Last updated on February 6th, 2018 at 10:10 am
Not sure how (or even why you might want to!) to use Slice in Cricut Design Space? Here’s everything you need to know about the slice tool, as well as sample images to show the results of different ways of slicing objects and shapes.
Welcome back to my series on the five tools in the layers panel of Cricut Design Space: Weld, Attach, Slice, Flatten, and Contour.
Today we’re slicing and dicing! Using Slice in Cricut Design Space is probably one of the more aggravating tools in the program. Not because it’s difficult to use, but because there are some quirks that can frustrate newer users.
The main purpose of Slice is to cut overlapping layers into their own shapes. First quirk: you can only slice two shapes at one time, so if you have more than two things selected the Slice tool in the lower right corner will be grayed out. If you find this grayed out, you may have an object grouped — use the Ungroup tool at the top of the layers panel to ungroup.
Let’s take a look at a few ways to use Slice.
- Cutting out a shape from a larger shape
- Creating interesting shapes not found in the basic shapes toolbar
- Trimming off unwanted parts of shapes
Cutting a shape out of a larger shape using slice
I went into Cricut Access and selected this tag shape and cute saying. I want to cut the saying out of the tag shape. Select both and click Slice.
Second quirk! Instead of just slicing the front shape out of the back shape, it actually creates three shapes. Your original top shape (in this case, the saying), the cut out tag, and the leftover from the cutout tag.
This is probably more things that you expected to end up with, but you can easily delete the extra pieces and keep the cutout tag.
Creating Shapes with the Slice Tool
One thing I like using the Slice tool for is creating shapes that are not available in the left-hand Shapes menu. This is similar to how we made the snowman using the Weld tool.
Let’s make a crescent moon shape. Using the Shapes toolbar, insert two circles and make one big one and one slight smaller one. Then overlap them — you can see that crescent taking shape on the left.
Then select both circles and click “Slice.” You’ll end up with this:
That, my friends, is even more shapes than the first example! Four shapes. The crescent I wanted to make, plus two middle pieces and the leftover on the right. Delete those extra pieces and keep your crescent. Easy, but definitely a bit confusing if you’re new to the Slice tool!
Trimming Shapes using Slice
Sometimes you will want to cut off a certain part of a shape. For instance, maybe I don’t want the tails on this arrow.
I can use the Slice to to, well, slice off the end of the arrow. Create a square from the Shapes menu on the left, and resize to cover the entire end of the arrow.
Ungroup the two pieces of the arrow (because remember, you can only select two shapes at a time to slice). Then select the rectangle and the arrow and click Slice. Like with the other examples here, you’ll end up with a bunch of unneeded shapes, which you can delete. But you also end up with the straight end on the arrow!
Hope you found these three examples of using the Slice too helpful! Come back next week — I’m going to be talking all about Flatten!
Cricut Tips & Tricks
Cori George
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Latrice Ford says
Thanks for the tutorial! It was very easy to follow and helped with many of the questions I have when using the “slice” option. I’m still having LOTS of trouble using the “slice” option with print and cut images from the web. It tuns the item grey when doing so. Do you have any suggestions for that, please? Thanks.
Liz, HLMS Reader Support says
The slice tool is a tricky tool to use!! Unfortunately on flattened/print then cut images, these are just a flat file with a cut line around the edges of the image, which is why it turns grey.
You’ll need to convert it to a layered file where you can ‘slice’ one image out of the other. Just remember that you can only slice 2 layers at a time.
I’ve also pasted a link to Cricut’s support site if that helps:
https://help.cricut.com/hc/en-us/articles/360009555953-How-do-I-cut-one-image-out-of-another-image-Slice-
Happy Crafting!
Latrice Ford says
Thanks sooo much for taking the time to reply to my question! I kept trying over and over and kept digging. Finally, I landed on Cricut’s page somewhere and read it cannot be done in the app! Voila! I went onto my desktop and it worked as described! Thanks again! You’re AWESOME!
Melisa Ramos-Janeway says
Your help was beneficial and easy to follow! Thank you!
We are preparing for a destination wedding and I needed to slice and with your help, I did it easily!!
Cori George says
Glad you found my tutorial helpful! :)
Susan McClanahan says
A cut file and square and still slice is grey. Im trying to make a word stencil.
Kaiyla says
Hi I am working on an iPhone. Does the shapes and slice tool not work in the iPhone design space app?
Amy Motroni says
Hi Kaiyla,
Yes, it works in the app!
Amy, HLMS Reader Support
Jen says
I may not be asking this question correctly but is there not a way to “draw” a cut path outlining the contour of an image that you want to cut around. This is for a tent display card where part of the image with brake the border when the card is folded.
Amy Motroni says
Hi Jen,
There’s no easy way to do it. If the shape you want to break away is easy, then you can just make a cut line for it. Then you’ll need to attach the cut line to the base layer of your tent card.
Hope this helps!
Amy, HLMS Reader Support
Rosalva Arredondo says
Hi, i’m working with a donut file which has three layers, the bottom “cake” part, the frosting layer and the sprinkles. I wanted to put the frosting and sprinkle layer together and slice out the sprinkles. I plan to cut out the sprinkles and make this all in glitter htv. how do i do this? thank you so much.
Cori George says
You should be able to ungroup the donut.
If the sprinkles are all separate, select them all and click weld before slicing.
Then select the frosting and sprinkles layers and click slice.
You’ll end up with three pieces—delete the two that are not the pieces you need.
Does that make sense? – CG