by Jessi Wohlwend
This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of Cricut. All opinions are 100% mine.
Looking for quick and easy organization tips for your home? Check out these five simple projects you can do to organize your home using your Cricut Joy!
Organizing your home can feel like a never-ending task, but you don’t have to do it all at once! Tackle things one small step at a time and you’ll find yourself more organized every day.
I love using my Cricut Joy to help me get organized around the house. It’s so small and portable; I can set it up in less than a minute and have it write and cut labels in 15 minutes or less. And I don’t even need a mat to cut stuff! I just plug it in, open up a project in the Design Space app on my phone, load a sheet of material directly into the machine, press Go, and it cuts it out in minutes!
I was a little wary at first about the Cricut Joy since I already have a Maker and an Explore Air. But it turns out the Joy is the perfect complement to the larger machines! I can leave the Cricut Joy on a bookshelf in the living room and it’s cute and unobtrusive. I can set it up on the dining room table when I need to whip up a quick project; no craft room required! I leave my larger machines set up in my home office along with my desktop computer, and when I’m working on a large project I use those, but the Joy is the perfect grab-and-go machine for quick stuff.
Here are five simple ways to organize your home using a Cricut Joy that you can do in just minutes!
5 Simple Home Organization Ideas Made With The Cricut Joy
1. Make a lint bin for your laundry room
The laundry room in our house is TINY! Like, it’s just barely big enough for a washer and dryer next to each other, with about two feet in front of them so the machine doors can open. But you can’t open the door into the house at the same time as the dryer door; the doors run into each other!
There is clearly no room for a trash can in there on the floor, so I decided we needed a wall-mounted trash bin for the laundry room. I snagged a little metal mailbox online and decorated it, and voila: instant laundry room lint bin!
Make A Laundry Room Lint Bin With A Cricut Joy
Materials
Instructions
- Open the lint bin graphic in Cricut Design Space. Select the graphic and click the Edit button, then change the size as needed.
- Select "Without Mat" for the load type. (Always use this setting when cutting Smart materials with a Cricut Joy.)
- Make sure the preview of the cut looks correct, then tap Continue in the lower right corner.
- Select "Smart Vinyl – Removable" as the material.
- Make sure the fine point blade is loaded into your Cricut Joy.
- Load the Smart Vinyl into the Cricut Joy.
- Tap Go to begin the cut.
- Tap "Unload" to unload the material from the Cricut Joy when the cut is complete.
- Weed away any extra background vinyl using the weeder tool.
- Trim a piece of transfer tape to the same size as the Lint Bin decal.
- Peel the paper backing off of the clear transfer tape, then position the tape on top of the Lint Bin decal.
- Press the transfer tape firmly onto the adhesive vinyl (use the scraper tool if you want), then carefully peel back a corner of the transfer tape. The adhesive vinyl should come off the paper backing along with the transfer tape.
- Position the Lint Bin decal on the front of the mailbox and press down firmly using the scraper tool.
- Carefully peel up the clear transfer tape, leaving the adhesive vinyl decal stuck to the mailbox.
- Install the mailbox on the wall in your laundry room, and you're done!
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Create Account2. Organize the trunk of your car with hanging caddies
If it feels like the back seat and trunk of our car is always a huge mess, try adding some hanging organizers to get things up off the floor and put away! There are tons of hanging shower caddy organizers that have a bunch of large pockets that are perfect for this.
Hang one or two over the back of the seat from the headrest, and you’ve got instant organization! You can have a little section for snacks, hand wipes, tissues, sunscreen, bug spray, snacks, and anything else you can think of. Make some super quick labels with your Cricut Joy and even the kids can help keep things organized because they’ll know where everything goes!
3. Make pantry labels for your containers
With the kids staying home for Quarantine 2020, I realized our pantry needs a bit of organization help! It feels like they are ALWAYS hungry, so I made a quick snack station on the back of the pantry door. I put a bunch of snacks into OXO pop containers, made cute labels with my Cricut Joy, and put them on hanging shelves on the back of the door so that the kids can easily grab a snack when they want one.
How To Make Pantry Labels With A Cricut Joy
Materials
Instructions
- Open the pantry labels project in Cricut Design Space.
- To modify the text of any label, select the label, click the Actions button, then choose Detach. Change the text as needed, then select both the label shape and the text, click the Actions button, then choose Attach to reattach the text to the label. Tap Make It when you're ready to make your labels.
