Useful Resources for Vinyl Cutting

Our Bucket List of Tools and Resources for Craft Fans

We've put together some vinyl cutting resources that you might find useful.

This section of the site compiles all of the tutorials and guides we've published, as well as useful third party sites and information hubs -- places you can go to learn more about crafting from other experts and bloggers.

We've also included a selection of our favorite stores for grabbing cheap supplies. 🙂

Major Brands

• Silhouette -- Maker of the bestselling Cameo and Curio.
• Cricut -- Market leader in the crafts demographic with its Maker and Explore Air range.
• USCutter -- Mix of low and medium end professional machines.
• Graphtec -- Widely acclaimed high performance cutting machines.
• Roland -- Famous for 'Roland Reliability' and high performance.
• Sizzix -- Small crafts machines; maker of the Big Shot.
• Brother -- Maker of the popular ScanNCut machine.
• KlicNKut -- Cult favorite, maker of the KNK Zing Orbit amongst others

Where to Buy Vinyl Supplies

Amazon -- It goes without saying. Amazon has some of the best deals and bundles around. Very few retailers can compete with them for price.

Swing Design -- An authorized Silhouette dealer, they also sell huge amounts of vinyl from your favorite manufacturers and always have a good deal to hand.

Sign Warehouse -- Wide array of signmaking supplies including some hard-to-find accessories.

MDP Supplies -- Lots of vinyl supplies and some good deals on cutters. UK only.

Beacon Graphics -- A graphic supply superstore with everything from vector designs to heat presses.

Oracal 651 Vinyl: Best Deals and Discounts -- Our complete guide on where to stock up on the world's most popular vinyl brand

Software and Tools

• Sure Cuts A Lot -- Currently in its 5th edition, SCAL is one of our absolute favorite cutting software programs that's the perfect bridge between the basic programs that come free with Silhouette and Cricut, and more professional programs like Corel and Adobe. Available for a one-off payment of $59.99.
• CorelDraw -- Pro tools with new font management. Trial available, or $499.
• Adobe Illustrator -- Award winning tool can be purchased as a single Adobe cloud plan for $19.99 per month.
• AutoCAD -- An industry leader with eyewatering prices, starting at around $50 per month (for stripped down versions). Ouch!
• InkScape -- Free vector-based design tool. Export graphics for use with your vinyl cutter.

Resources and Insights

• Vinyl Cutting 101 -- the complete beginner's guide to getting started with vinyl cutting.
• How to Restick Your Cricut Mat -- Fed up of spending money every month on replacement mats? Try this instead.
• How to Use Cricut Iron-On Vinyl -- A comprehensive guide to mastering this tricky material with your vinyl cutter
• How to Cut Heat Transfer Vinyl -- Complete guide to the wide world of HTV
• How to Prepare (Weed) Vinyl for Application -- A nice visual guide for those starting out.
• How to Weed and Transfer Vinyl -- A complete beginner's guide to the science of weeding for newbies.
• How to Use Sure Cuts A Lot with a Cricut Machine -- Make sure that SCAL works for you, regardless of what vinyl cutter you're using.
• Work at Home Mom Starts a Vinyl Decal Business -- Want to start a small business? This article goes behind the scenes of one mom's successful vinyl decal business.
• Vinyl Cutting: Everything You Wanted to Know -- A blog by designer and vinyl cutting expert, Tay, which goes in to exceptional detail on her cutting preferences, tips and useful tricks. Highly recommend read!
• Vinyl Wrapping a Car: The Beginner's Guide -- It's time to jazz up your motor...
• The 2019 Guide to The Best Vinyl Cutting Machines -- A comprehensive guide we put together for those not sure what vinyl cutter to buy in 2019.

Extras

• 1 Huge List of SVG Files, Tutorials and Freebies -- Calling all freebie fans!
• Creative Fabrica -- One of our favorite online resources for incredible design elements, including fonts, graphics and more.
• The Best Scrapbooking Supplies -- Everything you need to get started.
• 1 Huge List of Where To Find Free Fonts -- Your ultimate guide to the freebie font world.
• My Fonts -- Load up on your fonts and get designing.
• DaFont -- Fonts... for free!
• Vinyl Ready Designs -- Selection of templates and ready-made designs for around $1.99 each.
• Peppermint Creative -- Commercial cuttables and heaps of vinyl-ready vectors that are approved for small business use (non-digital).
• Vector Art -- Catnip for vector collectors with dozens of popular bundles.
• Logo Shak -- Archive of famous sports logos from over the years. These are raster images so they will require converting.
• Brands of the World -- Very cool archive of famous brand logos; claims to be the world's largest free resource of vector logos.