10+ Creative HACKS In 10 Minutes | Cricut Users LISTEN UP!

What if I told you I had 10 creative hacks for you in under 10 minutes? I have them all ready to go. I am super excited to walk you through 10 of my favorite tips, hacks, and different techniques that are really step up your craft game in under 10 minutes. Are you ready? Let's go. Have you ever had vinyl that is all curled up and it is so hard to get it to flatten out? Guess what? If you take a Teflon sheet, you take your mini EasyPress, you're going to be able to actually iron it out. It is super, super handy to be able to iron out your vinyl so that guess what? It'll lie flat onto your Cricut mat. It won't curl up and you'll be able to cut it with so much ease really easily. Be sure to save this hack for your next project to really step up your craft game and make sure you have no craft fails happening this year. Creative hack number two, if you've not been around the channel, you definitely need to make sure that you know all about weeding on the mat. I highly, highly recommend weeding heat transfer vinyl, vinyl, any sort of adhesive backed item that you need to weed. I always weed on the mat. I call the mat my third hand because it keeps the image in place so that I can weed it and then not have to worry about it moving around. It is super, super handy and I highly recommend that you guys to start weeding on the mat to save you time, energy and effort in your craft projects. The next hack is one of my personal favorites. No more taking your craft mats to the sink, to the bathroom, to the kitchen. You can clean them right here in your craft space. Grab you a baby wipe right like this. Take your Cricut mat. All right, my friends, all you need to do is grab your baby wipe and then you're going to probably use two or three baby wipes for one mat. But what this does is actually doubles the lifespan of your Cricut mats. I love being able to do this to get any debris off the mat. So it really doubles that lifespan so that you can use it over and over again without any issues, without any flaws. And that way, you know, you just kind of clean it and it activates the adhesive to work better. So as you can see all this debris on this baby wipe and just kind of move it around and then you can continually work it. I like to go in a circular motion to clean it off super, super well. I love it. And then before you know it, you'll have a completely clean Cricut mat that is ready to go and almost as good as new. If you ever design anything in Cricut Design Space that for some reason you want to save to your computer, you want to put into Canva, you want to use for sublimation and so much more, did you know you can take a screenshot of your actual screen? In both PC and Mac, you'll be able to do this. On a Mac, all you do is press command shift 4 and then you will be able to select the area of your computer that you'd like to screenshot. It is super, super easy. On a PC, you would go to the snipping tool and that would be able to open up and allow you to take a really quick screenshot of your screen. Now the caveat here is that it won't be an SVG, it won't be the highest quality, but it will allow you to get that screenshot and put it into other platforms, systems, and so much more. Because as of right now, Cricut has no functionality allowing you to export your images off of Cricut Design Space. So if you design something in Cricut and you want to be able to fully customize it in say Canva, you would have to design it from scratch in Canva the same way you did in Cricut. One thing we love to do here at Maker's Gonna Learn is to measure our blinks. Measure our frames and set them up as guides. I always like to say measure twice, cut once. Well when you're in Cricut, you can measure your different shapes. Say you have a rectangle frame, you can measure that frame and then set it up as a shape in Cricut, but then set that rectangle up as a guide. That way you can truly design with no limits except your guide and you'll be able to see what it will actually look like after you cut it and apply it to the project. We love setting up our blanks as guides in Cricut for ease when we're designing. One of my favorite hacks that I love to talk about is color syncing. Do you ever have an image that is super complex, super complicated, and you're like, y'all, I got to simplify this design down introducing color syncing. You can actually take designs that have lots of different colors and simplify them down by just syncing the colors through and through over on the layers panel. Just go ahead and click color sync and you can just move those layers to those other colors to make it a really simplified design. You can use this in so many different ways. You can customize designs that way. You can move layer colors around and so much more. I love being able to do this to really step up my craft game. And if you're not using color syncing, you're truly missing out. So I highly recommend you start using it. If you have a really complex design with say 9 to 12 layers and you want to simplify it down to say 4 or 5, this is a great option for you. This hack is one of my favorites, but this is called the knockout text. This is where you merge two different fonts, usually a basic font and a script font. You start with your basic thicker font and you type out your word. For this example, you could do Mallory or Emerson. And then what you'll do is come in with a smaller script font. So you position that, and then you'll want to add an offset. For this example, you'll really want to do a thicker offset. And then you'll be able to slice out that thicker offset of the cursive name with the basic chunky font. You slice those two, you delete and remove, leaving just the basic text that is the thicker one. And then you bring back in your cursive text. And this technique, my friends, is called the knockout. If you want a more in-depth, hands-on, thorough training, I've made some of them in the past. So be sure to check those out. I'll link them down below. I absolutely love