There’s nothing better than receiving a personalised gift at Christmas, and with the The Cricut Joy Xtra™ cutting machine, you can make bespoke gifts in the comfort of your own home. Cutting vinyl, card and stickers, this cute machine can be used in conjunction with your printer, or on its own using the cutting blade, or with pens that can draw designs for you. This cute little machine opens up a world of possibilities when it comes to Christmas crafting.

The Cricut Joy Xtra™ is like the big brother to the Cricut Joy™, which enables a wider cutting area than the former, and is still small enough to use when you have limited space.  Setting up the machine couldn’t be easier; plugging in the machine and signing up to Cricut, you can opt to sign up to Cricut Access for unlimited access to a huge amount of projects and graphics, or choose from numerous free projects, to get started.

Finding this cute red velvet stocking at Hobby Craft, I think it is perfect to make a customised stocking for a friend’s dog. All I need is some iron on vinyl and the handy mini heat press (although an iron will do the job too!) and the trusty weeding tool to unpick the material not to be transferred.

MATERIALS & TOOLS

– Stocking like this one from Hobbycraft
– Cricut Joy Xtra™ Prismatic Glitter Smart Iron-On™ – Available at Cricut and at Amazon
– Cricut Joy Xtra™ Machine –  Available on Cricut and at Amazon
– Cricut Weeder Tool – Available on Cricut and at Amazon
– Cricut EasyPress Mini™, Zen Blue  – Available on Cricut and at Amazon

INSTRUCTIONS

1 Open up your Cricut app, and select ‘New Project’
2 Measure your stocking to decide how big you want the name to be. I decide to place along the top of the stocking.
3 Add text in your chosen font, there are so many great fonts to choose from, I go for Carlson Pro and position vertically on the canvas, checking the size in the menu options to ensure the correct dimensions.
4 To add in some additional elements of sparkle, under insert images I search for ‘Paw’ and add a cute paw print, duplicating and arranging close together on the canvas to ensure less wastage of the cut area.
5 Selecting all of the paws and text I make sure the elements are on ‘basic cut’ and then attach the elements, ready to get making!
6 Hitting ‘Make’ the review page then comes up where I make sure the project is the right size, and without the mat.
7 Selecting ‘Continue’ I then select the correct materials, in this case the ‘Prismatic Smart Iron’, and I load the machine ready to cut.
8 Once cut and unloaded from the machine, I peel back the excess material, using the weeding tool for any small areas, particularly the negative space around the lettering.
9 Next up is heating up the mini press, my first time using this great tool, its small size and little stand mean it’s super easy to use and much easier to handle than an iron, which is an alternative if you don’t have one yet.
10 If you have a heat mat (it’s on my list!) you can use this to rest the stocking on before pressing, but if not, like me, you can use a folded towel. Taking my time to press circling the press over the designs for at least 20 secs each until the designs are firmly welded to the material.
11 Then I peel back the shiny paper to reveal my design in all its glory.

Such an easy project, and I already have plans to transform some plain t-shirts with custom slogans for extra presents for friends.

Take advantage of the Black Friday deals at Cricut and Amazon and find more Christmas inspiration below.

Happy crafting!