As a Cricut UK Ambassador, I spend a lot of time showing people just how much you can create with a Cricut, from personalised cards and festive décor to quick paper projects and vinyl gifts. I love demonstrating easy Cricut Christmas crafts in stores and helping beginners see how simple it can be to make something beautiful at home.
But like most people, I know real life sometimes gets in the way. Between work, family, and everything else, I don’t always find as much time for crafting as I’d like. And when you’ve stepped away for a bit, it can be surprisingly hard to dust off your machine and get your creativity flowing again.
This year, I’ve been chatting with other makers about keeping things budget friendly and beginner friendly, especially at Christmas. Whether you’re making decorations for your home, personalised gifts for family, or Cricut Christmas projects to sell, everyone loves ideas that are quick, affordable, and achievable.
So I decided to challenge myself and hopefully inspire you too. Throughout November, I’ll be sharing a brand-new DIY Cricut Christmas craft idea every day, a bit like a creative advent calendar. It’s my way of rediscovering my crafting mojo, using my Cricut to its full potential, and celebrating the joy of handmade Christmas projects one thrifty craft at a time.
Updated daily throughout November – keep checking back for new Cricut Christmas project ideas!
Each one includes a link to the ready-made design in Cricut Design Space so you can make it yourself.
1. DIY Christmas Crackers
Kick things off with reusable Christmas crackers made from cardstock, ribbon and simple vinyl details. This is beginner friendly, budget friendly and looks premium on the table. Cut and score the template in Cricut Design Space, roll and glue, then tie both ends with ribbon. Fill with sweets, jokes or tiny gifts for a personalised touch. Use metallic or kraft card for different vibes, and add names in vinyl so they double as place settings. Quick to batch make and perfect for gifting or selling as sets.
2. Ceramic Baubles with Vinyl & Iron-On Ribbon
For this make, I used plain ceramic baubles and gave them a personalised upgrade with adhesive vinyl lettering and a custom iron-on ribbon. It’s a simple way to create something elegant and gift-worthy without spending much. The Cricut cuts clean, crisp lettering that looks professional, and the heat-transfer ribbon adds a soft, handmade finish.
Ceramic blanks are inexpensive and you can use leftover scraps of vinyl or iron-on materials from other projects. They’re quick to produce in batches, making them perfect for classroom gifts, teacher presents, or small sets to sell at craft fairs.
3. Hot chocolate Station
This Hot Cocoa & Gingerbread Station is one of my favourite Cricut Christmas crafts – simple, affordable, and totally customisable. You can resize the design to fit any tray or board you already have at home, or grab one from a charity shop, car boot or high street bargain bin. Add a few repurposed jars, some leftover vinyl, and you’ve got a cosy festive setup that looks like it came straight from a boutique gift shop. Perfect for beginners, and ideal for creating a handmade Christmas on a budget.
4. DIY Nutcracker Mug Set with Infusible Ink – by Fi Thomas
This adorable Infusible Ink craft brings a classic Christmas character to life in the most creative way across four stackable mugs! Sent in by Fi from Katy Lou designs. If you own the Cricut mug press and have been waiting for the perfect project to use it then this is the one! When stacked, the full nutcracker design appears, making it a perfect festive gift or statement piece for your hot chocolate station. Created using Cricut Infusible Ink and a little patience, this project is bright, bold, and guaranteed to make you smile every time you reach for a cuppa.
5. Believe gift tag with bell
This simple yet beautiful Cricut project captures the magic of Christmas with a timeless message from one of my favourite movies – The Polar Express.
Using your Cricut, you can cut this elegant tag shape and lettering in just minutes. The design works beautifully in navy and gold, giving it a classic festive feel. A red ribbon and small gold bell finish it off perfectly, ideal for gift wrapping, tree decorations, or handmade hamper tags. I used these on goodie bags filled with treats when we went on the real life train ride – one of our most memorable festive days out ever! I kept the tag and now add it to my tree every year as a memento.
6. 3D Marbled Christmas Card by Chelsea Barton
This elegant handmade card combines simple Cricut cutting with traditional papercraft techniques to create a stunning 3D tree design. It’s perfect if you’ve been saving a special piece of marbled cardstock for something truly beautiful – because this is the one!
Cricut Tip: Use the score tool for perfect folds and symmetry on your tree pieces.
7. Personalised Stockings
For day seven of Thrifty Cricut Christmas, it’s all about personalised stockings, the easiest way to add a custom touch to your festive décor without spending a fortune.
