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10 Cricut Hacks Every Crafter Needs To Know!

Written by Kimberly Coffin · This post may contain affiliate links · 166 Comments

Cricut Hacks Every Crafter Needs To Know to Organize Tools and Supplies, Get the Most of out Their Purchases and Save Time and Money!

10 Cricut Hacks Every Crafter Needs To Know!

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Use an Easy Press to Easily Apply Heat Transfer Vinyl

After having my Cricut Maker Machine (you can read my review here) for almost a year now and using it multiple times a week I've picked up a few tricks that make life SO much easier!
I've found some simple solutions to common storage problems and a few ways to speed up the process of crafting! I can't wait to share all of these ideas with you and hear all about your hacks as well!
If you own a Silhouette machine many of these Cricut hacks will work for you as well!

You can watch the video or read the step by step tutorial with photos.

Follow me on Instagram to find out what I'm making with my Cricut Machine!

Cricut Hacks: How to Organize Cricut Supplies

Cricut Mat Organization 

Let's start with a Cricut Storage idea first! Hang your Cricut mats on the wall in order to easily access them while you are crafting. I used command hooks to organize my mats and sort them by type and by length.

No more digging through your pile of mats for the right color! They are all displayed on the wall and easy to find!

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Cricut Mat Organization using Command Hooks

How to Store HTV, Iron-On & Vinyl Rolls

If you've ever wondered how to organize Cricut vinyl rolls, Ikea trashbag holders are the most cost-effective solution! They are only a few dollars and can hold 14 rolls each.

They can be stacked one on top of the other. I just hang mine on the wall using a command hook and it works wonderfully!

You can easily create your own vinyl roll mounted storage rack using this hack for under $10.

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: How to Store HTV, Iron-On & Vinyl Rolls using Ikea Trash Bag Holders

How to Store Cricut Tools on a Peg Board

I found a $5 Peg Board at Target that is the perfect way to store all of my Cricut vinyl weeding tools. Each tool has a small hole on the top so that it can easily hang from a hook.

I used to store my tools in a pouch but I was always digging through it to find the right tool.

Now they are all displayed nicely and there's no guesswork when I need to find a specific tool to use on a project!

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy

Cricut Hacks, Tips & Tricks

How to Quickly Weed Vinyl

Quickly Weed HTV/Iron-On or Vinyl with a Cricut BrightPad! Place the Iron-On on top of the lightbox and the light will peek through all of the cut lines. It makes weeding SO much easier and removes all of the guesswork!

I'm kicking myself for not figuring this out sooner! If a BrightPad is out of your budget you can always hang the vinyl on a window to get a similar effect.

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Easily Weed HTV with a Bright Pad Light box

Charge your Electronics from your Cricut Maker

The Cricut Maker has a USB port on the side that can power your phone, tablet or the bright pad. There's also space to prop up your tablet or phone on the actual Cricut Maker so you don't have to connect to your computer.

What more could I ask for???

How to Use a Cricut Easy Press for Perfect Results

If you've tried doing Iron-on with an iron before you've probably been met with a fair amount of frustration. Most irons have hot spots and cold spots and those can be exacerbated by lower end models.

They also have a relatively small plate which means you'll spend a lot of time just trying to press one design.

I love using my Easy Press (read more about it here) on my Iron-On projects because it has a large surface area and even heating across the whole plate.
That means you don't have to worry about burning one side of your project while the other side doesn't even stick! I just use the chart to select the exact temperature and time and press it until it beeps at me. Easy peasy!!!


 The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Use an Easy Press to Easily Apply Heat Transfer Vinyl

How to Use Vinyl Scraps

I'm a self-proclaimed hoarder and one of the things that I just can't bear to throw away are my vinyl scraps! You better believe I save every piece!

My favorite way to use up my scraps is to place them all on a mat and then use the Snap Mat feature. This can be found in the Cricut App.
It takes a photo of your mat and then lets you arrange your designs on the scraps so they are cut out perfectly. No more guesswork!
This also works wonderfully for quilters who want to fussy cut their fabric. Use the Snap Mat feature to take a photo of your mat and the fabric.

Then place the design over the image you want to cut out. This works amazingly well for Hexis! Here's an example.


The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Use the Cricut Snap Mat Feature to Fussy Cut Fabric The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Fussy Cut Fabric with the Cricut Maker

Cricut Explore & Maker Pen Hack

If you have a marker, sharpie or even a colored pencil that you would like to use with your Cricut machine ( this works on the Cricut Explore as well) you just need to remove the Cricut Pen Adapter, wrap a hair tie around the pen and then place it in the pen holder. Make sure that it's all the way down!

