How to Engrave Acrylic Using the Cricut Maker and the Cricut Engraving Tip

[Music] so [Music] hey crafty fam it's alex van over and welcome back to my craft room in this video i'm going to show you how to engrave acrylic using your cricut maker or your cricut maker 3. so i designed this tutorial for cricut maker users whether that's the original maker or the maker 3 but if you want to try this project using your explore air 2 or explore air there are some third-party tools that you can buy from amazon if you decide that you want to try them but whenever you're looking for acrylics to engrave make sure that they're not more than two millimeters or equal to two millimeters or 1 16 of an inch so when you're buying blanks be sure to be careful that they are thin enough that they can fit under the rollers of your machine i bought my acrylic blank and my base from 143vinyl.com and they always use two millimeter acrylic so that you don't have to worry about whether or not it's compatible with your machine so let's get started so in order to begin engraving acrylic with your cricut maker first you need to choose an image to engrave and i'm going to be using an image from cricut design space so i'm going to go to the design panel here on the left hand side and choose images and within images i already know what i'm looking for i'm going to be searching for a floral pumpkin design and it's this first one right here so i'm going to click it until the green border is around the outside and then choose insert images to add it to my canvas and next i'm going to resize it a little bit so that i can see the whole thing on my canvas you can also use the zoom function in the bottom left corner to do the same thing then while i have my design still selected as long as you have either the maker or the maker 3 selected in your drop down menu then when you go to operation you'll see all of the other operations that the qriket maker can perform so underneath draw we'll choose engrave and that will make this an image look the way that it's going to look when it's engraved and as you can see the leaves and all these other details are outlines because this is typically an image that you would cut out of vinyl and i'm okay with that because i still think this looks really really pretty but if that bothers you and you're looking for a single line design or something that's not hollow then you're going to be looking for a single line design so i'm going to show you one way that you can find them as well as what you need to search for if you want to find them on your favorite svg website so if you're looking for single line designs go into images again and under the filters change the operation type to draw only and that's going to show you how you can find all kinds of single line designs that are going to look exactly like this if you decide to engrave them if you're looking for these on your favorite svg website you'll want to be looking for designs that say maybe foil coil designs or some svg websites may allow you to filter them by single line but that's what you're looking for so that you don't get any hollow or any outlined letters or designs now next i'm going to show you how we are going to line up our design perfectly so that you never waste any acrylic getting it off center that's the number one question that i get from you guys about engraving so i'm going to show you how to fix that what i'm going to do first is go to 143vinyl.com that's where i bought my acrylic blank as well as my led base so i'll link them both down in the description for you in case you want to grab the same ones so i'm going to go under the blanks menu and then choose acrylics and then go down to led bases and you can technically click any of these to get to the list but i am using the led square so i'm going to click that one and then down in the product listing you'll see that there's a link it's not highlighted so it might be a little hard to see but there's a link right here to go to the download page for all of the svg files that coordinate with all the acrylics that 143 vinyl carries so you'll search for all the led shapes and then you'll click the one that you're going to be using so i'm going to choose the led square and it will direct download into my downloads folder so then i'll go back in to design space and choose upload and then upload image and browse then i'll go into my downloads folder and simply click it and then click open then i can upload the design and insert it into my canvas and one really cool thing about working with these svg files is that they are the exact size of the acrylic blank so for one thing in the canvas this is going to help us size our file so that it looks perfect on top of the acrylic but i am going to take this svg file and just change it to a lighter color i'm not going to actually cut anything on this svg it's really just for reference so you can make it any color that you want and next i'm going to click and drag my design over top or actually i will right click and then choose sent to front so i can put my engraved shape over top of my acrylic blank then i'll select both and just move them over a little bit and now i can take a second and resize my design so that it looks perfect on my acrylic blank i'm also going to zoom out just a little bit and honestly i think that looks pretty good i may make it a little bit bigger um i don't worry too much about taking up every square inch of my blank and especially if you're newer to working with these and you're not sure if you're going to get it lined up correctly the hack that i'm going to show you should work really well for you but if you're a little bit