Cricut Gifts: Special Kid’s Artwork on Tote Bag

Make your own custom Cricut gifts like flower tote bags with your children’s artwork.

I’ve been having more fun using Cricut’s new product, Infusible Ink. This time I wanted to figure out a way to transfer my daughter’s artwork onto a tote to make a gift and it worked!

This opens up so many possibilities! I have always made Father’s Day T-shirts with my kids’ artwork but the transfers grow faint. I’m excited next year to have them use the Infusible Ink markers on shirts so that they will never fade!

Materials Needed for Flower Tote

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• Cricut cutting machine – always check prices between Cricut.com and Amazon (click links to compare!)  
• Cricut Infusible Ink Transfer Sheets
• Cricut Infusible Ink markers
• laser copy paper
• Compatible Tote Bag
• White cardstock and butcher paper
• EasyPress 2 and mat

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How to Use Cricut Infusible Ink Markers

You can use images in Cricut Design Space and color them in as I did for these cool coasters. You can also read everything you need to know about Infusible Ink on that post too!

But for this one, I wanted to try to add my child’s artwork to the gift. So I had her draw a few flowers with pencil and then she used Sharpie to make them thicker.

You can just have them draw directly on the laser paper, but since she had erased lines and pencil under the Sharpie, I uploaded it to CDS and had my Cricut draw it.

This is a similar process to use when making stickers with the Cricut print and cut function.

I took a picture of it with my smartphone and saved it to my Google drive. Then I opened the Google drive on my computer, downloaded it, and then uploaded it to CDS.

I used the erase tool in the top left corner to click on all the white parts. Magnify to get into the smaller areas if needed.

Once all the white parts are the checkered pattern, click continue and save it as either. Insert it on the canvas, click on it, and change the top left drop-down from “cut” to “Draw”.

I also added the saying which was a design in Cricut Access. Size everything to how big you want them by using the top right arrow circle. If you need help in CDS, make sure to check out my Cricut Design Space basics and Cricut Design Space 101 series.

Click Continue. On the preview screen, make sure to turn the toggle on Mirror Setting to green for both mats. Everything needs to be on mirror setting with Infusible Ink. Also, change the Material Size to 8.5×11 for the laser paper mat.

Once you click continue, make sure your machine is connected (the Maker or Explore family will work!). Select copy paper as your material for the marker mat.

Apply a piece of laser paper to a light grip Cricut mat. CDS will prompt you to insert a marker. I put a black marker to outline all of the flowers.

Load the mat when you are prompted and watch the Cricut draw your kid’s artwork! It’s so amazing!

Remove the copy paper from the mat, put it on top of a scrap piece of paper and have your child color it in however they want.

Cutting Out Infusible Ink Transfer Sheets for Cricut Gifts

Cut out the Infusible Ink sheet with the ink facing UP. There will be a setting for “transfer sheets” in the setting menu.

Remove it from the mat and bend the sheet until you hear a cracking sound. All of this is in the video so make sure to watch everything in action if that helps!

Pull out the middle of the letters with your fingers and the rest of the extra transfer sheet.

Trim around the edges of the plastic sheet.

Preparing the Tote

Turn on your EasyPress 2. I always use the EasyPress heat guide which will tell you exactly how to layer everything and what temperature you need to be at. For this, it said 385F for 40 seconds.

Trim around the colored in images. Since I was using a colored heart for the dot over the i, I stuck that right onto the transfer sheet.

Prepare your Cricut compatible tote! Put an EasyPress mat inside and then place a piece of white cardstock paper in between the mat and top of the tote. Roll the bag with a lint roller.

Preheat the tote for 15 seconds with the EasyPress 2.

Once it’s cool, lay the wording so that the ink side is down in the middle of the tote.

Since you are only supposed to press once and the EasyPress plate is supposed to cover the entire image, I pressed the images side by side.

So, I only put one flower on for the first press. Tape it down with heat resistant tape so it doesn’t move.

Put a piece of butcher paper over the entire images and press for 40 seconds. Let everything cool for a few minutes and then remove the backings.

It’s already so pretty! Since I had one more flower I wanted on, I taped it on and then covered everything with butcher paper. I pressed only that side so that I wouldn’t be pressing everything twice.

Wait for it to cool and remove that backing. The tote is all set to go! No drying time is needed.

I love the fact that I have my daughter’s artwork on my flower tote. Cricut gifts like these are one of my favorite ways to use the machine. I love all the extra touches, just like when I added my kid’s handwriting to my mom hat or transferred my Grandma’s recipe to an oven mitt.

This would be a perfect gift idea for grandparents, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day, birthdays or Christmas! The person will always have something that will never fade or peel off.

If you’d like to save this tutorial for later, simply hover over the top left of the image below and PIN It now!

Thanks for stopping by and have a creative day!

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