DIY Dog Shirt

October 17, 2022 by Leave a Comment

In this tutorial, we’ll be showing you how quickly and easily you can make a simple, but an adorable DIY dog shirt for your favorite pooch.

We have got so many amazing dog lover cut files that you are going to love using for all your pet-related projects. Whether you are making something for yourself or for your dog, these files are going to be perfect.

Dog Lover T-Shirt

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase

Supplies Used:

MGL Cut File Used:

Life is Better

Step-by-step Instructions:

Measure the dog shirt to know the measurement of the space available for your design.
Import the cut file downloaded from Makers Gonna Learn to Design Space.
Grab a square and resize it to correspond with the space available on the dog shirt. This will help you visualize and size your finished design properly.
Size your cut file to fit as desired on the square. You can then delete the square since it was only being used for visualization purposes.
Click Make it. Set your materials – we’re using Premium Vinyl. Place your vinyl on the cutting mat and then load it into the machine to cut.
Once cutting is done, peel away the excess HTV. Weed your design – remember the centers of any letters!
Since this is HTV, it has built-in transfer tape. So, once weeded, iron the shirt using your Cricut EasyPress Mini to remove any wrinkles that might interfere with properly adhering your design. Place the design down on the shirt. Heat using your Cricut EasyPress Mini until adhered. Remove the transfer sheet.

Applying HTV on Hats

September 22, 2022 by Paula W

If you’ve got a plain hat that needs a little extra something, this is a great hack for applying a custom design of your choice. You’re going to love how quick and easy this technique is for personalizing plain hats and turning them into something special.

Applying HTV on Hats

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Cut File Used:

Dog Mom

Supply Links:

Step-by-step Instructions:

Import the cut file downloaded from Makers Gonna Learn to Design Space.
Begin by duplicating the cut file. We’re going to duplicate it over and over again. Each time, we will place the duplicates on top of each other. This is going to thicken the lines of the design. Keep duplicating until you create your desired thickness for the shadow. When you are satisfied with what you created, group them together and press weld.
Grab a circle and size it down to a small shape then place it to the edges of the letters to even them out and round the edges as desired. Once satisfied, select all of the layers and choose Weld.
Select your welded design and choose Contour. Now you can choose all the little pieces in the centers of letters and so on and contour them out.
Grab the original cut file and place it over top of the drop shadow you have created.
Measure the working space of the baseball cup for the HTV. Size your design accordingly.
When ready to cut your design, click Make It. Remember that you will need to mirror your design since you are working with HTV. For the project we’re making, you don’t need to mirror the shadow.
We’re going to cut the shadow out of corduroy. Cut a piece and place it on your cutting mat. Be sure to choose Corduroy in your Materials Setting and load your rotary blade.
While the fabric is cutting you can place your HTV onto your cutting mat.
Once the fabric has finished cutting, load the HTV onto the machine. Be sure to change the material to Iron-On. Peel the corduroy off your fabric mat and place it on your EasyPress mat. Preheat the EasyPress Mini to 350 (the second mark).
Unload the cut HTV from the machine. Weed away the excess HTV. Remember to remove the centers of the letters too!
Line up your weeded design on the corduroy. Heat with the EasyPress Mini to adhere the iron-on vinyl to the corduroy. When you see little bubbles, that’s your cue that the transfer sheet is starting to lift away from the vinyl and your design has been heated enough.
Carefully and slowly peel up your transfer sheet. If any of the design isn’t adhered to the corduroy, simply place the sheet back down and give it some more heat.
We’re fringing the corduroy a bit because we like the look. We’re simply using a Cricut TruControl Knife to go around the edges and fray it.
To adhere the finished design to the hat, we’re using a glue gun with fabric glue sticks in it.

Multi-Layer Holiday Socks

September 21, 2022 by Paula W

Do you love those If You Can Read This socks as much as we do? There are so many fun phrases that you can add to them and they make such a great gift. This is a multi-layer project which may intimidate some of you, but we want to show you just how easy it is!

