The Cricut Mats have clear covers which easily disappear in my craft room shortly after I let go of one. I saw several other Cricut users who resolved the issue of the disappearing mat cover by sticking vinyl designs onto the outer side of the mat cover. This solution also provides a place to practice layering designs - and if it doesn't come out perfect, it doesn't really matter since the purpose of decorating the mat cover is only to make it more visible. These aren't crafts that would be on regular display.
I have two green mats for my Joy. One is heavily used and pretty much good for just paper because it has nearly lost its stickiness. I have washed the mat a few times, which has helped to partially restore the stickiness, but it's clearly on its way to being non-sticky.
That less sticky mat has one of the single layer cuties on it to show that it's really light on the stickiness.
The new mat hasn't been used yet, so I decided that's it's a good idea to decorate the cover before using it. I chose the "Melody Cutie", which is a free cutie available in Design Space.
Since the Joy mat is 4.5"x 6.5", I decided to create her using the original size of the design. For a 12" x 12" mat, I would likely have sized up the cute to 4" or 5" tall.
This design has a LOT of layers. The layers panel serves to tell me what order to attach each layer of the design - just match the shapes from the bottom up to the top to see the order they go in.
After hitting "Make it", I checked the layout of each mat and determined the size I should cut each color piece of vinyl.
I scribbled the sizes down on a piece of paper because there were 6 colors to remember and I wanted to be sure I cut them all the right sizes.
Since the weeding of these designs is fairly easy - each had only a few inner pieces to remove - I was able to weed each color while cutting the next one.
The first color to go on is the light teal (which actually is more green than it should be but I don't have a true light teal so I worked with what was in my stash).
Next, the teal is applied. I find it interesting that each layer covers much more than the area where the color is needed. Part of this is to help provide some depth in the design - the extra layers make the flamingo clearly in front of the Melody Cutie.
This layer adds the mouth and blush and makes the antennae fuchsia. The rest of it is buried under other layers.
The teal makes the face by having cut outs to reveal the mouth and blush. The advantage of creating a design in this manner is that the crafter doesn't have to fiddle with carefully lining up very small pieces.
This layer begins creating the eyes. Its purpose is mostly to be the color for the little half moon shapes used for the pupils.
The white creates the whites of the eyes, and it also serves to help push the flamingo out in front of the rest of the cutie.
The second black layer defines the flamingo and finishes the glasses and eyelashes.
The little layer of teal creates the outer swoop of hair.
The next layer of fuchsia finishes the hair swoop and finishes the main body of the flamingo.
The final little pieces add the flamingo wing and the Cutie's hands.
I find it funny that the closeup of the mat makes the mat color appear different from what we see in the full mat image. Cameras can be silly (all photos were taken in the same lighting and location on my dining room table). At any rate, it's a cute way to ensure that I don't lose that mat cover.
HAPPY CRAFTING!
PS: another good place for cuties is on your machine! This other Melody Cutie is also free in Cricut Design Space and is layered in a similar manner to the one above.
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