Custom Decal Graphics with a Cricut CNC Vinyl Cutter - Bee Kind

My wife makes custom vinyl crafts with a computer controlled vinyl cutter. She showed me the Bee Kind design on the wood laminate circle and I said, "that's niiice, now we need a Hive.Blog circle." In about 20 minutes she had one assembled.

The Cricut CNC Vinyl Cutter and Scribe

This CNC vinyl cutter is a Cricut. It connects to the computer, like a printer, with a USB or wireless with Bluetooth or WiFi - it looks like a printer too at first glance. This device cuts vinyl and calligraphy with a ink pen attachment.

Cricut Software

Images can be imported into the Cricut software - it can do some image editing, but sometimes it's easier to edit the image before importing. Image and text colors can be chosen - each color is cut separately from the closest matching color sheet of vinyl.

Cricut Cutting

The vinyl it cut to size if it's from a roll, placed on the cutting mat, and then the cutting job is sent to the Cricut from the software - very similar to printing to a printer. You can see the Cricut below, busy cutting the black vinyl.

Cut Vinyl Removing

First the excess vinyl is removed from the text or graphic. The vinyl has a sticky bottom for applying to the chosen non porous surface - these are custom vinyl decals, like on a car, store window, custom sign, or crafts.

Transfer to Transfer Paper

The vinyl decals get transferred to the transfer paper for easy application to the surface.

Transfer to Surface

With the transfer paper, the decals are transferred to the surface. These cork circles have a wood laminate that has the cracked wood design printed on it - my wife attached metal loops for easy placement on a wall, some people put them on a table with a small stand.

The Hive.Blog circle is complete, that's niiiice.

She has lots of other designs, most of them inspirational - gardening, farming, motorcycles, and trees are a few of them. A lot of custom design requests too, like family crests. These circles sell well for her at the craft shows, her record is 40 in a day - at $30 USD each, that's not too shabby.