Multi-Layer Holiday Socks

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Cut File Used:

Movie Socks

Supply Links:

Step-by-step Instructions:

Download the cut file you want to use from Makers Gonna Learn and import it to Design Space.
Grab a square from the shape button located at the left-hand side of the design space and resize it to create a rectangle – we’re using one that is 3 x 4.5 inches to represent the working space on the bottom of our socks.
Move the sentiments in the cut file one by one to the rectangle and size to fit. We recommend keeping them together and just making sure that they will each fit in the available space on the socks.
If you are satisfied with the size and how it looks, you can now delete the rectangle because you don’t need them anymore. (NOTE: The rectangle was just for visualization purposes).
Click Make It. Since we’re using HTV, you need to mirror all 3 mats. Also, remember that with HTV, you’re going to be placing it down on the mat, shiny side down.
Load each mat one at a time into your machine and cut out your 3 colors of vinyl.
Once cutting is done, remove the mat from the machine and cut off the excess HTV using the TruControl knife. Now you can weed your designs. Because they are cut from HTV, they have built-in transfer tape.
Preheat the EasyPress Mini to 350 degrees (the second setting). Place your socks on the EasyPress mat and iron them so you won’t have any wrinkles interfering with your design.
We find it easiest to trim down these pieces of HTV before applying them to the socks. This makes it easier to position them.
Place the words on the first sock and use your EasyPress to heat it. Here’s the hack for making this multi-layer project a success: heat only for a few seconds. You’re going to do it for much less time than you usually would. Let cool for a few seconds and then peel up the transfer tape. KEEP IT! You will need this transfer tape in a later step.
Next, position the red piece that fills in the O on the word “you”. Cover your entire design with that saved piece of transfer tape. Heat again with your EasyPress Mini for just a few seconds. Peel up the transfer tape from the O and you can discard that little piece. Make sure to keep the bigger piece of transfer tape.
Repeat these steps with every piece of your HTV making sure it is covered completely with a piece of transfer tape. Once you have the last piece on the sock, you can heat it for a bit longer to ensure that everything has been fully adhered to.
Do the same thing with the other sock.

DIY Patches with Cricut

September 17, 2022 by Paula W

Don’t know how to sew?! No worries! WE GOT YOU! Look how easy and affordable these DIY patches with Cricut are!

DIY Patches with Cricut

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Font Used:

Arcade

Supply Links:

Step-by-step Instructions:

Gather all materials that are needed
Apply Heat & Bond to the back of your felt
Apply felt to circuit mat
Pick the font & size you want & cut felt with circuit
Once cut from Circuit, apply to the sweater
Apply heat to the felt & you’re done!

Create a Multi-Colored HTV Shirt

September 14, 2022 by Paula W

You are going to love this sweet multi-colored HTV shirt project! We’ll take you to step by step through the quick and easy process. They’re a great way to customize a plain t-shirt.

Create a Multi-Colored HTV Shirt

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Fonts Used:

Bumble Bee
ASL

Supply Links:

Step-by-step Instructions:

Download the fonts from Makers Gonna Learn. Unzip them and install on your computer.
Measure the spot of the t-shirt you are working with so you will know the amount of space you have to work with for your design.
Go to Design Space and open a text box. Type in whatever words you want. Select your text and change to the Bumblebee font. Duplicate that and change it to ASL font..
Grab a square then size it down and cover the first letter (but not the hand) of the ASL font. Select both the font and the square. Choose Slice.
Repeat this one by one until all of the letters have been sliced away from the hands.
Get a square again and cover the hand layer of each letter. You want one square for each hand. Select one hand and one square at a time and choose Slice.
After slicing, discard the sliced layers that you don’t need.
Line up the hands with the corresponding letters you typed using the font Bumblebee. You can use Align and Center Horizontally to get them lined up perfectly. Once you are happy with the arrangement, select Attach (for each letter/hand combination).
If you’d like, you can now go into your Layers Panel and change the colors of the letters and hands.
Click Make It. Be sure to turn on Mirror as you will be using HTV. Set the material to Everyday Iron-On.
Place the HTV onto the mat and then load the mat into the machine to cut. Once they are all cut, burnish to the mat and weed your design.
Place the t-shirt on the EasyPress mat and iron the spot where you will be applying the design. You want it nice and smooth. Lay on your design and arrange them as desired. Use your EasyPress to heat and adhere to your design. Once finished, you can peel away the transfer paper and your design is complete!

