Make a Card with your Cricut Maker or Explore | Tips – Write – Cut Out – Score

Hi Daydreamers!

Sit tight because today you are going to learn how to make beautiful custom Cards for any occasion! Yes, today you are ditching store bought cards and embracing your own creativity to show your loved ones how much you love and appreciate them!

Ok! I am not saying that you don’t care if you give someone a store bought card, I mean not everybody has the time make to custom cards.

Right?

Here’s the thing, there are people that really enjoy card making and if you are one of those and you have Cricut! You are going to have so much fun creating cards for those you love.

What can you expect from this article?

I will take from the most simple type of card you could make, to a fairly advanced one. Here you are going to learn and be empowered to make a Custom Card for every occasion.

Making Custom Cards – What no one is telling you!

For me this is personal!

If you’ve read any of my older articles you might’ve noticed that I like to bring as much value as I can. That’s why some of my articles are very well explained and detailed.

I needed to learn too!

Many times when I went to read a post I really couldn’t find all the possibilities with my Cricut. All I could see were very simple examples and/or Ready to Cut projects from Cricut Design Space.

Don’t get me wrong, I think this is great. However, I want to inspire YOU; I want you to develop a creative brain and ways for you to come up with your own ideas and designs.

How do we that?

The best way to create the perfect card is by THINKING OUTSIDE the box!

Here are some tips I usually use before I decide to design something!

• Think big, and think colors. When you buy a store bought card you will see that there’s a lot of things going on. You see Text, beautiful phrases, images, colors, patterns, glitter, etc.
• Most cards come in a square type form. Try different shapes like starts, hearts, hexagons, etc.
• Think of different materials as well! Did it come to mind to just use white cardstock? What about corrugated paper, glitter cardstock, vinyl, etc.
• Last but not least, think of the occasion.
  • Are you celebrating an anniversary? Maybe your card should have extra red, pink and white.
  • Are you celebrating a birthday? Then balloons, cake, confetti, and or banner type of designs would look great on a card.
  • Graduation? Then hats, diplomas, and also balloons would make your card very beautiful.

Card Making is all about choosing the right colors, materials, and designs. That’s why a beautiful card at Target can cost you more than 7 dollars!

Now, let’s get off the cloud that Card Making with Cricut is going to be cheap; It’s not, maybe if you bulk make them. I actually think that Card Making can be an expensive hobby. However, it is beautiful, and rewarding one. And that, my friend, is worth Gold!

Materials & Cricut Design Space Features

I know you want to get your hands on card making right now, but before we get started and in case you want to follow along – and what I totally recommend – these are the materials I will be using across this post.

• Cricut Maker, you can also use any of the Cricut Explore machines
• Fine Point Blade
• Scoring Stylus or Scoring wheel Note: the wheel only works with the maker machines.
• Corrugated Paper
• Card Stock (White & Yellow)
• Light and Standard Grip Mat (Blue & Green)
• Black Cricut Pen 0.4 tip
• Home Printer

For this tutorial we are going to be using many features from Cricut Design Space. If you don’t know how to use any of them I highly recommend you to read my beginners guide so you learn all the things Design Space Has to offer.

• Shapes: You will learn how to make cards in different types of shapes
• Flip: to reflect shapes and create different types of greeting cards
• Weld: to convert two independent designs into a single one.
• Alignment: Align scoring lines on your card to perfection
• Arrange: to visualize the position of your elements at all times.
• Rotate: rotate elements to a precise angle. Perfect for horizontal score lines.
• Line Type and Fill: this is for the Cut then Print option. You will learn how to use Cricut Patterns by printing them and then cutting.
• Fonts: learn, what type of font is ideal for cards and how to curve it!
• Writing: Write text on your cards by using Cricut Fonts
• Scoring: learn to create score lines so you can fold your card very easily.
• Attach: extremely important when you send a project to be cut. Otherwise things will be cut all over the place.

Ok!…

Now, that you know all of the features we will be using, let’s make some Cards!

Making a Simple Card

We are going to start from zero and then we will be applying all – or some – of techniques on the next steps.

Making a simple card with no design and just a score line is very easy. The squares in pink will show you where to find and how to modify your card.

Step 1 – Add square and Resize it

Click on Shapes located on the left panel and then add a square. The square that appears on the canvas area will be equilateral – all sides are the same length – However, we need each side to be different.

To achieve that, look at the size option on the top panel, and then click on the little lock between Width and Height to modify each variable on its own. You can also unlock proportions by selecting the square on the canvas and then clicking the little lock located on the lower left corner of the selection.

After unlocking proportions go ahead and size the card according to your preferences. Something to consider is that if you wanted to make a 5 x 7 in card. Then you would need a 10 x 7 rectangle because you will be folding it.