Hobbycraft have a gorgeous range of stocking blanks, including these velvet styles for just £3 each, making them perfect for affordable gifts or family sets.
Using iron-on vinyl and your Cricut, you can personalise each stocking in minutes. It’s a brilliant beginner project quick, satisfying, and ideal for using up offcuts or leftover vinyl pieces.
Font used: BFC Happy Holidays
Cricut Tip: You can bookmark your favourite fonts in Design Space, just like projects and images, so you can find them again easily when you’re in festive crafting mode.
Thrifty Tip: Try mixing metallic and glitter vinyl for names or phrases like “Santa Stop Here” to coordinate with your existing décor – stylish, personal, and totally budget-friendly.
8. Christmas Reindeer with Lindt Chocolate Nose
This adorable Cricut craft by Sarah is guaranteed to make everyone smile! These shiny reindeer decorations with chocolate noses are a fun and thrifty make perfect for stocking fillers, classroom gifts, or even hanging on the Christmas tree.
Sarah used metallic card and her Cricut to cut the reindeer shapes, adding a circular cut-out for a truffle to sit snugly as the reindeer’s red nose . Finished with a red ribbon loop and personalised names in vinyl, they make the sweetest handmade keepsakes.
Cricut Tip: Use the curve tool to give you text the rounded shape and then “Attach” in Design Space to fix the name position before cutting.
9. Acrylic disc decorations
Today’s make is one of those simple but beautiful crafts that proves you don’t need to spend much to create something gift-worthy. These flat acrylic discs are available everywhere online, and they’re the perfect blank canvas for Cricut projects.
This time, I went for a Highland cow design from Cricut Design Space but honestly, you can find just about anything using the image search function in Design space. If you’ve got a friend who loves a specific animal, just type it into the search bar and you’ll be amazed at what comes up.
My advice would be to use colour schemes to give out a festive vibe. These discs are very versatile in that you could use them as a gift tag and then these can be saved to use as a tree ornament. I also think they’re effective for displays – if you have a classroom there, an office in home or want to add branding to a display in a store then this is the make for you.
10. Candy cane holders
These adorable candy cane holders are so easy to make, I can cut ten tree shapes out from a sheet of 12×12 card stock and batch make these. I find candy canes tend to be available in all of the high street bargain stores at about £1 for ten. As a teacher these make the ideal class gift and Arlo my son asked to give these out instead of Christmas cards. I’ll also tuck them in to ribbon on wrapped gifts just to add a little extra sprinkling of festive magic.
11. Insert Cards
This project in design space has been used by so many ambassadors during festive Cricut demonstrations because we love to showcase how the card mat and insert cards are used. They really are so easy and quick to make and this specific project also uses the pen too. I went for a pink vibe, and you can see two different colour versions here and how fabulous the holographic card looks behind as the colour and texture shows through the cuts.
12. Frosted Vinyl
This project has been shared by Rachel, from Peopermint Creations – another awesome Cricut UK ambassador who claimed this cake stand as it was about to be donated by a family member to a charity shop. It’s so true that one person’s trash is another man’s treasure – especially when you have a Cricut and can personalise anything Every time I’m browsing in a charity shop myself I’m thinking of the potential every item has. Rebecca decided to use permanent adhesive frosted vinyl for the first time on this project and wow! An instant new lease of life and a perfect centrepiece for a festive show stopper.
I’m already imagining the possibilities – for Christmas gifts this vinyl gives the appearance of etching! I’m feeling really inspired and wondering what this would look like on my actual windows now!
13. Do you want to build a snowman?
For today’s project of my Thrifty Cricut Christmas series, I wanted to share a project the kids can join in with, and this is a favourite of mine.
We used transparent fillable baubles, and I cut snowman faces from leftover vinyl scraps black for the eyes and mouth, and orange for the carrot nose. After I spent ages carefully weeding the designs, we spent a cosy afternoon sticking them onto the baubles and filling them with white pom-poms to create a cute snowman effect. The beauty of this is you can mix and match the pieces to make some fun faces, and design space has loads of different options to choose from.
It’s such an easy, affordable project, low prep and a fab activity to do with the kids. Maybe if you’ve got a Christmas party or gathering planned with children then this could be an activity with a lovely keepsake for them to take home and a great way to use up all those tiny leftover scraps of materials. I know I’ve got loads of orange and black leftover from Halloween!
