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How to Engrave Acrylic with the Cricut Maker

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How to engrave acrylic with the Cricut Maker. This easy process allows you to make engraved signs, keychains and more!

Engraving acrylic with the Cricut Maker and an engraving blade is easy and fun. I love how these keychains came out, and I’m planning to use the keychain blanks to make labels for my fruit trees as well.

This will allow me to tag each tree with a label that won’t fade in the sun or fall apart in the rain.


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Please read the whole post so you don’t miss any important information!


I needed a couple of keychains for my new she shed keys! I installed a new doorknob, but I wanted to make sure I didn’t lose the keys.

Getting locked out of my craft space would be a crisis! I also made a couple more keychains for fun.

How to Engrave Acrylic with the Cricut Maker

This is a pretty basic process. I found that the most difficult part was lining up the design correctly.

The keychain blanks that I used were fantastic; they looked icky out of the bag, but I realized that they had a protective film on both sides that made them look weird.

You may also consider cutting acrylic with your Cricut Maker. It is capable of cutting materials up to 2.4 mm thick.

I removed those and they were crystal clear. Use your weeding tool to scrape the edge of the film up; it’s a lot faster than using your fingernails.

You’ll notice that the text tends to be cut like an outline. Some fonts are better than others about that. The only Cricut font that I found will cut as ONE LINE and not as an outline is Millennial.

PLEASE let me know in comments if you’ve found other fonts that work- I tried a bunch and nothing else did it!

Supplies:

Use the Discount Code DIYDANIELLE on cricut.com for 10% off any cutting machine or heatpress (no minimum). Excludes: materials/accessories/mystery boxes/etc. Applies to US/CA only, code expires 12/31/23.

Tutorial

  1. Remove film from acrylic blank if necessary. My acrylic tags had a film on each side.
  2. Place your blanks on a Strong Grip mat. Duct Tape material down on all sides.
Left: Acrylic blanks on Cricut Strong Grip Mat. 

Right: Moving white roller balls to the right on the Cricut machine.

3. Move the roller balls on your Cricut Maker to the right. These can interfere with cutting thicker materials if they’re left as is.

4. Change your design on Cricut Design Space to “engraving.”

Setting up in DesignSpace to engrave a design vs. cutting.

5. Click “make it,” and select the material.

6. Insert your engraving blade in your Cricut.

Adding the engraving tip to my Cricut Maker, then allowing the machine to engrave the design on the blanks.

7. Once you click “Make It,” you can actually reposition your materials and design on the virtual mat. You’ll want to eyeball your placement on the real mat and move the design around accordingly. Hit continue. Select acrylic, 2 mm.

8. Clean any dust or debris from your machine with a soft cloth. Use a lint roller to remove any plastic debris from your keychain.

After engraving, the blanks will have lots of acrylic debris from the process. Use a piece of tape or a lint roller to remove. Clean off your machine too.

Here’s a video of the process.

Ideas for Acrylic Keychain Blanks

The set of blanks comes with 50 keychains so you’re probably wondering what to do with them all. Here are some ideas!

  • Keychains for everyone and everything!
  • Tags for trees to identify them! I’m using some to keep track of my fruit tree varieties (you need different varieties to help cross pollinate each other).
  • Storage Tags! I used some to label bins for bedding. I was losing track of which sets were twin vs. queen vs. king size so I separated them into different bins and used these to label them.
  • Pet Tags
  • Luggage tags
  • Medical Alert Tag
  • Backpack tag with parent’s phone number.
Acrylic tags used to organize bedding in bins. Label says "queen" for queen sized sheets.
Acrylic tags used to label fruit tree varieties. These tags were engraved with Cricut Maker.

Please share and pin this post! If you make this project, share it in our Stuff Mama Makes Facebook Group. We have regular giveaways for gift cards to craft stores. You can also tag me on Instagram @doityourselfdanielle; I love seeing everything you make!

Acrylic keychain made with the Cricut Maker: The tag says "She Shed" and has a little roof/house above the words. Click to learn how to engrave acrylic tags with your Cricut Maker.
How to Engrave Acrylic with the Cricut Maker

How to Engrave Acrylic with the Cricut Maker

Prep Time: 5 minutes
Active Time: 10 minutes
Total Time: 15 minutes

Here's a tutorial on how to engrave acrylic with the Cricut Maker. This is an easy, quick and satisfying project. I LOVE how these all came out.

Materials

  • Acrylic Keychain Blanks: https://amzn.to/3fvbetl
  • Lint Roller
  • Duct Tape

Tools

  • Cricut Strong Grip Mat: https://shrsl.com/2yvyn
  • Engraving Blade: https://shrsl.com/2yvyp
  • Cricut Maker: https://shrsl.com/2h1d1

Instructions

    1. Remove film from acrylic blank if necessary.

    2. Place your blanks on a Strong Grip mat. Duct Tape material down on all sides.

    3. Move the roller balls on your Cricut Maker to the right.

    4. Change your design on Cricut Design Space to "engraving."

    5. Click "make it," and select the material.

    6. Insert your engraving blade in your Cricut.

    7. Position your materials and design in the right spot. Hit continue. Select acrylic, 2 mm.

    8. Clean any dust or debris from your machine with a soft cloth. Use a lint roller to remove any plastic debris from your keychain.

Did you make this project?

Please leave a comment on the blog or share a photo on Instagram

Google Web Story: Engraving Acrylic DIY with the Cricut Maker

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Whitney Wilson

Saturday 4th of February 2023

Can you engrave with the protective film on in order to add paint after engraving?

Danielle

Saturday 4th of February 2023

@Whitney Wilson, I wonder if the film will gum up the blade. I did cut a little with it on accidentally but I can't recall if it caused issues.

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