Make Custom Cupcake Picks Using the Cricut Design Space Slice Feature
By Amanda Chittenden on July 17, 2020
Learn to Slice, and Then Slice Confidently! This tutorial is going to be a 2-for-1. First, I will show you how to use the slice feature (or slice tool) in Cricut Design Space. Then, we will apply your newfound knowledge to make our own custom cupcake picks! Cute, right? They took literally about 30 minutes, […]
Learn to Slice, and Then Slice Confidently!
This tutorial is going to be a 2-for-1. First, I will show you how to use the slice feature (or slice tool) in Cricut Design Space. Then, we will apply your newfound knowledge to make our own custom cupcake picks!
Cute, right? They took literally about 30 minutes, start to finish, so not bad at all! Think about all of the custom ninja-turtle-lego-unicorn-minecraft-superhero picks you could make for birthday parties! 🙂
The truth is, once you know how to slice in Design Space, you have the ability to make custom whatevers! Even these, for example, could have easily been printed on sticky paper and turned into stickers. I'm telling you, slicing is where it's at.
If you're already an accomplished slicer, and just want to do custom cupcake picks, you can skip down a few sections, or straight to the video tutorial at the bottom.
Slice, Slice, Baby!
I couldn't help myself. If you've read my blog long enough, or seen any of my shop products, you'll know how much I enjoy word play. If this is your first time here, welcome, and this is normal. 🙂
The slice feature in Cricut Design Space is one of the little tools at the bottom right of your project page. It's the tool I use most often, and the one I think is the most versatile.
Think of the slice feature as your virtual scissors...let me show you what to do.
THE FUNDAMENTAL PRINCIPAL OF THE SLICE FEATURE IS THAT YOU CAN ONLY SLICE 2 THINGS. I'm putting that in caps because it's super-important. It's so important that when you forget, it doesn't work at all.
So, I start my tutorial with 2 shapes, a circle and a square. I grabbed them from the "shapes" section of the menu bar on the left.
Choose the 2 shapes you'd like to slice...whatever they may be.Move the two shapes on top of one another, depending on where you want to slice them. For example, if I want to cut a circle out of the middle of that square, I'm going to put it on top wherever I want to "cut" or slice it.Once you have them positioned where you want them, use your cursor to select both shapes at the same time. Once both shapes are selected, the slice button in the lower right suddenly becomes available (it's greyed out when not available). Go ahead and push that button. It's okay...you can do it.Ta-da! Now you have slices the circle out of the center of your square. What you have left is the original circle, what's left of your square, plus the circle-shaped piece you cut out of the square! Since the slice feature is your virtual scissors, that grey circle is kind of your leftover scrap paper. 🙂One thing to highlight is that you don't have to slice a whole shape (circle) out of a whole shape (square). You can use the slice feature to cut just a piece of something. Here, I removed a little piece from the right side of the square.See what happens when I invite another shape to the party? The slice feature is suddenly not available anymore. ONLY 2 THINGS. They're serious about it.
Those Are the Basics, But Here's the Thing That Always Trips Me Up
If I take that circle and put a score line in the middle, is it still one shape?
Let's try to slice these 2 shapes. It's the same 2 shapes we sliced before...and that worked fine.
Move it into position, highlight both shapes, and go down to your slice button.
THE SCORE LINE IS ANOTHER "THING". I can't tell you how many times I've made this mistake.
If you want to cut these shapes now, you need to remove the score line, slice them, and then put the score line back.
He was not invited to the party, just like the little grey circle. So sad.
Now That You Know How to Slice, Let's Make Custom Cupcake Picks!
I'm always looking for ways to use my Cricut to do the hard work for me, and this is a great example of something I wouldn't want to cut by hand. I HATE cutting circles. Even when you think you got it right, you don't got it right. 🙂 But we are going to make some circular custom cupcake picks, since I think that's the most standard cupcake pick shape.
Start By Selecting Your Custom Item/Image
What's going on your custom cupcake pick? A picture? Sometone's name? An important date? Whatever it is, grab them and put them somewhere you can easily find them on your computer.
I chose to use 12 pictures of my son. Since I had a dozen cupcakes, I used a picture from each month of the year to decorate cupcakes for my husband's birthday.
Get Your Items/Images into Design Space
From a new project page, select "upload" on the left and you will get this screen, where you can select the "upload image" button at the top left.Browse for your photos. You need to select one at a time. I obviously needed to do this 12 times...but I sped it up during the video tutorial. 🙂When you select a picture, it imports like this. Select the green continue button on the bottom right. To explain this photo, Spencer was asked to come to school for the 100th day as a 100 year old person...so this was his outfit for the day. 🙂Next, you select your image type. I almost always pick complex, unless the image is one color or something truly simple. Complex gives you the best option to capture all of the colors in your image. Hit continue again.Once you hit continue, the image is loaded into Design Space. Once all of your images are there, you can select them all together (no need to do one at a time anymore, thank goodness). Then hit the green "insert images" button at the bottom.All of the photos you selected will now be populated into your project!
Slice Your Cupcake Pick Shape With Your Image
Just as we did in the slice tutorial, go to the shapes menu on the left side and grab yourself a shape. I've got a circle.I think it's good practice to go to the upper right and duplicate your shape a few times. That way, you don't have to worry about making another one later. Unless you are only making 1 custom pick!Size your picture appropriately, and then place your shape over your image. Just like in the tutorial, select them both and hit that slice button!Now you have a circle with your custom image inside!
Don't Forget About the Back of Your Custom Picks!
It's easy to get excited about all of your custom shapes, but don't neglect to consider the back before you move to the cutting portion.
This is a good time to duplicate some more of those circles to make sure you have enough circle backs to match your circle fronts. 🙂
Cut Out Your Pieces and Assemble!
When you hit "make it", Cricut will load all of the images onto a printable page for you. Print that out and let the machine do that hard cutting-of-circles!
And select some paper to cut out your plain circles...
I like using these flat topped wooden picks from Amazon. I'll have them linked in the supply list below. They provide a nice large surface on which to stick your image. If you don't want to buy these, you can use a toothpick but you'll likely need to glue the front and back together and squeeze the toothpick in.Apply craft glue to one side of the wooden pick. I love Art Glitter glue for just about everything. I'll link to my resources page for that as well. I use it on all of my paper projects and it adheres well to wood.Apply the image to the glued area and apply some gentle pressure while the glue sets.The front of your pick is done.Apply glue to the back half of the stick and line up the back circle with the front circle.And you're done!
Just Add Cupcakes...
You did it! You made some adorable custome cupcake picks and now you get to decorate!
https://youtu.be/5Wy2s-SP2a4
Materials used for this project are listed below. Some links are affiliate links, and if you make a purchase through one of these links, I may receive a small commission at no additional cost to you. If you do, thank you in advance for your support of this blog.
I use a cardstock paper for heavyweight projects like this. My favorite inexpensive option is this Neenah paper from Amazon.
The flat-topped wooden picks are also from Amazon, you can find them here. As of the time I'm writing this blog post, they're about $5 for 100. 🙂
My favorite glue and other favorite papercraft resources can be found on my resources page!
I’m Amanda, and I put the AMANDA in A MANDAtory Activity (and I like a good bad pun). I run a blog, A Mandatory Activity, focused on baking and crafting for gatherings and gifts.
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