How to Cut Faux Leather with Cricut Explore
Similar leather bows are all over Pinterest. So I just had to figure out how to make them. I am going to share how to cut faux leather with Cricut Explore. It’s super easy. It took a little trial and error, but you can learn from my mistakes.
Where to Buy Faux Leather
Let’s start with where to find this stuff. My local Michaels only had two rolls of Cricut faux leather. It’s pretty pricey for one small sheet. I bought this pack. I got eight pieces for $12.97. Each sheet is 8″ x 12″. That is way better than Michaels $8.99 for one 12″ x 24″ sheet. I really love that when you buy the pack it comes with a variety of colors.
I also found this amazing faux leather ribbon at Hobby Lobby. It’s 8″ x 24″ it comes in some really cute colors and it’s only $4.99, but best of all it goes 50% when the ribbon is on sale!
How to Cut it with Cricut
I assumed I would need to use a Deep Cut Blade for this job. Wrong! When I used the Deep Cut Blade it tore up the faux leather. So, use your standard blade that came with the machine, so great you don’t need to invest in another blade. I did use my Strong Grip Mat. Put your faux leather face down on the mat.
Set your Cricut dial to Custome material setting.
Since your material is face down, select mirror on the screen when you are getting ready to cut.
Now you are going to select faux leather -paper thin. This is what threw me for a loop the first time. This faux leather doesn’t seem paper thin to me. So I tried the real leather setting. The Cricut applied too much pressure and tore the leather. Stick to the paper thin setting.
Your machine will cut through each image twice, so it takes a little longer than cutting vinyl. They come out beautifully! I’ll explain how to make the Minnie hair clips in a future post.
Learn how to cut faux leather with Cricut from my missteps.
- Use a standard blade that came with your machine.
- Faux leather goes face down on the cutting mat.
- Mirror your image because the leather is face down.
- Use custom setting for Faux Leather Paper Thin.
Get some faux leather today and try it out!
6 Comments
Miriam
I’m excited to start experimenting with faux leather. Do you have a post about how you made those super cute Minnie hair clips?
stacyq52
Hi Miriam,
I didn’t create a post on those Minnie hair clips, but I meant to. I just cut the Minnie heads and bows using the directions in this post. The white dots are HTV that I applied. One thing I noticed with the dots, the heat from the Easy Press “ironed” the pebble texture from the bow. You could use regular vinyl to avoid that. I just covered an alligator clip with ribbon with hot glue and used hot glue to attach the bow to Minnie and hot glue to attach Minnie to the alligator clip. Very easy!
Rachel
Thank you for the tips! I also picked up this cute faux leather to make some bows but appreciate the guidance on settings and blade! I have a Maker and your tips worked well on it too. Some spots didn’t cut all the way through but I think I just need to clean off my blade. Nothing that a little careful snipping with the scissors couldn’t handle.
stacyq52
Rachel, I am so glad my post was helpful! I have to remind myself to clean my blade once in a while.
Nikki Newman
I don’t know if it’s because I have the Cricut maker but my machine doesn’t cut the faux leather twice and my earrings come out when it being cut on one side. I’m probably gonna invest in a deep cut blade.
stacyq52
When I created that post, I had the Cricut Explore. Now I have the Maker. It doesn’t cut twice. I have found though that I have to select paper-thin leather and then change the pressure to more. The default setting on the pressure didn’t cut through the leather. I hope that helps.