DIY Patterned Zipper Pouch

September 13, 2022 by Paula W

This DIY Patterned Zipper Pouch project is a simple example of how to use a repeating pattern to add a design to your surface material. For this craft project, we’re using a little pouch and adding a repeating pattern as well as a quote text file to take this simple little bag to the next level.

DIY Patterned Zipper Pouch

Disclosure: Some of the links below are affiliate links provided for your convenience. This means, at no additional cost to you, we will earn a commission if you click through and make a purchase.

Cut Files Used:

Mud Cloth
Don’t Stop Until You’re Proud

Supply Links:

Step-by-step Instructions:

Import the downloaded cut files from Makers Gonna Learn into Design Space.
Measure the surface you are working on. In our case, we are adding this design to a pouch.
Add two squares from Basic Shapes and then unlock and resize them as needed. For us, we need one rectangle that is 8 by 4 and one that is 2 by 8. Place the bigger rectangle at the top and the smaller one right below it.
We need two of the mud cloth pattern, so we’ll duplicate them to make two that we can put together. Line those up on the smaller rectangle. Once lined up, select them both and choose Weld.
Select your welded mud cloth design and the small rectangle in the Layers Panel. Choose Slice. Once sliced, you can delete the layers you don’t need.
Next, you can add your text cut file “Don’t Stop Until You’re Proud” and line it up on the larger rectangle. You can either hide or delete the rectangles at this point. If you just hide it, it’s there for you if decide to make another pouch.
Mirror both the pattern and the text. Then, press continues to select the material setting. We are using Everyday Iron On.
Apply the HTV and the transfer paper into the mat then load it in the machine and let it cut.
Once cutting is done, unload the mat and burnish your pieces down. Weed away the excess. Weed away the centers of the letters in your text as needed too.
Position your designs on the pouch and use EasyPress to heat and adhere it. Let it cool a bit. Slowly peel away the built-in transfer paper.

Jesus Loves Me Hoodie Sweatshirt

March 11, 2021 by Paula W

You are going to love the project we have for you today! This Jesus Loves Me Hoodie Sweatshirt not only has a sweet sentiment on the front of the shirt, but we’ve added an extra special element to it. We have added crosses to the drawstring to take this project to the next level.

We’re using cut files from here on Makers Gonna Learn, of course, including a file from our brand new Requested Cut File Collection for March. Check out the entire newly released faith collection here. There are so many beautiful and inspiring cut files to choose from!

Jesus Loves Me Sweatshirt

MGL Files Used:

Be sure to check out the entire brand new Faith Collection here.

Supplies:

The video tutorial for this project is below- be sure to check it out!:

Steps:

Measure your sweatshirt and your sweatshirt strings and choose the size you’d like your decals to be. Duplicate the small cross design multiple times as you’ll be adding them all along your sweatshirt string. We decided to measure our sweatshirt string and place the crosses in a row in Design Space no longer than 11.5” and we aligned them “center horizontally” and “distribute vertically”. Then we attached them together and duplicated them to have several rows of crosses to be cut.
Once you have all of your designs sized, click “make it” and be sure to “mirror” your mats as you’ll be using HTV which always needs to be mirrored.
Set your material setting to “Everyday Iron-On”. Allow your machine to cut your material. Once cut weed all the excess vinyl from your design.
Preheat your easypress mini to the second heat setting (about 350 degrees). Place one row of your crosses on your hoodie string and heat to adhere. Repeat until you’ve applied all of the crosses you’d like.
Next, position and heat your larger design onto the front of your sweatshirt. Remove all of the transfer sheets, and enjoy.

