How To Make Big Projects On A Cricut Joy

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Today, we are going to look at how to make Big Projects On A Cricut Joy. If you have been following my crafting projects for a while, you will know how much I adored the Cricut Joy, that was until I discovered print and cut. For this reason, it hasn’t replaced my Maker; however, I did use it just as much. That was until I ordered the Joy Xtra, which has a slightly bigger cutting area, print and cuts.

It’s not unknown for me to have a cake in the oven and and a Cricut project cutting on the kitchen table. But just because the Joy is petite, doesn’t mean it can’t cut a larger project. You just need to break it down a little.

How to make a big project on a cricut joy

How To Make Big Projects On A Cricut Joy or Joy Xtra

So here’s the problem, you want to make a cushion or wall decal and it’s an image, but not solid as such, like this image below.

How Do You Cut A Large Image From Cricut Design Space ?

However, when you ungroup the image, it still keeps its shape. Thus, if you want to cut a 12×12, it needs to go onto a 12×12 mat, unless you follow these simple steps to separate the images completely so you can cut it on your Cricut Joy.

When you ungroup an image in Cricut design space

Cutting A Large Image From Cricut Design Space?

You need to break every section of your project down so its 4″ wide. On many projects this is doable. Length doesn’t matter a smart vinyl makes longer projects easy.

Starting with the blue words, dream and achieve, slice one of the words away.

To do this select a square from the shapes in the left hand bar. Unlock the square and drag it into a rectangle shape.

Now cover one of the words, right click and select slice in the bottom left hand corner.

How to cut large images with the cricut joy
Slice larger images to be able to cut them on the Cricut Joy

As you can see dream has now been sliced from the image so you can drag it away. Remove any excess words and shapes and you will be left with two separate words.

As the words are no longer joint with a space between them, they can be positioned on a Joy cutting mat.

Fitting larger images on a Cricut Joy Cutting mat

Now do the same with the stars. Slice each star away, thus disconnecting from the main image.

You can see now on the screen shots of the cutting mats below that the images fit onto the mats to be cut. Additionally, it doesn’t matter how long the image is. As I mentioned before, if you are cutting on smart materials some extend as long as 20ft long.

Cut images on the cricut joy cutting mat
Cutting larger images on the Cricut Joy

Now you can arrange your project using tape to secure it.

slicing a project to cut on the cricut joy

Although the finished result appears to be a 12×12 cut, by simply slicing the project down it is possible to cut and create on the Cricut Joy.

Hope this little tutorial was useful, take care, stay safe and happy crafting.

For More Cricut Inspiration Check Out The Following Posts.

Author

  • Sarah Christie

    Sarah Christie is the author of Extraordinary Chaos a family lifestyle and travel blog from a 50+ mum of boys, sharing Cricut Crafts and Free SVG Files, family travels, recipes, reviews and country living. Also the co-editor of Mini Travellers family travel blog.

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