Personalized Teacher Gifts - Back to School with Cricut

Cricut Supplies 

• Cricut Maker (you could also use an Explore Air 2 or Joy machine)
• Paper Trimmer
• Weeding Tool
• Transfer Tape
• Standard Grip Mat
• Permanent Vinyl - I used Powder Blue, Dark Red and Gold

Teacher Gifts to Personalize

• Leather Badge Holder
• Flair Pens (I didn't personalize these but they are part of the gift) 
• Pencil Cup
• Clipboard
• Disinfectant Wipes

How to Cut and Apply Cricut Vinyl

First, create your design. I used a retro font called Candace to write "Mrs. Nelson." If you need some help getting started, we have a whole post all about Cricut fonts which includes a list of my favorite fonts in the Cricut Access library! 

I layered two colors to give it a retro feel. 

Measure the surface of the item you're personalizing and size your design in Design Space accordingly. 

1. Follow prompts on your machine and cut vinyl.
2. Weed extra vinyl (remove from edges and inside letters.)
3. Apply transfer tape to the vinyl and rub until it's stuck. (How to Use Transfer Tape)
4. Pick up transfer tape carefully transfer vinyl to the surface you're personalizing. Rub it on well, then slowly peel off the transfer tape from one edge, diagonally.

If you're adding another layer, repeat the process again. Ta da! Hhow cute is that clipboard? 

Now to add stripes to our pencil cup,  badge holder and disinfectant wipes! 

Disinfectant wipes have always been a necessity in classrooms but now they are even harder for teachers to get their hands on! I decided to personalize a wipes container because it will look that much cuter sitting on the teacher's desk. I mean, is this the most useful personalized teacher gift - like, ever? (My vote is yes.)

How to Make Stripes with Cricut Vinyl - Using a Paper Cutter

I love my Cricut paper cutter (it comes with the Cricut Essential tool set) and use it all the time! It works so great for cutting pieces of vinyl.

Pretend that you're cutting a piece of card stock. Put the vinyl into the paper cutter and measure how long you want your stripe to be, then cut. 

Once you have cut the stripes, peel the backing off of the vinyl and apply it to the items. 

For disinfectant wipes, remove the label and make sure there is no sticky stuff left before you apply vinyl. 

Follow the tutorial for cutting and applying Cricut vinyl (printable version below) to make the label for the disinfectant wipes. 

After it is weeded, you can apply it with transfer tape.

Pro Tips:

Weeding and transferring small text, is much more difficult than big text!

My best advice is:

1. take your time. 
2. use small scissors to cut pieces of the excess vinyl from the sides while you weed so that it doesn't stick to letters and pull them up. 

Ta da! I love this lot of teacher supplies and I think our new teacher will too! 

If you make some personalized teacher gifts, we hope you'll leave a comment and positive review!