EveryCutFileFind the stacking order
An SVG is drawn in file order: each shape is painted over the ones before it. Our layered designs keep each color in its own group, written bottom first, and the design page lists them the same way.
In Design Space, Bring to Front moves an object to the top of the Layers panel and Send to Back moves it to the bottom, so read the panel from the bottom up for the order you stack. Arrange changes the order on the Canvas and in the panel together.
How Design Space puts the colors on mats
At Make, Design Space separates the project onto mats by operation and material color, so each color is cut on its own mat from its own sheet. On a mat, pieces are packed close together to save material unless they are attached, so neither the mat order nor the positions tell you the stacking order.
Moving or hiding pieces on the Prepare screen changes only the mats, and the changes are reset when you go back to the Canvas. For iron-on, Mirror applies to one mat at a time: check that it is on for every mat.
A worked example: the friendly ghost
Our friendly ghost has four layers in four colors. The shadow is the ghost’s own outline moved 2.96 mm right and 2.96 mm down, so the design is 87.04 + 2.96 = 90.0 mm wide and 82.98 + 2.96 = 85.94 mm tall, and a 3 mm crescent of lilac shows along the right and bottom edges. In Design Space it cuts on four mats, one per color.
| Order | Layer | Color | Pieces and size |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1, bottom | shadow | Pale lilac | 1 piece, 87.0 × 83.0 mm |
| 2 | ghost | Cream or white | 1 piece, 87.0 × 83.0 mm, set 2.96 mm up and to the left of the shadow |
| 3 | cheeks | Pink | 2 ovals, 8.9 × 5.1 mm each |
| 4, top | face | Black | 3 pieces: two eyes, 7.9 × 11.9 mm, and a mouth, 8.9 × 11.9 mm |
Weeding the pieces
After the cut, use a weeder to lift away the negatives, the material around and inside the design, leaving the pieces on the liner. For a decal the pieces are what you keep; for a stencil it is the other way round, and the sheet with its openings is the stencil.
Nothing in the four-layer ghost has a hole: the shadow and the ghost are one piece each, so you peel away the sheet around them, and on the pink and black sheets you keep only the five small pieces. The smallest is a cheek, 5.1 mm tall. The one-color version is a single layer with the eyes, mouth and cheeks cut out of the ghost, so you also pick those five holes out of the decal.
Lift each weeded layer with transfer tape: standard Transfer Tape for smooth vinyl, StrongGrip for glitter, shimmer and other textured vinyl.
Iron-on: press the bottom first
- Mirror every mat before cutting, so the pieces read the right way round once pressed.
- Set the temperature the Cricut Heat Guide gives for your base material and iron-on, and preheat the base.
- Press the bottom layer for 5 to 10 seconds with firm pressure, and peel its carrier sheet once it has cooled.
- Repeat for each middle layer. Before each press, cover any iron-on already applied that the new layer doesn’t cover, with spare carrier sheet, so the heat plate doesn’t touch it.
- Press the top layer for 30 seconds.
How many layers
Cricut recommends four iron-on layers or fewer, because each layer makes the design thicker and stiffer. The ghost has four; a five-layer design such as our bubbling cauldron goes past that, and its one-color version is the iron-on choice. Foil, glitter and holographic iron-on go on the top layer only; a foil top layer is pressed for 10 seconds.
From the maker’s documentation and reference works: W3C: SVG rendering order, Cricut: Canvas screen guide, Cricut: Prepare screen, Cricut: using Attach, Cricut: vinyl instructions, Cricut: Transfer Tape instructions, Cricut: layering iron-on.