the knockout method and I teach it in many different ways. So there's a lot of different options that you can use this method and this technique to up your creative game in 2025. And I'm excited for you to have this at your fingertips when you're using Makers and Learn fonts, cut files, and so much more. All right, y'all, I want to talk to you through one of my favorite hacks when you have heat transfer vinyl and you're trying to find the center part. A lot of people would typically just line up edge to edge with their heat transfer vinyl. That is a no-no. Do this instead. So come overhead with me and I want you to look at the design. There's more plastic on the right side versus the left. That's why we're going to ignore it completely. We're actually going to fold it inwards and we're going to line it up focusing in on where the edges are. So we line it up edge to edge and then all we want to do is take our finger and we want to pinch the top and then we want to pinch the bottom. Because what this is going to allow us to do is find the exact center of our design, not focused on the plastic, but focused on the actual vinyl decal. It is a super, super great hack so that you can line it up. And this goes hand-in-hand with the next hack that I'm going to provide you, which is focused on finding the center point of your shirt. Are you ready? Let me tell you more about it. So set this to the side. You'll want to heat up your EasyPress to level 2 and then you'll want to grab your t-shirt. What we're going to do right now is take our t-shirt. I love to find the two sleeve holes, line them up on the side right here, and then let the whole shirt fall and kind of center itself up. Okay, so shake it just like so, lay it completely flat right here, and then here's what we're going to do. Once your EasyPress is heated, we are going to iron it right like so. It's going to create a perfect crease so that we can see the perfect middle of our shirt. What that's allowing us to do is to line up our decal we just cut and centered on the plastic so that we can line it perfectly. All right, so what we'll do is we'll just apply some pressure right here. It doesn't have to be a ton because this mini EasyPress is so potent that it will give you a perfect crease line just like so. And then what we'll do is we will open this up and then you'll see a very faint line right here. What you'll do is now grab your design and you'll see we have our marking here and here. We can also see our line here, so we'll line this up. I like to do about two fingers down on the shirt design and then you'll apply it just like so. Now the shirt is a little more wrinkled than I would prefer, but have no fear. We can still get that perfect line lined up and then you'll be able to take your mini EasyPress and just go ahead and apply it down. This is allowing us to perfectly align it down onto the shirt where the design is centered on the shirt and it is good to go, so you're not having to fear anything else because it is perfectly lined up for your design. So then the mini EasyPress, just applying some pressure, you'll apply it down and then after you see bubbles coming you'll be able to peel it back. And then voila! You've been able to apply your heat transfer vinyl on your shirt with ease, super super simply, but you're able to know without a shadow of a doubt that your heat transfer vinyl is aligned properly, your shirt is aligned properly, and you have a shirt that is good to go. Y'all, calling all my essential oil friends, you need to go grab your citrus oils, your orange, your lemons, all of those things. This essential oil will help you remove any stickers, any goob on your projects that you need to remove with ease. The essential oil is a great organic hack that is going to allow you to clean off any debris, any type of things on your cups, mugs, etc that you want to be able to remove without having to really scrub it, without having to use any harsh chemicals, you can just use an essential oil. Next up, you want to grab your burnishing tool. And this one right here specifically, look what you do. When you have a burnishing tool like this, it's created with mind that you'll be able to put tumblers, cups, mugs, things like that on it so it doesn't roll off. That's what we do for these type of tumblers here that have a repeating pattern. We start by laying it right here, starting with each layer, and then we pick it up and are able to roll it the rest of the way. But it is shocking to me how many people do not have this burnishing tool so that they can do all of their different types of projects when it comes to tumblers, mugs, cups, etc with ease just like this. This last hack is one of my favorites. This is using generic fine tip markers to create a unique watercolor experience. If you've not been able to use these type of markers, draw with your Cricut, and then come in with a watercolor utensil to make a really unique watercolor look, you need to try this. Not tomorrow, not this weekend, right now. Pick a design that you want to watercolor, and this will blow your socks off. Go ahead, let the Cricut draw it, then bring in that watercolor tool and just see that watercolor come to life with generic markers. It is truly incredible, you'll love it. But y'all, what did you think out of all of these different hacks? It was so much fun, and I had a blast sharing these with you. So go ahead, leave me a comment down below, tell me which one's your favorite. If you're like Tanner, I absolutely want to learn more from you. Guess what? I have over 65 on-demand craft classes that you can take advantage of when you join our membership. And right now, you can join for $1. Check it out right down below, makersgonalearn.com. We have over 20,000 cut files, over 1,000 fonts, over 100 craft classes, and so much more. I can't wait for you to take full advantage of everything we have to offer, but you can get started for your free trial for only $1. So go ahead and check it out down below, and we'll see you back here in the next video. Bye, guys.