Use Cricut Smart Vinyl and your Cricut Joy to create this cute rainbow decor! 

I used my cute little Cricut Joy and Cricut Smart Vinyl Beachside to make this rainbow sign. All five of the vinyl colors I used were in one sampler pack of Smart Vinyl. If you have been wondering about Smart Vinyl and the Cricut Joy, this post is for you! If you have more questions about the Joy then check out my Cricut Joy post. 

WHAT IS CRICUT SMART VINYL?

Smart Vinyl is one of the new Smart Materials that Cricut released with the Cricut Joy. Smart Materials work without a cutting mat, so you can just load them into your Cricut Joy and cut out your image! Using Smart Materials, Cricut Joy can cut an individual, continuous cut up to 4.5 inches wide and 4 feet long, and make repeated cuts up to 20 feet long! For all other materials, the size of your mat is how large you can cut your design. Smart Vinyl needs to be at least 4 inches in length to feed through the machine without a mat. For scraps shorter than that you can use the cutting mat for the Cricut Joy.

CAN I USE CRICUT SMART VINYL WITH OTHER CRICUT MACHINES?

At this time no, Smart Materials are only designed to work with the Cricut Joy and are sized for the Cricut Joy Machine. You can use regular vinyl with your Cricut Joy machine as long as you use a Cricut Joy mat. 

WHAT OTHER SMART MATERIALS ARE THERE FOR THE CRICUT JOY?

Right now there is Smart Vinyl, Smart Iron-On, Smart Label Writable Paper, and Smart Label Writable Vinyl. I will have posts coming soon highlighting the other Smart Materials!

Okay, now on to the instructions for this cute vinyl rainbow sign. 

For this project I used a pre-made sign I picked up at my local craft store. I painted the back white. 

Supplies for Cricut Joy Rainbow Sign

Cricut Joy machine
Cricut Joy Smart Vinyl Sampler Pack Beachside
Cricut Joy Transfer Tape (Optional- I didn’t use it for this project)
Cricut Trimmer
Pre-made Sign
Assorted pompoms
Hot Glue Gun and Glue Sticks 

Instructions:

To use the same design I did click HERE. Make sure your Cricut Joy machine is selected and click on Make It. The screen prompt will ask how you are loading your materials. You can select: “Without Mat” “On Mat” “On Card Mat” and “Multiple Ways”. For this project, I selected Without Mat since I’m using Smart Vinyl. 

After you make your selection, this preview screen will come up. It will have your review your cuts and make sure you have the correct length of material available to each cut. Click on continue. 

On this screen you will select which kind of material you are using. 

Unlike other Cricut machines, there are no buttons on the Cricut Joy. You will load your materials in when the computer prompts you.

Select “Go” in the bottom right hand corner of the screen to start cutting. 

Cut out each color of vinyl. After you have made your cut, I like to use my trimmer to slice my vinyl and give the excess vinyl a nice clean edge for use next time. 

Carefully weed your vinyl and apply it to your sign. You can use your transfer tape for this step if desired. Since the pieces were small, I did not use transfer tape for this project. 

After you apply your vinyl, use hot glue to attach your pompoms to the sign. Now you are all finished! 

Do you have any questions about this project, Smart Vinyl or the Joy? Let me know in the comments below!