nervous about it you can make your design a little bit smaller than the blank or then you think you need it and that should take care of any error that you might have when you're getting used to this so once your design is all lined up and you like the way that it looks on your acrylic next you can click the green make it button and i'm going to be using my maker 3 for this project so i need to choose on a mat and then click done now you'll notice since these were not attached because they're not supposed to be that our svg file and our engraving design are on two different maps and that's how we want to get to this screen now i'm going to show you what to do next this trick has helped me so much and i don't i've never seen it anywhere i think i made it up i don't know but it's helped me so much with making sure that my acrylics are always in the right spot on the mat and my designs look perfect every single time so i'm going to start with the mat that my svg file for my acrylic is on and i'm going to click the three little dots right here and then choose move object and i'm going to click the mat that has the engraving design on it and then confirm it and the reason that we can't attach them is because we wouldn't be able to separate the mats um when we got here so you do need to leave them unattached and then move the svg file over to your mac and next i can line up exactly where i want to place my acrylic blank and my design and i can move them both independently so what i like to do is take my acrylic blank file and move it toward the center of the mat and i'll kind of move this one here in reference just so it's a little bit easier to see then what i like to do especially because i'm using the square is i like to line it up against one of these lines that's easy for me to remember so this is a three inch line and it's really easy for me to remember that it needs to be lined up perfectly with the left hand side on the three inch line then i actually might move my acrylic up a little bit so that the top of it is just underneath the two inch line so i'll remember that the top of my acrylic needs to go along the two inch line and then my left hand side needs to line up with a three inch line and then you can move your design around so that it's going to sit perfectly on top of that blank so i'll set it right here yeah i think that looks pretty good now here's the real key here though if you don't think that you're going to remember where to place it you may want to write it down or you can go ahead and pause and line up your acrylic on your mat right now because we have to move our acrylic blank spg back off of this mat because if we go to the next screen we won't have the option to use acrylic as our cut setting because your cricut can engrave the design but it cannot cut acrylic so if you have a cut image like right here that says basic cut if you have a cut image and an engraved image on the same mat you'll only have certain cut options available so now that everything is lined up i'm going to click on my led acrylic again and choose the three little dots and then move object and i'll just move it back to its old matte so that's fine it can stay there and then we'll move on to the next screen then once your machine connects because you have engraved selected you won't have a ton of cut options but if you click browse on materials and then search for acrylic you'll want to choose the acrylic thick two millimeter setting assuming that you're using acrylic blanks from 143 vinyl and that's another note i want to make really quick for you you'll hear other people say that the acrylic um can be up to like three millimeters in um depth but i have not read anything from cricut that says that it can do more than two millimeters so make sure that you're cautious about where you buy your acrylic blanks so that you don't mess up your machine what i understand is that some machines have a little bit of a higher um tolerance for some of their acrylic and some don't so you're always safe with two millimeter but sometimes getting any larger than that can be a little bit dicey so once you click the acrylic thick two millimeter setting then you can click done and we'll be able to engrave just this mat so then when i'm finished with this i'm just going to cancel the cut and i'm not going to do anything with this first mat i just needed to be able to use it so that i can see where to line up my acrylic blank so now let's hop over to my craft table i'll show you how to insert your acrylic tip and get started engraving with your maker to start engraving on your qriket maker the first thing you need to do is ensure that you have the right tool attached to your quick swap housing the engraving tip is number 41 and it looks a little bit like this and in order to attach it to your quick swap housing you'll want to click the button on the top of your quick swap housing and pull off whatever end you have on it currently i like to put mine in the little cubby of my machine so that i don't lose track of it then you'll want to click the button again and then push the number 41 tool on top of the tip until it fits securely i like to pull on it and make sure that it's nice and secure then when it's attached you'll open up your cricut maker open up clamp b remove your fine point blade and insert the engraving tool with the open gears facing the back of your machine [Music] then close clamp b the next thing you need to do to prepare your cricut maker is to move all of your star wheels because these move over top of your acrylic they can scratch it and they just scoot here along the bar so just grab each one and move them all the way to the