How to Create a Custom Stencil Design with Cricut

My custom stencil design is sponsored by Cricut. Like always, the ideas and opinions shared are all mine.

I often see designs that I want a stencil of, but of course as is always the case when you want something very specific, I can’t find it. So after seeing a Moroccan tile design that I loved (below) and not being able to find a stencil design even close, I thought I would take a stab at designing it in Cricut Design Space. Most designs come from a combination of many shapes, some traditional shapes and some not as traditional. After playing with this concept for a bit I realized that even those non-traditional shapes were easy to create with basic shapes in Design Space.

I’m pretty thrilled with how my first go at a custom stencil turned out which I used on an end table for my patio.

Are you ready to create your own custom stencil? Hint: you don’t need to recreate this Moroccan tile stencil, if you like it I’m gonna share it with you (get it here). However this will show you the step by step concept for designing a stencil that will apply to the majority of designs you’d like to create.

How to Create a Custom Stencil Design with Cricut

Supplies

Directions

1. Add a square shape in a new project in Design Space.

2. Unlock the square to allow for changing the square into a thin bar (click on the padlock icon on the bottom left of the square). Insert a rounded triangle from Cricut images and attach to the end of the bar. Duplicate the triangle, flip it horizontally (a mirror image) and attach to the other end of the bar.

3. Select the bar and both triangles and weld the shapes together.

4. Move the newly formed pointed end bar to a 45º angle and duplicate 3 times. Flip 2 of the bars horizontally and position into a square.

5. Insert a circle and a tear drop from Cricut images. Duplicate the tear drop 3 times and resize and position the teardrops and circle accordingly. Weld all elements together to create tile.

6. Duplicate the tile and line up by overlapping the bars in the middle. Weld the 2 tiles together.

7. Continue to duplicate and weld tiles together until the custom stencil design is the size needed. In this case the table was a 13″ circle so I made my design about 10″ square (since the cutting mat is 12″ wide).

8. In order to create a circular stencil, insert a circle shape (in this case you would insert a 13″ circle). Click on the the circle and the stencil design to select them and then slice the image.

9. Once the custom stencil design is sliced you can delete the design outside of the circle and delete the circle itself.

Now you’re ready to cut your custom stencil design. Turn the dial on your Cricut Explore Air to custom and select stencil material from the dropdown menu.

Working with Your Custom Stencil

1. Cut the stencil on your Cricut Explore Air 2 on a Standard Grip Cutting Mat and carefully peel back the mat from the stencil material; trim to size with scissors.

2. Weed out negative space with the Cricut weeder tool.

3. Carefully remove the stencil from the backing and place on the surface to be painted. One of the biggest challenges I have when working with stencils or anything with adhesive is that somehow pieces of pet always end up stuck in my project. #Furbabymamahazards. I love the Cricut tweezers to easily remove them (the hair, not the pets) without shifting or bending my stencil.

4. Ensure that the stencil is snug to the surface and free of bubbles by gently pressing it down with the Cricut scraper tool. Then you’re ready to paint!

Here is how my end table turned out! You can check out the full before and after (it’s a whoa!) and the makeover process here.

What kind of custom stencil design would you want to create?

And yeah, I totally saw you checking out my new mint colored Cricut tools! 😉 The new Essential Tool Set has a bunch of, you guessed it, essential tools for cutting and general crafting. It has all of the goodies that the Basic Tool Set has (Tweezers, Weeder, Micro-tip scissors with protective blade cover, Spatula and Scraper) PLUS a Scoring stylus, a Trimmer for materials up to 12″ wide (I’ve been using this on the daily!), a replacement blade for the trimmer and a scoring blade for the trimmer. And they’re mint. Like my Cricut Explore Air 2. And my office. And a large portion of my closet. Swoon. Get you some!