14. It’s not Terry’s, it’s Cricuts!
This adorable gift box is the perfect size for the chocolate orange I always look forward to at Christmas and this project has evolved somewhat in the ambassador WhatsApp group so it is a team effort but Chelsea has tweaked it so the design can be made from a single sheet of 12×12 cardstock. You will have to use a 12×24 mat just to make sure the cuts go right to the edge as it uses every single millimetre of space! Then it’s just a case of sticking it together and then making the adorable matching gift tag to go with it!
15. Wreath making
Today’s beautiful project is a little bit different – shared by The Crafty Lass – Paula Milner a Cricut Uk ambassador who has recently published a book filled with 25 Cricut projects. Each one thoughtfully designed to give a gentle start to your Cricut Crafting journey and currently available on Amazon. This wreath is made from cardstock and the shapes used have been illustrated by Paula and are available in Design Space.
In her book Paula features step by step instructions with photographs as well as plenty of hints and tips – valuable information for seasoned crafters and beginners alike.
Day 16 – Gingerbread Bunting
Today’s project proves that simple supplies can create the most charming decorations. With just one sheet of A4 brown cardstock, a white pen, and your Cricut, you can make this adorable gingerbread-inspired bunting. It’s quick, cosy, and perfect for adding a traditional festive vibe to your home. Whether you’re decorating a mantle, a doorway, or a Christmas treat table, this bunting brings that classic gingerbread magic without the mess of real baking.
Day 17 – 3D paper star ornament
Beautiful in their simplicity. It’s one eight pointed star shape cut from a thicker piece of blue card stock and then four diamond shapes which have a score and a cut line in the middle. These fold and slot over alternative points of the star to give a lovely 3D effect.
I used contrasting colours – plain blue thicker card for the base star and then a piece of candy striped cardstock from my scrapbooking stash and managed to get four ornaments cut from two sheets of A4.
Now as this design does utilise a score then you need the larger Explore or Maker for this…. However a little top tip is that the foiling tool for the Joy and Xtra also scores so if you have one of these to hand I made two versions of this project.
3D paper star ornament For the Explore and Maker link
3D paper star ornament For the Joy and Joy Xtra link
Day 18 – Christmas Eve Boxes
Danni from Pink Sprinkles Crafts has shared this beautiful project for the series and a magnificent tip along with it. The material used on these crates is actually iron on vinyl! Danni has utilised offcuts and scraps and put together a beautiful creation using images from Design space which work together to create a whimsical keepsake which can be bought out every year. Applied with the mini press we find that iron on vinyl adheres to wood perfectly for items just like this.
Day 19 – card holder and cutlery holder
Today I’m giving you two projects in one because they both use the same basic net shape. I had just a few sheets of this tartan cardstock which I knew I wanted to utilise to create something to fit the Ralph Lauren Christmas style which is trending on social media. I started with the gift card holder, because I wanted something which looks nice to gift my son his pokemon card packs and a Roblox voucher, and then I figured I would tweak the design and elongate it to make a cutlery holder too. I added a couple of cut lines to the larger design to thread ribbon through and make a bow and for the card holder added some vinyl personalisation.
Card holder for Joy and Xtra project link
Card holder for Explore and Maker project link
I love the simplicity of these designs and how they can be made on all machines again using the foil tool for score lines on the Joy and Xtra.
Cutlery holder for Cricut Explore and Cricut Maker project link
Cutlery holder for Cricut Joy and Cricut Joy Xtra project link
Imagine the possibilities with these – I feel as though I’m going to have to make a couple of different versions in different colour combinations as I can’t decide if I prefer traditional or candy coloured decorations at the moment
Day 20 – Tree ornament
This beautiful cardstock tree ornament has been shared by Samara from Gift Goonie and is a very simple layered cut from cardstock. When you search for ornaments in Design space there are over three thousand different projects which have been shared by the community, and each of the designs can be made as is, or edited so that you can adjust the size or add additional details. These are quick to cut and perfect to add your own themes and details to a tree or window display or can be used as a tag to level up your gifts appearance and make them look stunning under a Christmas tree
Day 21 – Christmas gifting
Today you’re in for a treat. Cricut ambassador Abbey has shared three projects in one video and showcases just how quick and easy they are – ideal for last minute gifting. Adding a name to an elf is such a brilliant idea. We have another awesome Christmas Eve box project with Iron on Vinyl and my favourite here is seeing how the Infusible ink pens have been used, every time I show anyone these at a demonstration it’s like magic is happening. The ink from these pens fuses with the material which coats the mugs permanently when heat is applied. You can use these pens in the machines (like Abbey does for the outline of the lights) or go freehand – so if you want the kids to colour their own picture for a truly personal gift idea then this is the one!
