Plant Lover Gift Idea

These DIY Mugs are the perfect plant lover gift idea- just pair the hand lettered mugs with a tiny plant and you’re good to go! Download the free hand lettered designs to make your own with Cricut or Silhouette!

I love gifts that are both a little bit customized to the person you’re giving it to and a little bit cheeky. This plant lover gift idea fits both of those criteria and it’s dang cute to top it all off.

I’m sharing this DIY gift idea tutorial, the free hand lettered designs for you to use, and I’ve teamed up with some other bloggers who create amazing Cricut projects to share their gift ideas too! You can see all of their gift ideas and projects down at the bottom of this post… but first, let’s talk about these plant mugs!

They’re minimal and playful and the perfect gift for anyone that is a plant lover (like me!). I can’t help but think that these would make a great mothers day gift idea.

The first thing you’ll need to do is download and cut the design you choose to use. You can grab both at the link below. I have both ‘crazy plant lady’ and ‘plant parent’ available- and I think I’m going to keep both for myself, ha!

These files are PNG so they have a transparent background which makes them super easy to cut. You can use them for any of your personal crafting projects but they are for personal use only (and gifts!) so please don’t sell or redistribute the files. Any questions, hit me up :)

These files are in a zip file so when they are emailed to you, they will open and download the zip. Just double click it to ‘unzip’ and see the designs!

If you haven’t cut out downloaded files on your Cricut before, I have this tutorial which walks you through that, but essentially, here’s the run down.

Once you’ve downloaded the file (and unzipped the folder by double clicking), open a new project in Cricut Design Space. Then, click ‘upload’ and select the file (one at a time). click through all the options (you won’t need to crop or edit the images I shared), making sure to select ‘cut only file’ and then give it a name. Then, insert it into your canvas, size it according to your surface and hit ‘make it’!

If you’re thinking- what the heck is a Cricut Joy, I’ve never seen that tiny machine, here’s the basics. It’s a tiny Cricut. It comes with a fine point blade so as long as you’re cutting material like vinyl or cardstock, you’re rockin. And since it’s tiny, it’s cut width is of course… tiny. But it can cut long designs, just not wide. Also- it can cut with no mat! There’s specific material made for the Cricut Joy that can be used with no mat which makes it super speedy to pull off a project. Check out more about it here if you like!

To help the mugs hold up to washing, choose a permanent adhesive vinyl (I used the smart material, which is made for the Cricut Joy so you can cut without a mat). I have these waterbottles made with this vinyl that we put through the dishwasher for about a year now without any issues. So I’m trusting it for mugs too!

Once it’s cut, weed the design (remove all the pieces you don’t want to transfer to your project) and apply transfer tape. Make sure to smooth it down super well and then trim the excess off to make it easier to apply.

Apply the vinyl to the mug after peeling off the backing, I like to press down the middle first, then smooth it out carefully when applying it to curved surfaces. Smooth it down really well before calling it ‘done’! I added a tiny plant wrapped in tissue to finish the gift off. I’d maybe tie a ribbon to it before gifting and yes, if you’re wondering I’d like to receive this. Ha!