Creativity shines bright with a custom nightlight

14 May 2022

Let your personality shine with this custom nightlight.

You really can customize almost anything with a Cricut machine. With a Cricut machine and a few minutes to spare, you can transform a blank canvas into a simple but custom nightlight.

All it really takes is a little bit of imagination. Look around your room, in your cabinets, in the back of your closet. What goodies are hiding there that would benefit from a touch of inspiration and color? Part of what makes Cricut so fun is that it gives you the power to reimagine nearly anything.

Take this Lion Nightlight for example. It started with a dark room that just needed a tiny bit of light. But when it was plugged in, it wasn’t just a spot of brightness — it literally illuminated possibility. A simple square stood there, next to stuffed toys and wildlife-themed books, just waiting for an idea to spark.

Cricut Design Space made this next part easy. There wasn’t necessarily an immediate burst of inspiration that made it obvious to design a lion to fit that spot. Instead, browsing through the ready-to-make projects, shapes, and images in the Cricut Design Space library helped wrap the maker’s head around some ideas first.

From there, it was just a matter of picking a final image to cut and then making sure it was sized to fit the nightlight surface area. As soon as that was ready, the “Make It” button was clicked, the Cricut machine cut the vinyl material, and it was applied to the nightlight in a matter of minutes.

Want to make it yourself? Once you have your nightlight and Cricut machine, all you need are a few supplies: some vinyl, transfer tape, a scraper, and your handy weeder tool. If you haven’t weeded before, it’s basically just the process of using a sharp pick to remove the excess vinyl from your design. Since you’re cutting your design out of a sheet of vinyl, any material not a part of your design needs to be removed before applying it to the nightlight. For this design, only one color of adhesive vinyl was needed but you could change any part of the design to another color if you want.

Once the material is weeded, place the transfer tape on top of the cut vinyl. Then, use the scraper to rub the transfer tape down to get it to stick to the vinyl as much as possible. This will help you lift up the cut vinyl with the transfer tape while leaving each piece of vinyl in the shape of your design. After you’ve lifted the whole design, you can place it on your nightlight and then use the scraper tool again to rub it onto the nightlight surface. When you feel like you’ve rubbed out any bubbles or wrinkles in the vinyl, you can lift your transfer tape off of the design — the vinyl should stay in place.

That’s all it takes to make your own custom nightlight! For more inspiration, check out Cricut Design Space for ideas or keep browsing the Cricut blog.

custom nightlight design in Cricut Design Space