The size of this card after folding it would 5 x 3.5 in. Therefore the square size would be 10 x 7 in.

Note: The default color is grey. I changed the color by selecting the square and then changing the linetype color for white.

Step 2 – Add Scoring line and Align

After sizing your card, click on Shapes again and this time select the Option Score line. After clicking a dashed line will appear on the canvas. This line means that you will be creating a fold – or score – instead of cutting.

Go ahead and resize the line so it will fit the square you created and the select both, the square and the line and align them by clicking on the alignment option located on the top panel.

Note: select the the option center.

Step 3 – Attach – Most important Step!

When you attach two elements. You are telling your Cricut that those designs go together. Colors in your project represent different materials and different mats that you will be using when you send your project to be cut.

However, there are some elements like scoring lines and/or pens that need to be assigned to the area where you want to place them. Otherwise your Cricut Will Assign a different Mat for the score line.

This is what will happen if you don’t attach the square and score line.

We don’t want that! We want both designs on the same Mat; just like we designed them in Cricut Design Space.

To do that, you need to select both elements on the canvas area and then click on the Attach button located at the bottom of the right – layers – panel.

Now this is how it would look when you send your card to be cut. Everything is right where is supposed to be!

Using Shapes to create different Card Styles

Here I want to teach you how to make Cards with other shapes! I think this is so cool and is one of the reasons I just love my Cricut!

Accomplishing this is very easy. Look at the following screenshot and read the step by step.

Step 1: Add two stars of the same size by clicking on the shapes option and selecting the Star.

Step 2: Select the star that is on the top and then click on Flip – located on the top panel area – and select the option flip vertical.

Step 3: Overlap both stars and then align them – center horizontal – to perfection.

Step 4: Select the already aligned and overlapped stars and click on weld to make a new shape. The weld option is located at the bottom of the layer panel. It’s on the left side of attach.

After welding add a score line. The Scoring line is always vertical by default. To change this, select it and on the rotate option of the top panel type 90 to have perfect horizontal line.

Select the welded stars and score line and center align and attach them.

Experiment with other Shapes + Patterns

Repeat the process you just learned but with other shapes! I tried it with hearts and hexagons!

If you don’t have patterned paper and want that effect you can totally achieve this with Cricut Patterns. Some of them are free and some of them cost money, if you have Cricut Access your possibilities are pretty much endless.

Note: Patterns will be send to your home printer and then cut with your Cricut.

If you don’t know what Cricut Access is, make sure to read this guide.

To add patterns to you card, select it – just the card NO scoring line – and then for Lintype make sure you have Cut, then for fill select the option print.

A little window will slide open, inside this window there is a drop down menu called Print Type; click there and select pattern, and choose your favorite one.

For our next learning step will be using the Heart Card and Pattern and then we will write on, and start cutting!

How to write on a Card + Print then Cut

One of the Coolest things Cricut has is the ability for you to write! Adding Text to your card will add an extra touch of love and awesomeness.

In the last step you learned how to make Cards with other shapes and fill them with beautiful patterns from Cricut.

Now let’s learn how to write on them and Cut them with the Print then Cut option.

Repeat the same process you learned with the star, but this time with a heart.

Then fill it with your favorite pattern – I used the white and pink strips- and. The image down below will show you the rest of the features from design space I used.

Also add a scoring line, rotate it. But don’t attach it yet. (The screenshot shows it like this, but just skip it for not)

Step 1 – Add text

To add text click on the text icon located on the left panel; A box will open on the canvas area for you to type your desired text. I wrote two lines of text: I love you and Muak!

Here’s the thing – PLEASE pay attention to this point…

On Cricut Design Space you have your System fonts and Cricut Fonts. Your system fonts wont do a writing effect. They will look outlined if you choose to use your Cricut Pens.

However, many of Cricut fonts DO have the option for that; they were designed with that purpose. So if you want to write like the screenshot you must use Cricut Fonts.

Here’s the problem, normally they Cost money. You can either buy them individually, or they come with Cricut Access.

Bummer, right! Not so fast I have a good tip for this

Something that I noticed is that they do give you a couple of fonts for free with your machine. To find them, select on your text, then click on font and filter them by selecting My Fonts + Writing.

Make sure to select a font that has a writing style. For this tutorial I picked: Simple Celebrations. You can change the color of the pen you will be using  by clicking on Linetype Square (where the color option is). 

I have a whole article on how to edit text and if you are just getting started it will help you to become a Pro!

Step 2 – Flip and Curve Text

We have two lines of text and this is what we are going to do with them.

1. I love you: select it and curve – this option is on the top panel – it by moving the little slider to the right. Play with it, and curve it as much as you would like.
2. Muak!: Select it and then click on Flip and flip vertically. We need to flip this text because this is the back side our card, and if we don’t then the text would look upside down. After flipping, go ahead and curve the text, but this time move the little slider to the left.

