Easy Cricut Halloween Tag for a Cup

Vying to be the coolest house on the block by giving away awesome treat bags? In charge of snacks for your child's class at school? Putting on an epic Halloween party? Or just want to put a surprise in your kiddo's lunchbox? Whip up these cute Halloween Treat Bag Tags to dress up your treats this Halloween! And while we make them, I'm going to teach you a little about how the Cricut Machine works. And, if you scroll all the way down to the bottom of the page, you can enter for a chance to win the newest Cricut machine – the Cricut Maker.

This project is part of Craft Lightning Week. All week long my friends and I are sharing 15-minute or less crafts. Did you see my fun Cricut Antenna yesterday? Because this week, all the crafts are Halloween projects made using the Cricut! My co-hosts Angie from The Country Chic Cottage and Jen from 100 Directions are sharing projects every day this week, and we've invited friends from across the internet to join in. Check out their ideas at the bottom of this page.

Halloween Treat Bag Tags

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supplies for tags

If you want to fussy-cut (cut a specific part) of the patterned Halloween paper, you will need an iOS device (an iPhone, iPad, etc). I'll show you how to do this with SnapMat. If you don't have an iOS device, you can still make these tags, but you won't be able to center the designs.

Start by opening the Two Layer Circle Tags File I created in Cricut Design Space. Everything is all set up, so press the "Make" button in the top right hand corner. This will take you to the mat view. Tap on the second mat to bring up the inner circle of the tags.

Secure the patterned paper to the mat by pressing it in place.

mats for tag project Down in the bottom left corner you'll see the image of a camera, and the words "Snap Mat". Tap there. This will activate the camera. Hold the device level with your page, and line up the edge of the mat in the square. I had trouble on the white background, so I ended up moving the mat to the floor so that the dark carpet would provide better contrast.

snapmat on Cricut

Now you can tap on the circles, and move them into place to cut out a specific design on from the paper.

move circles

Repeat with all the circles, and then you can press the green circle in the bottom right corner to continue. Follow the prompts to select the correct material (cardstock), load the mat, and start the machine.

So how does the machine work, exactly?

When I describe a digital cutting machine, like the Cricut, to people who have never seen one, I describe it as a printer. But instead of using ink cartridges, it uses a knife to cut the paper into shapes. With a printer you can print images other people have created, or you can use software to design your own images, and then you send them to the printer to print. That is exactly what the Cricut does – but with cutting.

You can use pre-made files, like the one I created for these Halloween tags, or you can design your own files. And then you send them to the Cricut machine to cut them out. It actually does more than cut – you can put pens in the machine and have it draw for you, or use a scoring tool to have it score lines, or print a design and have the machine cut around it perfectly. But, for the basics, it is a printer that cuts instead of printing.

Once the machine has worked it's magic, peel off the excess paper, and the cut circles. Then put the background paper on the mat, and follow the prompts to load and cut this paper.

tag cut out

Remove the paper, and you're ready to assemble your Halloween Treat Bag Tags!

To assemble your Halloween Treat Bag tags:

Just glue a patterned circle onto the colored circle. Line up the hole with the notch for the hole to help you center the design.

glue on

Allow to dry. Then fill your bags with treats, and tie the tags in place. When making a lot of bags, I don't worry about fancy bows on my ribbons. I tie a clean double-knot, and then cut the ends at an angle. Looks nice without the work of getting a bow to look nice.

Tie on tag