Totes Adorbs Book Bag and Summer Love Beach Bag Made On the Cricut Explore

If you spend much time here at Hello Creative Family, it won’t come as much of a shock to you that I ADORE my Cricut Explore. My Cricut has opened up whole new worlds of crafting to me. It allows me to take the creative visions that are in my head and turn them into reality, quickly and easily.

I think that last word needs repeating… EASILY. It is EASY to make beautiful projects on the Cricut. Those vinyl wall decals that you lust over online but don’t have the big $’s to buy… You can make them on your Cricut Explore. That designer kid’s shirt that you think is so cute but you don’t want to spend that kind of money on because your little one will stain it the first time they wear it? A snap to make on the Cricut. Those gorgeous design store pillows with the catchy phrases and big price tags… SO EASY TO MAKE WITH THE CRICUT!!!

Ages ago I was browsing through a store and saw a canvas bag that said Totes Adorbs on it. It made me chuckle immediately. I picked it up, looked at the price tag, looked at the bag again and thought about it. I wasn’t crazy about the font of the writing, the words were in black (and I love a splash of color), the bag was a simple canvas bag that you could buy for a few dollars at your local craft store but the price tag didn’t match that. The price tag had you paying for the cute, hip expression on the front.

What went through my head at that moment?

I could totally make that!

Cricut recently asked me to create a “Summer Love” project for them, and a Totes Adorbs summer book bag seemed like the perfect project. Cricut also has an adorable Summer Love cartridge collection on Design Space and the “Summer Love” design was calling my name, so I decided to make the bag two sided with a different design on each side. I have a  Cricut Design Space Subscription and it is amaze-balls!  Seriously, I couldn’t be happier with it! For $9.99 a month or $99.99 a year you get access to over 30,000 cricut images, fonts, Cricut projects and cartridges. It’s amazing. I’ve yet to search for something and not have an image come up for it in Cricut Design Space.

Cricut has a beautiful Brights Vinyl Sampler pack that is perfect for summer projects, with colors like Sunshine, Lime, Caribbean, Flamingo, Azure, and Grape. I needed an iron on product though so I opted to print my own iron on vinyl using Cricut Printable Iron-On.

Read on to learn how I made this Totes Adorbs Summer Love project!

Materials:

• Canvas Bag (You can pick them up in bulk on Amazon and even get them in some fun colors!)
• Cricut
• Cutting Mat
• Printable Iron-On (or Iron-On Vinyl in your choice of color)
• Iron
• Printer (if you are printing your iron on design)
• Cricut Weeding Tool (Optional but this definitely made weeding the Summer Love design easier.)

Directions:

Step 1. Pick a color/design that you want for your vinyl. I wanted to go with purple so I searched Etsy for Purple Printable Scrapbook Paper. There were a ton of great options. I loved the top left paper in this Violet Shabby Chic Scrapbook Paper Bundle from AMB Illustrations. It was on sale for 99 cents for the 16 designs so I scooped it up!

Step 2. Stick a piece of printable iron-on into your printer and print your design on it. If printing something like scrapbook paper that the image can be stretched on have your printer “fill the page” so that you get the full page filled instead of just a square in the middle.

Step 3. If making the Totes Adorbs Book Bag- Create your design. For my Totes Adorbs, I created a blank image using paint, then uploaded it to Pic Monkey. I then picked my favorite font off of my computer, and typed Totes Adorbs. You can download the Totes Adorbs file to upload to Cricut Design Space here.

3b. Upload your Totes Adorbs file to Cricut Design Space:

• Log into Cricut Design Space. Click to create a new project and then click upload image. Depending on the complexity of your image you can either choose Simple Image, Moderately Complex Image or Complex Image. For my purposes I usually choose Simple Image.

• Select and Erase. When you upload your image it will look like the above. Start clicking on the white areas/negative space (AKA areas where you don’t want vinyl).

• Blue checkered boxes will start to appear in the areas that will be cut away. Don’t forget to click your mouse in the center of letters, like the A,D, E and O. You can click the preview button to see how you are doing and use the zoom button to see if you have missed anything. When everything looks good, click continue.

• With the new Cricut Print and Cut, Cricut Design Space automatically preserves the images within the shape. You only need this when using the Print and Cut function. We’re not going to be printing this image so you can uncheck the box in the bottom right hand side that says “Preserve original image within shape.”
• Select your newly upload image and click Insert Images.
• Continue to Step 4

Step 3. If making the Summer Love Bag– In Design Space click Insert Images. Then click cartridges. Then search for Summer Love. Locate your cartridge and click View Images. Alternatively it can be found here. I remember the days when you had to go to the craft store and buy physical cartridges. I think it’s so cool that this can all be done online now! No physical cartridges necessary and it’s all included in your Cricut Design Space Subscription!

• Click the image that you would like to use and then click insert image.

Step 4. From here on out this is the same if you are doing the Summer Love or the Totes Adorbs bag. You’ll now be brought into Design Space where you can resize your image to be the size that you want it for your shirt. When you have it the correct size click the green circle Go button in the upper right hand side of the screen.

Step 5. Make sure your image is set to cut by clicking the image in the column on the right hand side of the screen and selecting the scissors.

Step 6. THIS IS A CRUCIAL STEP THAT YOU WON’T WANT TO MISS WHEN CUTTING IRON ON VINYL!!! Make sure that you click the “Mirror Image” button that appears in the box on the left hand side of the screen. Put your printed iron on vinyl so that your printed image is facing up on the cutting mat. Set the dial of your Cricut to Iron On, click Go and load your cutting mat into your machine.

Step 7: Once your design is done cutting, remove your sheet of vinyl from the cutting mat and weed the vinyl so that you have your design.

Step 8: Lay your design on your tote back and iron on according to package instructions.

Voila! You have a beautiful tote bag!

Want to make this project but don’t have a Cricut Explore? We have you covered! Cricut is giving away a Cricut prize pack to one lucky winner! Click here to enter!

Prize package: One winner will receive: One (1) Cricut Explore One™ Machine, a Brights Cricut® Vinyl Sampler Pack, Cricut® Transfer Tape, a Cricut® Tools Weeder, and a $100 gift card from Jo-Ann Fabric and Craft Stores. (Approximate Retail Value: $377.96 USD) Winners will also receive a Cricut® Material Sampler Package (contents will vary; retail value will not exceed additional value of $50.00 USD).Official Contest Rules

PS. If you aren’t the lucky winner, make sure you check out the Cricut Explore One! At less than $200 it’s a total steal! I guarantee, you will love it! Just look at all the fun projects I’ve made on it!

Tell me… What’s the first thing you would make on your Cricut Explore?

Disclosure: I am part of a #SummerLove campaign with Cricut. As with every post on this site, all thoughts and opinions are 100% my own.