Free nutcracker SVG files

A soldier made of blocks

A nutcracker is turned from wood in pieces: a cylinder for the hat, a block for the head, a barrel for the body, dowels for the arms and legs and a slab to stand on. These files are drawn the same way, as stacked blocks, and the white parts of a painted nutcracker are the parts cut away: the curls of hair, the moustache, the teeth and the beard. Cut the soldier from red, blue or black and put white behind him, and the face is finished.

Every file is 100 mm on its longer side, which makes the soldier about 38 mm wide. At that size the braid on the jacket and the lines of the belt are cuts about 1.5 mm wide. They weed cleanly in vinyl at 100 mm; for card or wood, cut at 150 mm or more, or use the nutcracker silhouette, which has no inside cuts at all.

For the mantel and the tree

The three nutcrackers in a row are made for a mantel or a banner: cut them at 250 mm wide from card and fold a tab at the base. The nutcracker head ornament is a bauble shape with a loop to hang it by. The nutcracker with a ballerina is for anyone who dances in the ballet each December, and the nutcracker face fills a square, so it suits gift bags, shirts and cushion covers.

How to open the files

• Cricut Design Space: choose Upload, pick the SVG, and add it to the canvas. Set the width you want; the shape is already welded.
• Silhouette Studio: Designer Edition and above open the SVG. The free Basic Edition does not, so open the DXF instead.
• LightBurn, xTool Creative Space and Glowforge: import the SVG, then set the layer to cut, score or engrave.
• Inkscape, Illustrator and Affinity: open the SVG. It is a plain filled path, so you can recolour it, add a stroke or combine it with your own work.
• Printing or sublimation: use the PNG, which has a transparent background.

Each design page lists the file’s narrowest part at seven sizes, so you can tell whether it will survive at the size you plan to cut.

Questions