How To: Cutting Vinyl With Your Cricut, Silhouette or Wishblade Machine
By: Tay Silver | Creative Cuttables & Commercial Vector Designer

If you’ve made the investment in a digital die cutting machine chances are you can make back more than a bit of that money selling vinyl lettering cut by your machine. Lots of crafters and stay-at-home moms are setting up in-home vinyl businesses with minimal upfront cost and enjoying immediate profits! As a graphic designer and a serious vinyl crafting enthusiast I’m happy to give you some advice on how to get started:

Vinyl lettering is HOT right now and whether you just want to cut a few things for your home, make gifts for friends or start an at-home business, it’s a great time to begin! Let’s look at how you can easily turn your Cricut, Silhouette or Wishblade into a vinyl cutting machine.

First, do some research on your individual digital die cutting machine to determine what file format it accepts so you can cut graphics in addition to text, a must if you will be taking orders and selling cut vinyl. Once you know the file type(s) your machine accepts, you can begin experimenting with vinyl cutting. To assist you, I have created a quick reference of the three most popular machines and the file types they accept:

Please refer to your user manual for file types accepted and directions on importing your own images into your machine’s software.

Although I do not have experience with each machine and cannot tell you exactly what will work for your machine, Peppermint Creative does have a free download available that contains EPS, SVG, JPG and PNG file types which you can try with your machine.

Knowing the file types your machine accepts unlocks a whole new category of Peppermint Creative supplies! You’ll find hundreds of graphic files in our Commercial Vector section, all professionally designed and packaged with a Commercial Use License for cutting and selling vinyl. If you’re only cutting for yourself and will not be selling your vinyl, Personal Use Vectors are available here. Please note our personal use vectors do not include EPS files. (EPS files are available only in Commercial Use packs because it is the file type accepted by most large-scale professional vinyl plotters.)

Once you have imported your graphics and followed the directions in your Users Manual to set up the cut, you can perform test cuts.

Our next blog post will tell you exactly what tools and supplies you’ll need for getting started with vinyl cutting.