How to bypass Cricut Design Space by using the Cricut Joy App to make easy and fast pre-designed labels to organize your home without weeding or transferring.
I have four Cricut machines, but it’s no secret that Joy is my favorite. Aside from its small and portable size, my favorite function is its special mobile app. The Cricut Joy app is separate from Design Space and has pre-designed projects for vinyl and paper. It allows you to crank out a bunch of cards, mini-crafts, and labels faster than you could create just one with Design Space. The label function is my absolute favorite, so today I want to show you how I made 26 labels with no weeding, no transfer tape, and in just thirty minutes.
Supplies You Need To Make Labels With Cricut Joy App:
- Cricut Joy
- Cricut Joy App (iOS | Android)
- Cricut Joy Fine Point Pen (I used black)
- Cricut Joy Smart Writable Vinyl
1. Make A List
Before you even open up the Cricut Joy app, grab a sheet of paper and and pencil and write a quick list of all the labels you need to make. This makes the process faster, easier, and keeps you from accidentally forgetting something or doubling a word. It also helps if you have a lot of labels to make and you need more than one roll of Writable Vinyl.
2. Choose Your Label Design
Open up the Cricut Joy app and choose the Label option. Scroll down to “Drawn” and choose one of the pre-designed labels in this category. The drawn labels are created with only a pen and cut out like a sticker, so you don’t need to weed or transfer with tape. It’s basically a handwritten label but way prettier (and faster) than if you wrote them all out by hand yourself.
3. Add Your Label List
Here’s the best feature of the Cricut Joy app. All you have to do is type in all the label text in separate boxes and the app will adjust the font sizes to fit each label on its own. In Design Space, you have to do this manually which is really time consuming. But the app takes all the work out of the equation.
You can customize your label by changing the font, color, and measurements if you want to tweak the design a bit. There are minimums and maximums for sizing, but it will tell you if you went too big or too small. Typically I just leave them the way they are to save time though.
4. Insert Cricut Joy Smart Writable Vinyl
Once your labels are all ready to go, you’ll be prompted to verify the length needed for your labels and insert a roll of Cricut Joy Smart Writable Vinyl. One roll is a little under 48″ long, so if you’re making lots of labels, you may have to go back and remove a few to make them fit. I had to do this with mine, because I was only able to fit 14 labels on one roll.
Cricut Joy Smart Writable Vinyl does not require a mat, so you just feed the front of the roll right into the machine and it will pull it through to check the length. I like to use my Joy in the floor for big projects like this so the long rolls of vinyl can just slide across the floor without hanging off a table and potentially getting bent or smeared.
5. Cricut Joy Writes Labels Before Cutting
After Cricut Joy verifies that there’s enough material, it will start to write all the labels with the Cricut Joy pen. It always writes first, so make sure you have removed the blade and inserted the pen before you hit “Go.” Once all the labels are written, you’ll be prompted in the app to swap the pen for the blade. Do not tap the unload button! Leave the vinyl where it is and just add the blade back in, then click “Go” again.
Cricut Joy will go back through and cut around all your labels to make them an easy-to-peel sticker. If you accidentally unload the vinyl during the pen-to-blade swap, you have to start over. The app doesn’t allow you to skip the writing step and just cut, and it’s impossible to get the vinyl to line up again anyway. (I totally made this mistake more than once, and it’s super annoying to start over. All those times I was semi-distracted, so make sure you are paying attention during the swap phase)
6. Peel And Stick Labels Onto Containers
After your labels have been cut, they’re ready to stick onto your containers. You don’t need any transfer tape, you don’t need to weed any excess vinyl, they’re immediately ready to go. Just peel the label off the backing and stick it on your bins. Make sure to smooth them on carefully and evenly to avoid bubbles. You can use a scraper tool if you’d like, but I usually just use my fingers.
More On Cricut Joy, Smart Materials, And The App
For a full detailed post all about the Cricut Joy (and another labeling project), this review has you covered with everything you need to know. I wrote it right when the Joy first launched, and I was even taught how to use it by the Cricut team two months before it was released. I also wrote this post about what Smart Materials are and how they work, and this post explaining exactly how to use the Cricut Joy app.
I add new Cricut projects and tutorials weekly, so make sure you sign up for my email updates below so you don’t miss them! I’ll even send you a free Cricut Font Guide to help you choose and pair fonts in Design Space. Just drop your name and email below and I’ll send it right over.
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