As much as welding in Cricut Design Space is a good thing, unfortunately, there’s no “unweld” button. There are work-arounds, however, that allow you to backtrack if you catch your mistakes in time.
Even if the “undo” button brings you back too far (or not far enough), you can always create a save point to return to if need be. As long as “you have not saved and closed your project,” there are steps you can take to unweld in Cricut Design Space.
If you’ve wanted to know how to unweld your designs in Cricut Design Space, this article guides you through the process.
From alternative methods to workarounds, we’ll show you exactly what you can do to detach pieces of your project that have been welded together.
Metal welding might be semi-permanent, but Cricut welding doesn’t have to be.
What is Welding in Cricut Design Space
If you’ve played around enough in Cricut Design Space, you’ve figured out that there are a lot of different actions you can perform and many more shapes you can create. Welding in Cricut’s design software simply refers to a process that allows you “to join shapes to create a single customized image by removing any overlapping cut lines.” With a single button, multiple shapes can connect into one.
Most crafters use the “weld” button in Design Space to create simpler shapes, manipulate text, and/or create complex shapes from basic ones. Text that is too far apart when typed can be joined together with the weld button for better cutting results. The more you use the weld button, the clearer the value of this feature becomes.
Examples of Welding in Cricut Design Space
“Welding” might sound like a complicated word when it comes to crafting and cutting on your Cricut machine. But when you boil it down, the weld feature can really help you do a lot.
For instance, let’s say you wanted to create a cartoon mouse face. After drawing a circle for the face, you could draw two smaller, identical circles for the ears. Rather than having the ears sit right on top of the circle representing the head, perhaps you want them to sit a bit further in to look like they’re attached.
This is where the weld button makes life easier. Simply place the ears relative to the head where you want them to be. Then, select all three circles and click the weld button. You should see any overlapping lines disappear, and the three circles (which are now one) should be the same color.
Welding vs. Attaching and Grouping
There are two other features in Cricut Design Space that perform similar functions to the weld button. You might find yourself turning to these features instead of the weld button, depending on your application.
Attaching images together in Cricut Design Space “holds your cuts in position relative to one another.” This allows you to keep the exact spacing and orientation from the Design Space screen to the printing mat. The software itself already tries to make the most of your material, but sometimes having a set cut pattern is key to your design.
The other feature, grouping, simply allows you to edit images quickly. It’s a great way to save time if you’re performing multiple functions to every single image in your Design Space workspace. Much like selecting an area in Microsoft Paint, grouping images together just requires selecting them in a large box and then performing your desired action.
As you can see, these two alternatives of attaching and grouping could help you unweld in Cricut Design Space or in any step of your design process.
How to Unweld in Cricut Design Space
As of the writing of this article, no button exists in Cricut Design Space that allows you to unweld. Once you’ve welded two or more images together, you can easily reverse the action by clicking the undo button. However, if you’re further along in your design and then remember you need to unweld those images for whatever reason, you’ll have to undo every single change until that point.
The one caveat to this “undo” method is that if you save and quit your design, those steps you took to create your piece will be lost. You will not be able to go back and undo those changes after the program has saved and quit. If you find yourself in this pickle, you might want to try one of the following alternatives.
Alternatives to Unwelding in Cricut Design Space
Besides the undo or back button, there are a few ways you can create safety nets for unwelding. If you don’t know how to unweld in Cricut Design Space, these other methods may get you to a better point in your design where you don’t lose everything you worked so hard on.
The first method is to attach images instead of welding them. As we discussed, attaching them simply associates them together so that you can move them as a single unit. You can always detach them later on and use the welding method as a final action when necessary.
You can also slice out the section of your design that is wrong and repair it. Using the “slice” feature will basically cut a hole in your design where you specify. This will allow you to create something new in that space, which can be welded afterward if need be. Slicing requires a bit of thinking through your process, but it’s a good alternative to starting over.
Finally, you can also create save points for your design. These will allow you to go back to a certain point and begin your design again. You might be further back in a particular design than you want to be if you use this method, but again, it’s a much better way to go than starting from scratch.
Welding and Unwelding in Cricut Design Space
We hope you’ve found this article on how to unweld in Cricut Design Space useful. Creating your own designs and cutting them out on your very own machine can be lots of fun. But when things get tricky, it’s good to know that you can work around the lack of an “unweld” button to get where you need to go.
Practice it a few times and you’ll know exactly what to do if you find yourself in need of unwelding. Happy designing!
