The Truth about Vinyl and HTV

After many years of working with our Cricut machines, we have learned a lot about vinyl and HTV. Based on our years of experience and expertise, we wanted to share the untold truth about vinyl and HTV with you today. It’s important to know about these two materials if you’re going to be using them to make Cricut craft projects.

Are you having problems weeding? Cutting small fonts? We’re sharing our best tips for these and more in the article below.

The Truth about Vinyl and HTV

Cricut Smart Vinyl

Cricut Smart Vinyl allows you to do matless cutting with your Cricut machine. However, we aren’t fond of using Smart Vinyl. The backing sheet on this vinyl is quite thick, making it tricky to weed. It is adhered quite well to the vinyl too and that adds to the challenges with weeding. Not only that, but Smart Vinyl is more expensive than regular vinyl.

What are the advantages of using Smart Vinyl? The only one we can really see is that because you can use it without a mat, you can cut much longer projects. However, have you ever tried to apply a really long project like that? We find that with anything larger than 12 x 24, we need to split it up into sections anyway for successful application.

So, we’d rather work with a vinyl that is less expensive and easier to weed. Our preferences? Siser EasyWeed (HTV) and Starcraft Vinyl (regular adhesive vinyl). They are both high quality products that give us amazing results time after time and they are affordable.

Struggling to Weed?

Are you having some problems weeding? Our first tip is to burnish well before weeding. This helps to ensure that the vinyl is sticking well to the backing as it tends to lift it a bit as it’s being cut. In fact, if you’re working with something more intricate and think you might have difficulty with it, we highly recommend burnishing at every step of the way. Burnish your vinyl after it comes out of the machine and then again after applying transfer tape. We even like to do it from the front and the back!

Another of our favorite tips is that we find it really useful to weed on the mat because it’s like having a third hand. It helps you hold things down as you’re weeding, making the process go much more smoothly.

Cutting Small Fonts Easily

If you’ve ever tried to cut a really small font out of adhesive vinyl, you know that it can be really challenging and frustrating. To overcome this, we really like to use HTV instead of regular vinyl. It cuts those small intricate fonts much more easily and you can use HTV on nearly any surface. We’ve had success applying iron-on vinyl on metal, wood, paper, acrylic, painted metal, and of course, fabrics.

PRO TIP: Remember to weed slowly as small fonts are delicate.