When I first purchased a Cricut Machine I was excited to get started. With a background in engineering setting up the machine and dowloading Cricut Design Space were the easy part. I am not a designer, so finding designs to suit my needs was the challenging part.
Creating Designs from scratch with Cricut Design Space is challenging and the designs I would come up with were too simplistic. I would find cute things on the internet only to have Cricut rip the material to shreds or not cut out the proper parts of the design.
Free Designs for Cricut can be found in Cricut Design Space. There are Free Images, Fonts, and Projects available that are perfect for beginner crafters. For Intermediate crafters there are free SVG files available on the internet that can be used as part of a Cricut Project.
Cricut Design Space is amazing, because it is compatible with so many file types ( .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .svg, and .dxf). The issue I discovered when using free images & fonts is that while these files are compatible, not all are optimized for cutting. In this post, I will explain how to find files that are both free and optimized for Cricut Cutting Machines.
Free Designs in Cricut Design Space
Cricut Design Space is the best place for beginners to find free designs for their Cricut. The images and fonts were designed for Cricut, so if you use the right settings for your materials, you will get good results.
How to Find Free Designs in Cricut Design Space
Free designs in Cricut can be found by using “ownership type”. If you do not have a Cricut Access subscription, “Free” is the correct selection. If you have a Cricut Access Subscription then you can just check the Cricut Access option at the top and this will reveal the thousands of images that are included with your Cricut Access Subscription.
Free Cricut Designs on the Internet
While Cricut is compatible with many different file types, I recommend searching SVG files for free Cricut Designs. Image files such as .png, .jpg & .gif are used in many different print designs and may not be optimized for Cricut (more on this later).
Many of the sites with Free SVGs require an e-mail sign up to use their designs (No Such Thing as a Free Lunch). If you find a site that speaks to your design taste, stick with it so you don’t get swamped with newsletters from different sites.
Some example search terms for Free Designs for Cricut.:
- Free T-Shirt SVG
- Free Halloween SVG
- Free invitation SVG
- Free Wedding Shower SVG
- Free Teacher SVG
- Free Baby Shower SVG
- Free Favor Box SVG
This formula works every time: Free ________SVG works like a charm. Insert the special occasion, theme, or type of craft you are trying to make and someone will happily give you a free design in exchange for your e-mail address.
Not interested in forking over your e-mail address, then ETSY is the next best thing. Cricut Access may also be a good option if you don’t want to use your e-mail for free SVGs. Cricut Access opens up over 100,000 images, fonts, and projects, but you don’t own them. When you cancel your subscription to Cricut Access, you don’t own any of the projects you made. It is similar to how when you down own any of the content you watch when you have a Netflix subscription.
I have run into issues with other file formats such as PNGs and JPGs. Design Space will convert them with no problems, but cutting them doesn’t always produce the desired results.
Free Images for Cricut Design Proceed with Caution
Cricut is compatible with several different file types such as .jpg, .gif, .png, .bmp, .svg. When I first started experimenting with Cricut Designs I would just search for Free PNG files or Free JPG files. I don’t recommend doing this until you have a few SVG or Cricut projects under your built as described above.
Once you have done a few projects you will see what makes images good candidates for cutting with Cricut machines. Image files designed for Cricut and other cutting machines have smooth outlines, avoid using fine lines, and are limited to two or three colors. This helps to ensure the machine is able to cut cleanly.
For a traditional cut-only project each color represents a different material and as a result many images designed for Cricut are layered with only two or three colors. If an image has 8 colors you would need 8 different materials to recreate it as a cut-only design.
The exception is print-then-cut designs. Free images can be incorporated easily into print then cut designs. In this case the color in the design comes from the ink in your printer. The only limitation with Print then Cut is that it you can only print on white matte paper .
Typically free images on the internet are for personal use only. When Crafting to make goods to sell, be sure to read the fine print.
Happy Crafting!