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Use any Pen or Pencil on a Cricut Machine with this Hack

How to Clean a Cricut Mat

There are a few different ways to clean a mat depending on how dirty it is. If it's been used lightly you can use tweezers to grab any stray pieces of felt (this is what I had to do after this felt-heavy project) or vinyl.

Try rolling a lint roller across the mat as well. If you have some leftover residue you can gently wipe the mat with a bleach & alcohol-free baby wipe to remove some of the grime.

If a baby wipe doesn't quite do the trick you can cover the mat in GOO GONE, let it sit for about 15 minutes and use a scraper tool to remove all of the adhesive.
Once the mat has dried, cover all of the edges with tape and use a spray adhesive to cover the mat. Allow to dry.

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Clean a Cricut Mat with Baby Wipes

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Clean Dirty Cricut Mats with Baby Wipes

Hey Let's Make Stuff has a great post on how to clean your Pink Cricut Mat if your pink mat is in need of some love!

How to Quickly Remove Intricate Cardstock Designs 

If you've ever made an intricate design on cardstock or even vinyl you know that the weeding process can be lengthy, to say the least.
One of my favorite tricks is to use a lint roller to quickly pick up all the small pieces (this also works well for glitter).

Just roll it over the design before removing it from the mat. It will save you from having to individually remove each piece from the mat.

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy: Use a lint Roller to remove small pieces of card stock

And while we are on the subject of lint rollers, if you are ever in a bind and run out of transfer tape a lint roller sheet works perfectly!

I hope you enjoyed all of these Cricut storage and organization hacks and learned some new time-saving tricks!
I'd love to hear in the comments all about your favorite Cricut hacks!
Loved these Cricut Hacks? You can find all of my Cricut posts here.

Follow me on Instagram to find out what I'm making with my Cricut Machine!

The Best Cricut Hacks featured by top US craft blog, Sweet Red Poppy

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Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Shelly says

    Great post! I love all your tips ❤️

    Reply

    • Kimberly Coffin says

      Thanks so much, Shelly!

      Reply

  2. Amber says

    I found that spraying your mats with dollar store "Awesome" spray cleaner and scraping the paper, lint and anything else that sticks to your mat works great. Just spray, scrape and wipe down with dry cloth them let it air dry. Mats are now clean and sticky.

    Reply

    • Kimberly Coffin says

      That's a great tip! I need to try that out!

      Reply

    • Natalie says

      You cannot use awesome cleaner on the new mats. It destroys their adhesive. 🙁

      Reply

  3. Becky Dent says

    Clear contact paper works great to transfer vinyl.

    Reply

  4. Jamie Peschl says

    What is the grey quilted square that you are using underneath to iron on?

    Reply

    • Christine Jones says

      I was wondering too !!!

      Reply

    • Kimberly Coffin says

      It's just a small ironing board I found at Walmart. 🙂 I believe Cricut is releasing a new mat soon though!

      Reply

  5. Gisele says

    Love your post. When bits and pieces of paper and thread from sewing Cricut Maker projects get all over the floor, that handy dandy lint roller saves the day again! Just quickly roll across the area in one direction and it picks it all up the itty bitty trash.

    Reply

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    good job

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  7. Fiona says

    Brilliant tips and tricks. Thanks

    Reply

  8. Pat says

    I like the tip about using a light box to help see your work when weeding vinyl. Am anxious to try that out, especially when using white vinyl. Thanks for sharing those tips.

    Reply

  9. Stephanie says

    Hi! Thanks for the quick guide. I just received the Cricut Air2 from my daughters for Christmas. I’m excited to use the machine I just need to think of what to create first. Ha ha
    Again thanks for the quick description of the machine’s.

    Reply

  10. Kristy says

    Do you have any issues transferring white or lighter colors onto shirts. I always have an issue with white. Any tips?

    Reply

  11. Sandy Brinckman says

    I make a lot of appliqué quilt projects. Some patterns have svg files. Does Cricut use svg files to cut fabric with heat and bond?

    Reply

  12. Sue says

    I am very new to the Cricut world and have purchased a Maker 3. You touched on using Snap Mat on Cricut design space to take photos of your mat. Where do you find this on design space?
    Thank you!

    Reply

    • Stephanie Craddick says

      Hi Sue, this is only available on a mobile device! When you click "Make It" you will see Snapmat at the bottom left.

      Reply

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