We can’t wait to see what you do with this project idea! Be sure to share your projects in the member only Facebook group.

Easy Leather Bracelets With Cricut

March 6, 2020 by Paula W

We’re so excited to show you how to make these Easy Leather Bracelets With Cricut. We’re going to be using the Faux Leather from Cricut. This is a super thin leather and can be used with your fine point blade so you do not have to have a Maker to make this project.

This bracelet would make a great gift. You could even make a set of them to wear at the same time – one for each child’s name. Or maybe make one for yourself and one for your best friend or significant other with each other’s names on them. If you’re thinking ahead, these would be simple and inexpensive stocking stuffers or Easter basket fillers too.

Easy Leather Bracelets With Cricut

We are using the Cricut faux leather along with some rivets. You can also pick up really simple pre-made leather bracelets on your local craft store if you feel a bit intimidated about making one.

Go to Cricut Design Space and measure your wrist and see how big it is. Once done, we’re gonna manipulate some shapes and make it exactly how we want it.

So we’re going to get a square, unlock it and edit. We’re going to have a bracelet that is a width of 8 inches and a height of 0.75 inches. You can make this really wide or narrow depending on your own preferences.

Once you have a rectangular shape, we’re going to lock this into place and go over to actions and duplicate. You can duplicate this as many times as you want and do these in various sizes.

Once you have them all sized the way you want to, go ahead and click “Make it”. Hit continue and set the material. Choose the faux leather paper thin.

We’re going to give that more pressure. Make sure mirror is turned on since we’re using HTV for this and place your faux leather shiny side down on your mat. Load this into the machine and press that flashing Cricut button.

After it’s done cutting, we can now unload this from the mat and peel it right up from the mat.

Double check that wrist measurement and once you know where you want it, you’re going to take a hole punch and punch it right where you want your rivet to be. Do that on both ends because you will need holes on both of them.

Choose some rivets that are an appropriate size for your project. For these bracelets, we’re using large ones. Rivets come in two parts. One looks like a metal washer and the other has a post on it, looking more like a bolt.

You want to place the part with the post on your surface, put one of the holes in your bracelet over it, and then put the part that kind of looks like a metal washer on top of that. You should hear a little click when you place it on top of the bottom piece.

Lay it down right on top of that metal base piece and then place the metal setter piece on top. You’ll see that on the setter, there’s a flat end and a curved end. You want to put the curved end on top of the rivet and use a small hammer or mallet to hit it until the whole thing is completely compressed down.

Repeat that on all of your sides. You’re going to want to work on the ground or floor – a steadier surface than a table. Use very small light hits and check it every now and again to make sure you’re not bending the metal too much.

Now all we have to do is to go into Design Space and create the name that we’re going to put on our bracelets. We’re going to use one of our almost 300 fonts from our membership files here on Makers Gonna Learn . We’ve chosen Little Miss Susie.

We’re going to write Courtney and size of our bracelet to 0.75, so we’re going to go to edit and lock that and we are going to do a height of 0.5 and it gives us a width of 2.6.

Now we can click “Make it” and replace what was on the mat. Since we’re going to be using iron-on, we need to select Mirror. Select iron-on and default pressure. Load in your mat and press that flashing Cricut button.

While that is cutting, we’re going to set our EasyPress to warm up to 280.

Once the cut is complete, we’re going to come in with our true control knife, cut and remove the excess vinyl.

Now we’re going to start in a corner, start weeding and peel this right up off of the mat.

We’re going to get our EasyPress mat and lay out our bracelet. Take the “Courtney” text and lay it right in the middle the way you want it.

Now, grab your EasyPress and go ahead and lay it down over your design. Heat that for 30 seconds. You want to give pretty firm pressure and not move around too much as it heats.