- Choose your Cricut Joy machine from the list to connect to it.
- Select "Without Mat" for the load type. (Always use this setting when cutting Smart materials with a Cricut Joy.)
- Make sure the preview of the cut looks correct. If the labels aren't efficiently placed you can tap an individual label and rotate it using the rotate handle at one corner. Then position the labels to maximize space on your roll of labels.
- Once the labels are positioned how you want them, tap Continue in the lower right corner.
- Select "Smart Label – Writable Vinyl" as the material.
- Make sure you have the correct tools installed in your Cricut Joy and the other tools listed under Additional Tools.
- Load the pen into the Cricut Joy.
- Load the Smart Label into the Cricut Joy.
- Tap Go to begin the cut.
- When the drawing portion is finished, remove the Cricut Joy pen and install the fine point blade instead. Tap Go to continue the cut.
- Tap "Unload" to unload the material from the Cricut Joy when the cut is complete.
- Peel up the labels from the Smart Label roll.
- Position the label on your container and press down firmly, using the scraper tool if you wish.
- Repeat until all of your containers are labeled, and you're done!
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Create Account4. Organizer your junk drawer with small labeled baskets
Tackle that junk drawer in your kitchen once and for all with some small drawer organizers! Pull everything out of the drawer and group stuff together, like with like. When you’re ready to put it back, grab a drawer organizer, make a quick label with your Cricut Joy, and put everything back inside of labeled organizers.
You’ll be able to find what you’re looking for and nothing will get lost just rolling around in the bottom of the drawer!
5. Make personalized storage bins for your entryway
I’ve been slowly sprucing up our entryway, because it gets pretty crazy with jackets, backpacks, shoes, and everything else! I started with the easy and obvious things like a bench for putting on shoes and some coat hooks so we can hang jackets, backpacks, and purses. And that definitely helped, but I added another piece to the organization puzzle last week and I’m really thrilled with it: I made personalized storage bins for each family member to go under the entryway bench!
The little bins are stylish and totally functional; now there is a place for hats, gloves, scarves, headbands, toys, and any other miscellaneous item that ends up living in the entryway that doesn’t hang well from the coat hooks!
Make Personalized Storage Bins With A Cricut Joy
Materials
Instructions
- Open the storage bin labels project in Cricut Design Space.
- To customize the name, double tap a name, then change the text in the edit box that pops up.
- You can also tap the Text button at the bottom and change the font or font size. Tap Make It when you're ready to send the names to your Cricut.
- Choose your Cricut Joy machine from the list to connect to it.
- Select "Without Mat" for the load type. (Always use this setting when cutting Smart materials with a Cricut Joy.)
- Tap the green text at the top of the mat preview, or tap the little square mat icon in the top right to open the settings screen.
- Make sure that Mirror is toggled on. Tap the square mat icon again to close the settings screen.
- Reposition the names if you want to, then tap Continue in the lower right corner.
- Select "Smart Iron-On – Holographic" as the material. If it doesn't appear as one of the default choices, tap the green All Materials link to open a list of all materials, then you can browse or search for it.
- Tap OK on the warning reminding you to always have Mirror turned on.
- Make sure the fine point blade is installed in your machine, then load the Smart Iron-On into the Cricut Joy (making sure the shiny plastic side is face down.)
- Tap Go to begin the cut.
- Tap "Unload" to unload the material from the Cricut Joy when the cut is complete.
- Cut the names apart with scissors, then weed away any extra background vinyl on each name using the weeder tool.
- Plug in and turn on your Cricut EasyPress Mini to the settings suggested by the Cricut Heat Guide. (In this case for Smart Iron-On and Polyester bins I used medium heat.)
- Position a name on a bin and press with the Easypress Mini following instructions from the Cricut Heat Guide. (In this case I pre-heated for five seconds then pressed for thirty seconds.)
- Carefully remove the plastic backing from the Iron-On.
- Repeat to make as many personalized storage bins as you want, and you're done!
Notes
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Disclosure: I received compensation from Cricut in exchange for my participation in this campaign, and my honest discussion of their products. But the Cricut Joy and, really, all Cricut products are seriously amazing and all opinions in this post are 100% my own. I would never write a post about something I didn’t think was useful or interesting for you guys, and Practically Functional will only publish sponsored posts for companies or products I love and believe in!
A.Rrajani Photographer says
NICE POST!
THANK YOU FOR SHARING
Rebecca Payne says
I love this. I love how you showed step by step. Thank you.