that you plan to put them on. In this instance, I needed the elements to be no bigger than 7cm wide to fit nicely on the frisbee and water bottle. Once you're happy, flatten or weld the image so that no parts of it are cut individually.
Keep in mind that multicolour designs will be separated into different mats for cutting (not applicable for the print-then-cut method), so ensure that you change the colour to be all the same, i.e all black or all white, to ensure this doesn't happen. Select 'make' in the top-right corner, choose the 'on mat' option, then select shimmer permanent vinyl from the materials list, and you're good to go.
Prep your material for cutting
The technical part is over, and now you need to either load your smart material directly into your Cricut machine as-is, or for non-smart materials, attach it to a sticky adhesive grip mat first, lining it up as accurately as possible to avoid error when feeding it into your machine. If everything goes to plan and the material is measured, you can sit back and watch your Cricut machine work its magic.
Your Cricut machine should now be slicing away, and once it's done, simply unload the mat using either a physical unload button or on-screen prompt via Cricut Design Space depending on your Cricut model.
Weed your designs
Now that your designs are cut out, it's time to start weeding. This essentially means removing the background parts of your design that aren't needed, so that the design itself is all that is left. This is super easy using Cricut's weeder tool, though it can be a fiddly task if your design has lots of small and intricate parts.
Next, grab some strongGrip transfer tape (not regular transfer tape) and place it over the top of your design. Kate told us that you need to use stronger grip transfer tape with textured vinyl, as regular strength just doesn't do it. Use the scraper tool to ensure that your design is fully adhered to the tape, and then remove the vinyl backing.
Transfer your design onto the blank
Now that you've cut out your designs, weeded the background and applied the transfer tape, it's time to apply the decal to your blank of choice. This shouldn't take long at all, but be mindful that it won't be easy to remove the design and re-stick it if you're not happy (especially with permanent vinyl), so do your best to get everything aligned the way you want it.
Remove the tape gently, and voila! You now have the perfect accessory to take with you to your next Pride march or local event.
Optional: Holo Pride stickers
I also added some holographic waterproof Pride stickers to the water bottle, which is the perfect blank for this kind of project, as it will be in contact with liquid regularly. To create holo stickers, follow step 1, but instead of using the cut method, choose print-then-cut instead.
Print your designs onto sticker paper via Cricut Design Space using an inkjet printer, and you should have sensor marks automatically added to the page. Your Cricut machine will read these marks and cut your designs out accordingly. You won't need to weed your stickers, so skip step 3, and you're ready to apply them wherever you like.
