Make Stickers with Cricut: A Step-by-Step Tutorial

Hey there, crafty friends!  In this super fun beginner Cricut tutorial, I’m excited to guide you step-by-step on how to create amazing, professional-quality printable stickers using Cricut’s Print Then Cut feature. It’s the perfect way to add a personal flair to your Cricut projects or even kickstart your very own small sticker business.

Why You Should Follow This Guide

Before we dive into the tutorial, I highly recommend reading through the entire article. I’ll share important tips and tricks to help you make perfect stickers with high-quality colors and designs on your first try. By following my steps, you can avoid mistakes that cost you time, money, and wasted materials.

Step 1: Set Up Your Cricut Machine and Get Your Materials

Before diving into creating your custom stickers, it’s crucial to ensure that your Cricut machine is properly set up and connected to your computer. Open Cricut Design Space and sign into your account. For this project, I’m using a Cricut Maker, but this project can also be done on almost any Cricut machine. Whether you’re using a Cricut Maker, Cricut Explore series, or Cricut Joy, it’s essential to have your machine ready for the project.

Adjusting Stickers for Cricut Joy

If you’re using a Cricut Joy, you’ll need to adjust your stickers to fit on the smaller mat. This step is important to ensure that your designs are properly scaled for the Cricut Joy’s dimensions.

Printable Sticker Paper

When selecting printable sticker material, it’s essential to choose the right type of paper. There are various options available on the market, but for this tutorial, we’ll be using Cricut’s printable vinyl. Cricut does have their own Printable Sticker Paper, but it’s really thick, almost like cardstock. The printable vinyl is a lot thinner . The printable sticker paper was so thick it was getting jammed in my printer when trying to print my stickers!. It’s important to note that the type of material you choose can significantly impact the quality of your stickers.

If you need your stickers to be waterproof, good news! The Cricut Printable Vinyl seems to be waterproof! While the normal Cricut Printable Sticker Paper is not waterproof, the do make a Cricut Waterproof Sticker Paper, so make sure you are choosing the right material for your application.

Now is a good time to insert your sticker paper into your printer. The way you put your sticker paper into the printer is important, because each side of the paper is different. One side is the printable side, and one part is the backing you peel off. You will know which is which because the back side has the Cricut Logo on it. You typically want to insert the paper so the printable side is facing down if your printer draws from a printer drawer.

Step 2: Pick Your Sticker Designs

Once you’ve set up your Cricut machine and selected the perfect printable vinyl, it’s time to dive into designing your stickers in Cricut Design Space. You have 3 options to create your own custom stickers: Create your own designs, use designs from Cricut Design Space Library, or get your designs from another website like Creative Fabrica. Whether you want to create your own unique designs or use pre-made ones, Cricut Design Space offers a user-friendly platform to bring your sticker ideas to life.

Making Your Own Designs

If you’re really handy with design space, you can make your own sticker designs.

Utilizing Pre-Made Designs from Cricut Design Space

If you’re looking for convenience, Cricut Design Space provides a library of pre-made sticker designs that you can easily access and incorporate into your projects. This option is ideal for those who prefer ready-to-use graphics and illustrations for their stickers.

Uploading External Sticker Designs

For those seeking more diverse and customizable options, Cricut Design Space allows you to upload sticker designs from external sources. This opens up a world of possibilities, enabling you to explore a wide range of designs from various websites and integrate them seamlessly into your sticker-making process.

Find Inspirational Sticker Designs on Creative Fabrica

When it comes to sourcing top-quality sticker designs, Creative Fabrica stands out as an exceptional resource for finding inspirational and motivational sticker designs. Whether you’re seeking uplifting quotes, vibrant illustrations, or eye-catching typography, Creative Fabrica offers an extensive collection of sticker designs that are sure to inspire and captivate.

Today, I’ll be using some stickers from This bundle on Creative Fabrica. It’s filled with motivational sticker designs.

Creative Fabrica is one of my favorite places to find project designs. You can type almost anything into the search bar and instantly see thousands of designs you can use for your project. You can click below to sign up for a free trial and decide if you like it for your self!

Favorite Feature for Easy Access

To streamline your sticker design selection process, Creative Fabrica’s “Favorite” feature allows you to curate a personalized collection of sticker designs that resonate with you. By adding your preferred designs to your favorites, you can conveniently access them when you’re ready to start on your sticker-making project.

Step 3: Upload Sticker Designs to Cricut Design Space

If you are getting your designs from Creative Fabrica, click the big green Download button and save the design to your computer.