We’re going to let it cool down and once it cools a little bit, we’re going to peel off that layer. Once it is completely cool, we’re going to take the transfer paper off.

Now you have a gorgeous little personalized leather bracelet. I absolutely love the way that it looks! You can make these in all different colors, shapes, sizes and using a variety of fonts.

DIY LEATHER BRACELET WITH YOUR CRICUT

July 13, 2019 by Paula W

We just love making jewelry and accessories with our die cutting machine. It makes it so easy to create things to coordinate with all of our outfits and ones that are customized to our own personalities. This DIY Leather Bracelet with Your Cricut is a simple craft project that you’re going to love. Make one for yourself and a second one for a friend!

DIY Leather bracelet with Cricut tutorial

I love all of the amazing fonts available to our yearly members. Fonts open up a whole new world of crafting possibilities! You can personalize every project with all of the wonderful fonts we have available, and more are added often! Check out this awesome project we made using our stylish, curated fonts.

DIY LEATHER BRACELET WITH YOUR CRICUT

Materials

Cricut Maker
Black Cricut Iron-On
Cricut EasyPress 2, 6”x7”
Cricut EasyPress Mat
Weeding Tool Set
Leather Bracelet
Cricut LightGrip Cutting Mat
Measuring Tape
Makers Gonna Learn Font(s) Used: Arrow Words

How to Make This Project

Download the font that you want to use. We’re using Arrow Words today. With Arrow Words, you will see in Design Space that you will need a capital letter at the beginning and end of it. Each capital letter is a different type of arrow so play around with that until you get the look you want.

Makers Gonna Learn font called Arrow Words with script text and arrow

Now you’re going to want to ungroup your word so that you can play around with the letters a bit and get them arranged perfectly. When you ungroup your word, each of the letters will be its own separate layer. This means you can move them independently and place them where you want. Once you have your word arranged, you need to select the whole word and click “weld”.

Cricut Design space screen showing word Brave written with Makers Gonna Learn arrow font

Now, measure your bracelet and size your text in Cricut Design Space. Load your mat, remembering to place your iron-on face down. Set your material, mirror your image, and let the Cricut cut. This is a great project to use your Iron-On scraps!

Cricut design space showing toggle to turn on mirror image for using iron on vinyl

Preheat your EasyPress to 280 degrees and while it’s heating up, weed your cut image.

Lay the bracelet onto your EasyPress mat, apply the weeded image where you’d like it to go, and heat it for 30 seconds.

Remove the transfer paper to reveal your beautiful new bracelet!

HOW TO MAKE “IF YOU CAN READ THIS” SOCKS WITH CRICUT

July 10, 2019 by Paula W

We just love those “If You Can Read This” socks you see all over the place! They’re so fun and make such a great gift. We’d like to be able to customize them though with our own choice of socks and design. Wouldn’t that be great? So today, we’re going to show you how to make “If You Can Read This” socks with Cricut.

I love all of the amazing fonts available to our yearly members. Fonts open up a whole new world of crafting possibilities with your Cricut Maker or other Cricut machine! You can personalize every craft project with all of the wonderful fonts we have available, and more are added often! Check out this awesome die cutting craft project we made using our stylish, curated fonts.

HOW TO MAKE “IF YOU CAN READ THIS” SOCKS WITH CRICUT

Materials

Cricut Maker
Black Cricut Iron-On
Cricut EasyPress 2, 6”x7”
Cricut EasyPress Mat
Weeding Tool Set
Cricut LightGrip Cutting Mat
Measuring Tape
Socks
Makers Gonna Learn Font(s) and File(s) Used: Passion Font, Coffee Cup From “Life Happens Coffee Helps” in Apparel Collection

How to Make This Project

Measure your socks and size your font in Cricut Design Space accordingly. Make sure to size your coffee image to fit well with your quotes before you press “Make it”.

Next, you need to in your black iron on and click “Make it”. Be sure to mirror your image and select iron-on in the materials. Turn on fast mode and press the flashing Cricut button.