Can You Get Your Cricut to Cut Free Printables? Yes, yes you can.

Have you ever been strolling around on the internet and you were stopped dead in your tracks by some adorable free printables, and thought to yourself "those are so cute, but I don't want to have to cut them out by hand.

Maybe you've even decided you might want to try to get your Cricut to cut them for you.  Isn't that what you got your Cricut for?  To cut things so you can get back to searching Pinterest for other things to make it cut?  

I'm betting if you DID go that next step and download them to upload into Cricut, you probably got this error.

Amiright??

None of those files types are

A Quick Change to the File Type Fixes You Right Up!

Most often, free printables come to us in the form of a lovely little pdf document.  That's great if you want to print it out and grab the scissors and go to town...but not helpful if you want Cricut to do the manual labor for you. 

If you're like me, you went back to free-printable-website-of-choice and tried to "download as" to see if you could select another option.  That doesn't work either.  

You need to graciously accept your free printable (it was free, remember...) and then change the file type to one of the ones listed on the warning message above. 

The easiest conversion I have found is to take that pdf and turn it into a jpg.  There's a magical site called pdf2jpg.net (they are really not burying the lead there), and it's literally a matter of 2 buttons to press and you're converted.  

What Do I Do with My Free Printables Now That I've Cut Them?

When I see a gripping free printable, my head goes to two places first. 

#1 - what little do-dad can I attach to a card or gift or gift tag or bag topper or cupcake topper (ok, maybe that's not one thing), or 

#2 - what tiny piece of lovliness can I cut out on sticker paper and use in my planner? YES. I STILL HAVE A PAPER  PLANNER, and it brings me great joy, so don't judge.  It's the only time in my life where I get to play with stickers and enjoy it as much as I did with Lisa Frank stickers when I was a kid.  

Give me a shout out below if you feel me!  Oily stickers, and scratch and sniff, and holograms!  I had hundreds in an album and I would just sit and play with them...for hours.  Fast forward 30+ years, and very little has changed. 🙂

As an example, I find it satisfying to get a free printable of cupcakes, print the free printables onto sticker paper, have Cricut make me a sheet of little cupcake stickers, and then stick them in my planner on days when I'm lucky enough to get to bake cupcakes. 🙂  Just writing about it is kind of getting me excited...

I stumbled across the most adorable free printable baking images on this website, so if that's your jam, it's worth checking out.  I've been 3 times in 2 days. 🙂 https://www.gathered.how/papercraft/card-making/free-retro-baking-printables/

Don't say I didn't warn you about the cuteness.  There are a LOT of things I have downloaded and I'm working on some card ideas to use them with.  More to come...

Finally, A Step by Step Tutorial Video

Here is the video tutorial below.  I edited out 98% of me getting distracted by things on that website, so I think it's actual content now.  Enjoy!

https://youtu.be/QUWBJYykRlo

Still trying to decide if you want a Cricut of your own?  Check out the resources tab for my suggestions.

Prefer to cut them by hand?  Let me know if you'd like to see a post making a card with some of these free printables WITHOUT the Cricut.  I'm game for a challenge. 🙂 

Love,
Amanda