Using the Cricut slice tool, you can make lots of creative shapes, more than are available in the Design Space shapes menu, and you aren’t limited to shapes, you can make text cut outs too. 

Once you get the hang of it and have navigated through the, “ahem”,  slightly challenging aspects of using the slice tool on your Cricut (more on this later in the post), it is great fun to use!

You can get really creative and make all sorts of fun things, like the cute t-shirt below.

how to slice on cricut

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Choose Your Shapes

First, open a new project in Design Space. I am using a Cricut Maker for this project. Then from the left hand menu click the shapes icon and choose the heart shape, then choose the star shape. 

cricut slice

Once you have both shapes, you can change the colors as shown below. This makes the shape cutting visual easier to work with (I love working with bright, contrasting colors!)

How To Slice On Cricut

Layer Your Shapes

The next step is to lay the star on top of the heart. Then resize it to make sure it fits inside the heart. 

how to slice in cricut

Once you have reduced the star to fit inside the heart, select both layers and then center the layers horizontally, using the align tool as shown below.

A Note On Alignment

Don’t try to vertically center it as well. If you also try to center it vertically, the green star will jump up and overlap the heart instead of staying within the heart shape. 

(Make sure the star is within the edge of the heart, because any parts of the star that go over the edge of the heart will get cut off when you slice. More info on this further down the page) 

how to slice in cricut design space

Group And Slice

Yay! Now we get to slice! First group your two layers as shown at number 1 below. Then click slice as shown at number 2 in the image below.

how to use slice with cricut

Once you have sliced your shapes, you will see there are now three layers in the layer panel on the right of Design Space. They are labelled slice result.

how to slice in cricut

Moving The Sliced Cut Out Shapes

Click on the green star and move it off the heart. You will see an outline of a star in the middle of the heart, click the center of the star and move it off the heart. Voila! The heart has a star shape cut out and you have two extra stars! 

how to slice on cricut

We are going to delete the pink star because we don’t need it. Then we are going to make the green star smaller, not by much, but enough to give a decent and visible border area between it and the star shape cut out of the heart.

Use the double arrow icon on the bottom right of the highlighted star to resize it.

cricut slice

Final Step 

We’re almost there! Position the green star inside the cut out star shape in the heart. One you have done this, select both layers and then click the align menu and choose center horizontally.

You will have to guess at the vertical alignment, and do this manually using your mouse, because the star is not in the center of the heart. If you click center vertically, the green star moves up, out of alignment and overlaps the heart instead of staying in the center of the cut out star.

And here is the sliced and centered star within a heart design! You can send it straight to cut 🙂

how to slice on cricut


Some Timesaving Cricut Slice Tips

There are a few things you should know when using Cricut slice, which will hopefully save you some time if you run into one of these issues.

Number 1

You can only slice two layers at a time. If you want to slice more than two layers, you must have a base layer and then weld any other layers you want to slice from the base layer (eg a square leopard print base layer that you want to slice a square, triangle and circle from. Weld the square,  triangle and circle before slicing from the square leopard print layer)

Number 2

If you have hidden layers and you are using the slice tool, the hidden layers will disappear too.

Number 3

If you want the top layer to stay within the boundary of the base layer, make sure your top layer is smaller than your base layer, ( for example, text over a star shape) otherwise the text area that overlaps the top layer will be sliced off, as shown in the image below.

how to slice on cricut


And that’s all for now folks! I hope this was helpful, please share the love if you enjoyed this tutorial!

how to slice in cricut


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