Tip: I added an extra heart to spice things up, to do this add a heart shape, resize and then change linetype for writing.

Step 3 – Attach + Make it

After you are done writing your text with, go ahead and select all of the elements and click on attach and then click on Make it.

The mat preview shows you how you need to put your design on your mat before your print it. On the left right after project copies you also have a tiny mat preview that says what the steps are.

For this case we have: Print, Score, Draw and Cut

When you click on Continue you will be giving all the step by step process before cutting.

Print: When you click on send to printer you will be prompted to select your printer – make sure is on and connected to your computer – and then click on Print.

Set Material: if you have a Cricut Explore Air move the dial on your Cricut to select the type of material you printed on. If you have a Cricut Maker, then select your material from the options that Cricut has to offer.

If your material doesn’t appear on the most popular ones you can browse all materials by key word or alphabetically.

Load Mats and Tools:For this project since you will be scoring, writing and cutting your printed project you will need a Cricut Pen, Scoring Stylus or Wheel – if you have a maker, and the fine point blade.

Throughout your cutting process when you are using more than 2 different tools you will need to change them at some point.

For example, I used the Scoring Wheel – I have a Maker for this tutorial – and when that process was completed; Design Space brought a notification saying that I needed to change the wheel for the Fine Point Blade.

If you have a Explore air machine, your Cricut, after either scoring or writing will prompt you to change the Scoring Stylus for the Cricut Pen or vice-versa.

So, no worries if you follow the cutting instructions you will be just fine!

Press Go: on your machine click the Cricut Logo and see the magic happen right in front of your eyes!

There you have it! A little Heart Shaped Card!

How to make a Cut Out Card?

This is the last step, and after this I think it will be safe to say that you are ready to make ANY kind of greeting card!

Here you will be making a cut out card!

We will be using many of the techniques learned throughout this post. So I truly recommend you to check it out. Although if you are very familiar with Design Space you will be just fine.

A Cut Out Card is one where you cut some pieces out to show another material, texture, color, etc.

It’s extremely easy to make so let’s get out hands on it!

Step 1 – Add Card & Elements / Weld & Slice

We are going to make a horizontal card. So first make a rectangle and drop a scoring line a rotate it to make it horizontal. Don’t attach anything yet!

I also added another square that I planned on gluing inside the card. This square should be able to cover all of the part you want to cut out, but also be a little smaller than the card itself.

For this Card in particular I just wanted to cut out some hearts; I added one, resized it and then I copied and pasted it – also rotated them a little bit – till I had 8 hearts in total.

After adding the 8 hearts, I selected them all and clicked on weld. The reason for that is that you can only slice a ONE shape at the time against another one.

So if I didn’t weld – convert into one shape – I would have to slice 8 different times!

Annoying…. Right?

To cut out the hearts from the Card select the already welded hearts and the blue card and click on slice located on left side of the weld option. Then delete the unwanted pieces.

Tip: you will notice that when you slice something elements get on top of the other ones. To cope with this, right click your mouse and arrange your design by moving elements back and forward.

Step 3 – Add Writing + Attach

Besides the Thank You line and other yellow elements, I added an exact copy of yellow square, and typed some text to make my card extra cute.

The fonts I used were Hopeless Romantic for Thank you; and simple celebrations for the paragraph. Both fonts are in Writing mode as a Font Style.

Before sending your project to be cut we need to make two types of attachment. First we will attach the writing with all of the yellow pieces, and then we will be attaching the teal card with the scoring line!

Step 4 – Cut and Assemble

I won’t go into details of how to cut again, because just I described it the part where we used the Print then Cut Options.

However I do want to teach you something different. As you can see on the following screenshot, there are 2 mats. One for different colors; but for each color will be using a different material as well!

Yellow is for regular cardstock, and teal will be corrugated paper, and since I am a little rebel sometimes, instead of teal I used a purple color in real life.

Once you are done cutting the first mat, you have to CHANGE the material, for corrugated paper!

You can do this on the Explore by moving the dial to custom materials and then selecting it within Design Space. And on the Cricut Maker by just browsing the different materials you have available.

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Once you are done cutting all of the pieces, it’s time for you assemble the card. I used regular glue, but in very thin quantities.

Glue the thank you note to the top of the card and both of the yellow square pieces inside the card.

Tip: I used some of the cut out hears to decorate my card a little bit extra

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There you have it! beautiful cut out card.

You are now a PRO at making Cards!

If you followed along this post, I am sure that with a little bit of extra creativity of your part, and some trial and error you are ready to make any type of card, for any occasion.

Think big, you got this I am here to cheer you up along the way!