right for this project next we'll prepare our mat and our acrylic blank so you'll notice that i'm using a strong grip mat for this project i highly recommend using a strong grip mat even though mine has cut some chipboard in the past this will work perfectly still for this project so i'll remove the cover sheet [Applause] and next i need to remove the protective film over top of my led acrylic you can see it looks pretty cloudy and that's due to a plastic cover sheet on the front and the back i'm going to leave the cover sheet on the back and just use my pin pen to pull it off the front side i always like to get it started down here on the bottom since this is the area that's going to go down into the base anyway then i'll pull it off and next i'll line it up on my mat exactly where i showed you guys in qriket design space so i know that my left side needs to go along the three inch mark and the top of my square needs to go along the two inch mark which means my upper left hand corner needs to be right about here so i'll just take my time lining it up exactly the grid lines on the map make it so much easier to tell whether or not it's straight there we go that looks pretty good to me then this next part is not necessarily required but i do think it's really really helpful i like to use a brayer tool over top of my acrylic just to make sure that it's really well stuck down on the mat without getting a bunch of fingerprints on the top so you can just roll the brayer like this [Music] to make sure that it's really well stuck down next you need either some painters tape or some masking tape to reinforce around the edges i like to put the most tape down here since i know that this is going to be covered by my base but you don't want to put tape anywhere that it's actually going to be engraving because that can mess up your pressure so just be sparing when you apply it around the sides i just like to do it at the very tip top as well see how i'm just barely attaching it to the side of my acrylic this really helps stabilize it especially when you're using an older used mat like mine that makes a big difference [Music] then once your acrylic blank is secured you can open up your machine and insert it underneath the rollers and if you have a third generation like my machine it will bring in your whole mat in and out to measure it [Music] and then it will detect the tool to make sure that you have the right tool inserted into your machine then when you're ready you can click the play button [Music] you may notice your tool spinning and lifting there in the corner that's perfectly normal during engraving [Music] then when your machine is finished engraving you can click the unload button and you'll see that there's tons of dust and debris on the top of my blank so what i'm going to do since i've already used tape to secure it is just use that same tape to kind of grab some of that dust and debris off of my blank so i just kind of put it on there like this and then try to pull it off the best that i can [Music] then once you've got a lot of the dust and debris off you can pull the led acrylic off of your mat and then i like to use my pen pen to remove the back side of the film as well so that i don't forget about it and accidentally leave it on there [Music] and once you pull off that protective sheet your acrylic blank is ready to go in your base and look so beautiful so let me show you what it looks like when you put it in your led base it can look something like this [Music] i have the wood base from 143 vinyl and i absolutely love it because i love that it has a little bit more of like a home decor look to it than the plain black base does it has this awesome remote that comes with tons of color options i know it's a little bit hard to see on camera i just think that it has such a nice look to it i also love that the base can run with either a cord coming out the back that has a usb at the end or it can actually run on batteries so you don't have to have any cords at all and i just love how it shows off your work now of course led bases are not the only option um for engraving with your cricut maker but i love all the options that the led acrylics have and i love how you can change them out for every season so be sure to get creative with engraving acrylic and i can't wait to see what you make if you haven't already joined one of my facebook crafty fans i would love to have you be a part of it so i'll be sure to link both of my facebook groups down in the description below if you decide to make anything using my tutorials whether it's engraving acrylic or something else and you decide to share it out on instagram be sure to use the hashtag diy alex so that i can see what you're working on and if you've made it this far in the video then i really want to get to know you on social media so please find me at diy alex van over on pretty much all major social media platforms also put links to my profiles down in the description below if you enjoyed this video and you want to see more just like it then be sure to subscribe to the diy alex youtube channel and be sure to ring the bell so that you get notified every single time that i put out a new video every single week but don't wait for next week's video be sure to check out this one next or if you want to make your diy dreams come true be sure to check out this video i know that you're gonna love it

Channel: DIY Alex

Views: 263,397

Keywords: cricut, cricut wedding projects, diy wedding, cricut explore air 2, cricut maker, diy wedding, cricut wedding ideas, crafts, easy cricut craft, diy

Id: QxWPkYps824

Length: 20min 1sec (1201 seconds)

Published: Tue Oct 26 2021