The files from Creative Fabrica are usually bundles of files called Zip files. Find the file you downloaded, usually in your Downloads folder. Then, you have to open the file and extract the contents to a folder on your computer. Extract them to a place you’ll remember. For a more in depth explanation, watch my video at the top of this page.

File Types are Important

You’ll want to pay attention to the file types in the zip file. Typically, there will be the same design in multiple different file types so they can be used on all different types of machines. If I’m working with regular vinyl, I usually use .SVG files because they don’t distort when scaling. Today, I’m going to use the .PNG file type because I’m going to be sendingthese to my printer instead of cutting this part of the design on the Cricut

Once you’ve downloaded all your favorite sticker designs, it’s time to upload them to Cricut Design Space. Follow the steps below to upload your chosen designs into the platform.

Accessing the Upload Feature

  1. Head over to the left side of the screen in Cricut Design Space and click on the “Upload” button to initiate the process.
  2. Click on “Upload Image,”
  3. Browse your computer for the folder containing your sticker designs, and select the image you want to upload.
  4. Make sure you select Complex for the Image type.
  5. Look at your image preview and make sure it looks like what you’re expecting. Then click apply and continue.
    • Keep in mind that Cricut requires you to upload images one at a time, so repeat this step for each design you’ve chosen.
  6. Repeat this process for all the sticker designs you downloaded.

Step 4: Arrange and Prepare Sticker Designs

With your sticker designs successfully uploaded to Cricut Design Space, it’s time to arrange and prepare them for the printing and cutting phase. Follow these steps to ensure that your designs are ready for the next stages of the sticker-making process.

  1. After uploading all your sticker designs, you can add them to the canvas.
  2. Shrink the designs down to make them more manageable.
    • You can use the double arrow or other resizing tools available in the software to adjust the size of your designs.
  3. Then you can start separating the files.
  4. Separate the designs based on whether they have backgrounds or not.
    • This step is crucial as it determines if an additional step is needed to give the designs a background.

Change the Canvas Color

It might be easier to see if your designs have a background if you change your canvas color from white to something darker like gray.

You can see in the image below that the designs on the left have a white background behind the letters, while the ones on the right do not.

Step 5: Add Backgrounds to Sticker Designs

When creating sticker designs with Cricut, it’s important to consider whether the designs require a background. If you come across designs that lack backgrounds, don’t fret! You can easily add backgrounds two different ways: using Cricut’s shape tool or offset tool.

Adding Backgrounds Using The Shape Tool

  1. Click Shapes and then clicking the square or circle shape.
  2. Draw the circle on your canvas
  3. Change the color to white to match your paper.
  4. Once the shape is appropriately sized, position it as the background for your designs.
    • If your design is behind your shape, right click the design and click bring to front.
  5. Resize the design to fit on the shape.
  6. If you want your design centered on the shape, highlight both the design and the shape, and go to Align, then Center.

Adding Backgrounds Using The Offset Tool

The other way to create a background is by using the Offset Tool. This tool offsets a line from he design so that your background will follow the outline of the words, instead of being a circle or square. to do this:

  1. Click the Design
  2. Click Offset
  3. Adjust the offset using the slider.
    • I’m using about .10 offset for these stickers so the design is all connected as one piece. You might have to adjust this depending on your design
  4. Choose your corner type, rounded or square.
  5. Click apply.
    • It might change your background to black when you hit apply. Click the color picker to change it back to white
  6. Repeat for each sticker

Flatten The Design

You need to Flatten the design and background for each sticker so they are one piece instead of two. IF you don’t do this, the Cricut software sees it as 2 different pieces. To Flatten your image:

  1. Select the design and background
  2. Click Flatten in the bottom right corner of the layer list
  3. Repeat to flatten every sticker you added a background to.

Step 6: Organizing and Arranging Designs

Once all your designs have backgrounds, you need to group them onto a rectangle that represents the printable area for Cricut’s print then cut feature, which is 6.75 inches by 9.25 inches. Resize a square shape to these dimensions and arrange your designs to fit within this area.

I’ll show you an easy way to make sure your stickers stay within this size:

  1. Click on Shapes
  2. Select the Square
  3. To make it a rectangle, click the size unlock button. Resize the square to a rectangle 6.75 wide and the height to 9.25
  4. Move the Square to the background by clicking it in the layer list on the right and dragging it to the bottom of the list
  5. Move the stickers around on this square and fit them in as best you can
  6. If you need another sheet, click your rectangle and then click duplicate

This step allows for efficient utilization of space on the printing material, enabling you to maximize the number of stickers per sheet.