Day 22 – Infusible Ink ornament
These acrylic discs are very affordable and can create some wonderful projects. Here I used plaid infusible ink as I wanted to create that traditional Christmas vibe and I was really impressed with how the colours popped. In terms of the design it’s a simple image from design space and then I made a circle the correct size to fit, layered them centrally and used the slice tool, so this is something you could replicate with any image. I was really careful when weeding the design so I saved the reindeer inside to use for another project later on.
Make sure to follow heat instructions carefully and apply evenly for the best finish
Day 23 – Gingerbread House
This beautiful intricate design was something I put together to hold a battery powered tealight candle but it’s also equally as cute for a little gift box or 3D ornament. Again really simple to make from one sheet of A4 card and using my favourite white pen plus the score tool for nice and neat fold lines. I’ve put two versions up of this project so that if you have a joy Xtra then you can use the foil tool for score lines – my favorite Cricut hack!
Day 24 – Personalised shipping label
I’ve seen these all over social media and couldn’t resist whipping up my own version to use the print and cut for the first time this series. The full instructions are on the project – which involve a little editing to add your own name and address and then using the sticker tool to put it all together. If you haven’t used print and cut before and have a printer and sticker paper ready and waiting for the right project then this is the one – it’s so simple and effective!
Day 25 – Christmas Card designs
Today you are in for a treat as we are sharing not one but four different card designs in a square format for you. Made by Cricut UK ambassador Derna from Banana Moon Crafts. These are super effective designs which are cut from white card and then layered on to a contrast colour which gives a vibrant pop! These reindeer has some details for eyes and a nose which can be made from scraps of vinyl or cardstock. When it comes to card blanks I have picked up a pack of fifty 13.5×13.5 square blanks with envelopes for £3.50 and A4 packs of card stock for £1 from Hobbycraft which makes these around 10p each to make.
Day 26 – 3D Christmas trees
These trees are beautiful. A project shared by Cricut ambassador Diana Fallows for our series. Perfect for display on a Christmas Window or a mantelpiece. Made from multiple pieces of card which are glued together in a strategic way to create this effect. Diana has taken care to write down clear step by step instructions on the design space project and to organise the cut pattern so that it uses up only three sheets of 12×12 cardstock. This is one of those projects to take your crafting up to the next level and give any display the wow factor.
Day 27 – North Pole Straws
These little straw flags are quite simply one of my favourites. I picked up the striped straws in Home Bargains recently and just decided they needed a little something special, so I made a little design up which used an off cut of white card and a red and black pen. This is so tiny that you can get dozens on a single sheet of card. It’s double sided and folds around the straw and is attached with double sided tape or glue. I’m going to use these for my Notth Pole breakfast and just to give you another little idea – I’ve picked up some cute milk bottles in the same store to personalise at the weekend too.
Day 28 – Bell ornament
Cricut ambassador Paul from design and beyond shared these in the group chat recently – an ornament in Design Space originally by Almes Design. This showcases perfectly how versatile even the simplest of projects are – Paul chose to use this mirror card to create an eye catching effect which makes these really pop. Building layers of card for a project is a fab technique to practice and then can be applied to so many awesome projects – card making and cake toppers for example!
Day 29 Elf arrival letter
Shared by Charlotte from Chocolate, Cheese and Cricut this is a cute way to announce the arrival of the elves in December. Utilising the pen tool this is a really clever way to disguise your own hand writing and can be done in any of the machines.
Like all projects this is fully customisable so you can add your own children and elf names and then bookmark the font for use with other projects if you’re rushing at the last minute.
Design space has thousands of elf ideas if you use the search function and most of them are perfect for last minute ideas!
Day 30 – level up your gift giving
We are finishing this challenge with three different projects from Hannah at Planet sisters who was this inspiration behind this entire collaboration and whose makes never cease to amaze!
Last year Hannah posted a few pics in the group chat of the scene underneath her Christmas tree and it had us all in awe! No one does a theme quite like Hannah – but the beauty of all of these projects is you can adapt these to fit your scheme by using colours of choice.
Last Updated on Sunday, November 30, 2025 by Lavania Oluban