This is part 2 of a multipart blog post. If you missed part 1, check it out if you need help downloading and opening a zip file. In part 2, I’ll walk through getting your SVG into the Cricut Design Space software and prepping it for cutting. As I personally don’t own a Cricut machine, I can’t show you the final cutting with a Cricut, but I’ll help you get everything ready to cut on your machine.
Step 1. Open Cricut Design Space and click on the button/icon “add project”. Once you do that, you’ll see the vertical bar with different icons like you can see in the screenshot to the left. Click on the bottom icon for “upload”. Once you click “upload”, then you’ll see the image option in the center of the screen and you can click on the “upload image” button.
Step 2. When you click on the “upload image” button, a new window will appear that will allow you to drag and drop the SVG file. Go ahead and click on the SVG file in your downloads folder and drag and drop it into Cricut Design Space. Once you do that, your screen should look just like my screenshot to the right. Design Space automatically knows to open this SVG file as a cut image so all you have to do is click on the green “upload” button.
Your newly uploaded SVG will appear in your recent uploads. Just click on that image and click on the green “insert images” button.
Step 3. When the SVG file first opens in Cricut Design Space, it may be very large. Sometimes the image may be larger than the cut size of your machine and you’ll see an error. The file is fine, you’ll just need to resize before you do anything else.
For this finished product, the ceramic mug, I want an image that is 3 (three) inches tall. In the upper right corner of the screenshot you can see the box for “size”. Make sure that the icon with the padlock is closed. This will ensure we resize the image in the correct proportion. Once you confirm the padlock icon is closed, type in “3” in the H (height) box and the image will resize. (Note, this is the size I wanted the image to be for my final project – of course your sizing may be different depending on the final project you are doing).
Step 4. Now that the image is the size I want, I’m ready to get my vinyl cut! Click on the green “Make It” button that is in the upper right corner of Cricut Design Space. The software will automatically sort the colors on separate mats. I used adhesive vinyl so I would cut as is. Just remember, if you are cutting HTV (Heat Transfer Vinyl – also called iron-on vinyl) then you will most likely want to mirror the image before cutting (some patterned HTV you don’t mirror).
As I don’t have a Cricut cutting machine I cannot show you the next steps, but you should see a green “continue” button that will take you to the next steps to get your vinyl cut!
I hope this helped you open an SVG in Cricut Design Space and get the image cut out in vinyl. If you have a Silhouette or are interested in seeing the same process for Silhouette Studio, then join me in Part 3. Otherwise, skip ahead to Part 4 to weed the vinyl and put it on our finished product, a ceramic mug!