Step 7: Attach and Prepare Sticker Designs for Printing

With your sticker designs arranged and backgrounds added, Delete the rectangle used for organizing the designs and attach all the designs together.

You can attach the designs together by:

  • Highlighting all the designs on one sheet
  • Click attach on the bottom right under the layer list

This step is essential for maintaining the layout and positioning of the designs during the printing and cutting process, ensuring accurate results.

Configuring Printing Settings

Once the designs are attached, proceed to the printing setup. Click ‘Make It’ and follow the prompts to print your designs. Then:

  • Click ‘Send to Printer’ and ensure ‘Use System Dialog’ is turned on.
  • Select your printer and adjust the settings to use photo paper with the best print quality.
  • Print your designs.

Step 8: Print Your Sticker Designs

Click on the “Print” option, and once the printing is complete, your vibrant and professional-looking stickers will emerge from the printer, ready for the next phase of the sticker-making process.

Step 10: Cut Out Your Sticker Designs

With your printed sticker designs in hand, it’s time to move on to the cutting phase. Follow the steps below to ensure precise cutting with your Cricut machine, bringing your sticker designs to life with accuracy and ease. Follow the steps below to cut out your designs.

  1. Select the Material Settings in Cricut Design Space:
    • In Cricut Design Space, after printing, you’ll be prompted to select your material settings. If you’re using Cricut’s printable vinyl, you can choose ‘Printable Vinyl’ from the list of materials, then click specialty. If you’re using a different type of sticker paper or vinyl, you may need to select the appropriate material or manually adjust the cut settings.
    • If the material you’re using isn’t listed in the popular materials, click on ‘Browse All Materials’ and type in ‘vinyl’ or ‘sticker paper’ to find the closest match.
    • I set the pressure to “More” to make sure the design is cut through all the way
  2. Set Up Your Cutting Mat:
    • Take your printed sticker sheet and place it on a standard grip cutting mat. Ensure that the printed side is facing up and align the edges of the sticker sheet with the top left corner of the mat.
    • Smooth out any bubbles or wrinkles to ensure the material lies flat and sticks well to the mat. Use a brayer or a scraper tool to secure the sticker sheet firmly.
  3. Load the Mat into Your Cricut Machine:
    • Open your Cricut machine and place the mat under the rollers. Press the mat up against the machine’s guides to ensure proper alignment.
    • Press the load button (the button with the double arrows) on your Cricut machine. The machine will take in the mat and position it correctly for cutting.
  4. Start Cutting:
    • Once you’re confident with your settings, go ahead and start the cutting process by pressing the ‘Go’ button (the button with the Cricut logo) on your machine.
    • Your Cricut machine will scan the black border around your design to calibrate the cut. Ensure your workspace has enough lighting so the sensors can accurately read the registration marks.
    • The machine will then start cutting your stickers according to the design you set up in Design Space. Watch the machine as it cuts to make sure everything is running smoothly.
  5. Unloading the Mat:
    • When the cutting process is complete, press the unload button (the button with the double arrows) on your Cricut machine to release the mat.
  6. Weeding and Applying Your Stickers:
    • Once the design is done cutting, use a weeding tool to remove the unwanted vinyl from around your stickers.
    • Carefully remove the sticker sheet from the cutting mat. To prevent the stickers from curling, flip the mat over and peel the mat away from the sticker sheet, rather than peeling the sticker sheet off the mat.

Your stickers are now ready to use! You can peel them off the backing paper and stick them wherever you like. If you’re selling these stickers, consider packaging them nicely to enhance their presentation.

Tips for Perfect Sticker Cuts

  • Calibration: Ensure your machine is calibrated for Print Then Cut. If your cuts are off, perform a calibration in Cricut Design Space.
  • Blade Maintenance: Regularly check your blade for sharpness and clean it if it has residue build-up to maintain clean cuts.
  • Material Storage: Store your printable vinyl and sticker paper in a cool, dry place to prevent warping or moisture damage, which can affect print quality and cutting accuracy.

Final Touches

After cutting, you’ll have beautiful custom stickers ready to use! Whether you’re using them to decorate your planner, laptop, or binder, these stickers are a fun and creative way to express yourself.

If you enjoyed this tutorial and found it helpful, please like, subscribe, and click the notification bell on my YouTube channel to stay updated on all my new projects. Happy crafting!

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