Make Your Own Iron On Paper Transfers with Cricut

Today I’m really excited to show you how to make iron on paper transfers with Cricut Maker, which you can use for your embroidery projects or business.

The method I’ll be sharing with you today is by far the easiest and fastest way of transferring embroidery or sewing patterns onto multiple layers of fabric. And by fast, I mean SECONDS!

In just a few seconds, you’ll stamp multiple layers of fabric with just an iron on paper sheet. This method is a huge time saver, especially for small business owners.

Disclaimer: This post might contain some affiliate links, you can find my full Disclosure Policy here.

Since I bought my first embroidery book, I was fascinated and always asked myself how were these iron on transfers made. The ones included in these books are more than likely made by the typography that’s printing the book itself.

But the ones I managed to make at home with my Cricut Maker machine are no different and, to be honest, they transfer a bit better if I might add.

Watch the video tutorial and make sure to scroll down for the detailed step-by-step tutorial. It’s easier than you might think and I’m sure it will change the way you’re transferring patterns onto fabric.

What is the simplest way to transfer a design for embroidery?

The easiest and quickest way to transfer a design for embroidery is to print your pattern, turn it over, and then trace the design on the back side of the paper using a heat transfer pen. Then heat transfer it onto your fabric.

Pretty simple, right? What if I tell you there’s an even easier way?

A way that takes out the manual tracing from the process. So basically you won’t have to do anything. Just use your iron or heat press to transfer patterns in a matter of seconds.

Why use Cricut to make iron on transfers for embroidery?

Using a Cricut Maker machine to make your own iron-on transfers embroidery patterns is an amazing way to save time and create final professional-looking printed fabrics.

Because let’s be honest, hand-traced patterns will never look the same as machine-traced patterns.

Benefits for personal use

If you already own a Cricut Maker, then this is another great use for your machine. Along with many other amazing things you can make with your Cricut and fabrics, you can use it in your embroidery projects too.

A Cricut can do the tracing for you while you can focus on more creative things.

Time saved, means more time stitching and crafting!

Benefits for your craft business

Now here comes the major benefit!

If you have or planning to start a small embroidery craft business this is one of the biggest benefits of owning a Cricut.

A huge time saver! And let me explain.

If you have a small embroidery craft business, you are probably already selling embroidery kits or printed fabric. Each embroidery kit or pre-printed fabric requires you to trace and transfer your own design onto the fabric.

Hand-tracing the patterns directly onto to fabric is just not sustainable nor scalable. Trust me, I’ve tried! This will take up a lot of your time, a whole lot!

You’ll eighter have to find a production partner – which will cut your profit margin, or worse, you might even give up on selling kits (as I did).

Or, you can use a Cricut Maker machine to make your own iron-on transfers embroidery patterns, then use these iron-ons to stamp multiple fabrics in a matter of seconds!

While the Cricut is drawing multiple iron-on sheets you can focus on other tasks. Once done, you just have to stamp the fabrics. Remember each iron-on sheet is reusable, so you can stamp multiple fabrics using just one iron-on sheet.

So, in a matter of minutes, if you have let’s say 3 iron-on sheets you can stamp more or less 9-10 fabrics ready for your kits! Isn’t that amazing?!

Not to mention you can expand and even sell these iron-on transfers as an entirely new product!

Why not use the Cricut to print directly onto the fabric?

I tried this too! You’re better off hand tracing the patterns manually. The time it takes to make sure the fabric is placed correctly on the mat so it doesn’t jam the machine, with the time it takes the Cricut to print each individual fabric is just not worth the time.

Plus the outcome when printing directly onto the fabric depends a lot on the fabric. I wasn’t too happy with the outcome when I tested my Cricut with a linen blend fabric.

Might be better if using 100% cotton fabric, but again the time it takes to prepare and print on each individual fabric is much longer and not worth it in my opinion.

Tools and materials you’ll need

Let’s have a look at the tools and materials you’ll need for creating iron on transfers.

If you don’t have access to an Easy Press or any other type of heat press, you can use a regular iron, just make sure to apply a uniform pressure (without moving around the iron) over the entire area of the pattern.

How to make perfect iron-on paper transfers using your Cricut

The process and concept are simple. We’ll use the Cricut machine to draw our patterns on regular paper. Then use these printed papers as stamps to transfer the designs onto the fabric.

The trick is to use Infusible Ink Pens for drawing the patterns onto paper. Cricut’s Infusible Ink Pens will allow us to reuse multiple times these printed paper sheets.

Here is the entire process divided into five simple steps:

• Step 1: Create your embroidery designs
• Step 2: Import the design into Cricut Design Space
• Step 3: Prepare the SVG for print
• Step 4: Load the tools and materials and Make It
• Step 5: Transfer the pattern onto multiple fabrics

Step 1: Create your embroidery design

The first step is to create your embroidery design(s).

To save resources and time, you can place multiple patterns onto the same artboard, the same as I did. My artboard size is A4 and is matching the copy paper size I’ll be using later with the Cricut machine.

So for example, if you’re planning to make your Cricut draw the patterns onto a letter-size copy paper later on, then the designs should be mocked up onto a letter-size artboard.

For this step, you can use Adobe Illustrator, Inkscape, or any other design software you’re comfortable with. You can even create simple patterns using Canva.

Once you’re happy with this A4 mock-up, export the entire artboard as an SVG file.

Step 2: Import the design into Cricut Design Space

Now open Cricut Design Space and create a new project.

Click Upload on the left-hand side navigation, locate your recently created SVG file, and drag it into the Cricut Design Space. Click the Upload button in the bottom right corner of the screen.

Once your SVG file is uploaded, select it and click Add to Canvas.

And here is the A4 design I previously created. Same as earlier in the design software, my Cricut project size is 21 x 29.7cm – the A4 paper size in the metric system.

My Cricut Design Space canvas is set in the Metric system (cm). If yours is using the Imperial system (most US devices use the Imperial system) and you need to change it, you can do so from Design Space Settings, then Canvas.

Step 3: Prepare for print and mirror the design

Now we’ll want to ungroup everything and delete that big rectangle in the background.

With the design selected, press Command (on a Mac) + click the design. From the menu, select Ungroup.

Once everything is ungrouped, select just the white rectangle in the background and press Delete on your keyboard. We can now remove it since it was just a frame and guide for our design.

Now, select everything and change the operation from Basic Cut to Pen Draw. This is important because we don’t want Cricut to cut our design, instead, we want Cricut to draw the design using the Infusible Ink pen.

One more step before we click Make It.

With everything selected, click the bottom right Attach button. This is another important step, otherwise, Cricut will randomly draw all shapes onto the A4 paper.

Now, click Make It in the upper right corner.

In the left panel, from the material setting select the size of your mat and click Mirror.

When your project is intended to be ironed on, remember to always mirror your design.

Click continue and select the material you want to draw on. In our case, that would be regular Copy Paper 32lb (120 gsm).

Click Done and follow Cricut’s instructions.

As prompted, we’ll have to load the Pen in Clamp A.

Step 4: Load the Tools and Materials and Make It

From now on things are pretty straightforward.

Attach the A4 paper to your adhesive mat. Ideally, you’ll want the LightGrip Mat (blue) which is specifically designed for lightweight materials such as paper and vinyl.

I only have the green mat (Standard Grip) in the bigger size – 30 x 61cm, but if you have the smaller LightGrip one, that’s even better.

Load the Infusible Ink pen in Clamp A. I used the black one, but feel free to use another darker color. Don’t touch Clamp B, we won’t be needing it.

Press Load, then Go.

And now, let your Cricut machine do its magic.

Step 5: Transfer the Pattern onto Multiple Fabrics

Once the Cricut machine finished drawing the patterns onto the paper, this is what it looks like – multiple embroidery patterns on the same A4 sheet, the same as the mock-up we prepared earlier.

If you’re selling these transfer sheets, you can leave the A4 iron on paper transfer as is and just print out more and offer them as a stand-alone product in your shop.

If you just want to stamp the fabrics for embroidery kits or your own projects, then cut out just the pattern you want to transfer. You will also need a sheet of butcher paper.

Set the temperature on your Easy Press to 200C (Celsius) and the timer to 10 seconds.

I previously ran a small test on a piece of fabric, just to test the correct temperature for this project. If you’re using a different type of fabric, you can check the Cricut Heat Guide just to be on the safe side.

Place your fabric onto the EasyPress mat, then place the cutout pattern with the printed side down, and on top of all place the baking sheet. Be sure to avoid flimsy ironing boards.

Place your EasyPress on top of them, and turn the timer on. Apply gentle pressure or no pressure at all.

Once the 10 seconds have passed, the heat press will “let you know” it is finished.

10 seconds is more than enough for each layer of fabric.

I applied the same technique to the other layers of fabric.

Since this was a test to see how many layers can I stamp with the same iron on paper transfer, when I reached the fourth layer I noticed the transferred pattern was a bit faded. Still ok, but not as sharp as the previous ones.

What I did to make sure I get at least one more fabric stamped, was I increased the timer on my Easy Press to 20 seconds – just for the last layer of fabric.

It worked, I got the fifth layer stamped, and looking great too!

This is my last attempt, the sixth layer of fabric – clearly faded and unusable.

How many times can you reuse a single iron on paper transfer?

Now, the moment of truth! How many fabrics did we stamp with a single sheet of iron on paper transfer?

Five!! Five amazing patterns transferred in exactly 1 minute!

If this is not amazing, I don’t know what is!

Cricut Infusible Ink pens vs other heat transfer pens

Another thing that crossed my mind while realizing how easy it is to make your own transfer sheets, was if I could use other heat transfer pens than Cricut’s Infusible Ink pens.

I tested two of the most commonly used iron on transfer pens, the fine tip one from Sublime Stitching and the Sulky Pens.

Theoretically, it could be done since all these pens are more or less the same. The problem came when I tried to load other pens into Clamp A.

Unfortunately, none of the other pens fitted in Cricut’s clamp.

Are the transferred outlines washable or removable?

No. Because the Infusible Inks are permanent the transferred patterns are not washable or removable. The same goes with any other heat transfer pens, they are all permanent markers.

Thus, when embroidering the pattern make sure you are covering the outlines with thread. Also if you are using the iron on transfers for your business, always mention on the packaging the permanent nature of the printed pattern.

Iron on paper transfers – Conclusion

I hope this experiment helped you and you’ll be incorporating this small trick/technique into your process from now on.

If you own a small embroidery business and you’re a one-person show, this is the way to go about printing your embroidery kits. It’s easy, quick, and creates professionally printed patterns.

You can leave your Cricut machine batch print iron on paper transfer sheets, then transfer the designs in a matter of seconds onto your fabrics.

It took me one minute to stamp five fabrics. If I were to print multiple paper transfers using my Cricut, imagine the number of embroidery kits prepared in a matter of minutes!

Amazing!

While the Cricut machine is doing all the hard work, you can focus on other aspects of your business or just enjoy creating.

Iron on paper transfers FAQ’s

Download free patterns

Remember that you can download a wide range of free embroidery patterns from the Free Pattern Library and start stitching straight away. To access it just fill out the form below and I will send you an email with your password.

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Let me know in the comments below what’s your favorite transfer method. Or even better, come and join our Facebook Group to share your magic tricks.

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