You can use your Cricut for so many different things. The possibilities are endless. Did you know that you can make invitations and greeting cards in Design Space too? The Cricut Print and Cut feature lets you design totally custom invitations and greeting cards all within Design Space. Follow the tutorial below to see how.
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How to make invitations in Design Space
You’ll want to have a basic theme or concept in mind and you’ll want to either purchase your clip art in advance or make sure you have Cricut Access to use the best images available for your invitations in Design Space. Cricut also has a really good selection of digital paper you can use for backgrounds but if you’re idea or concept is really detailed you may want to purchase some digital paper and upload the patterns into Design Space before you get started. (Watch the tutorial on how to upload patterns into Design Space.)
Here are the files I used for my invitations (All of these files are from Creative Fabrica. I got them all for FREE because I have a subscription. If you see a lot of things you love on Creative Fabrica, you should look into the subscription plans.)
- Font: Candy Beans
- Background: Donuts Digital Paper
- Donut Clipart: Donut Clipart Set
Creating your invitation background
Step 1:
Open a new project and pull in a square from the “shapes” tool. Unlock the square and size it for your invitations. I sized my invitations to 4X6 but you can also do 5X7.
Step 2:
Once your square is sized you will need to change it to a print graphic rather than cut. To do this, go to the “FILL” box in the top menu bar. Change the fill from “No Fill” to “Print”.
Step 3:
Now you need to fill your square with a pattern. Your square should be a dark grey color. You will see a grey box next to the “FILL” box in the top menu bar. Click this dark grey box and change the drop down from “color” to “pattern”. Select the pattern you want. (You will need to upload any digital paper or patterns before starting this project. Watch this video to see how.)
Creating your text box
Step 1:
Pull in another square and resize it to either 4×6 or 5×7. After you’ve resized it, lock the square and use the arrows to make it just a bit smaller than your background box. The idea here is to have a text box on top of your background box but you still want to see some of the background.
Step 2:
Now you need to center the text box on top of the background box. To do this just place the text box on top of the background box and select both items. Once both are selected go to the top menu bar and select “Align” and then “Center Horizontally”. You’ll then go back and select both boxes again, got to “Align” and “Center Vertically”. Now your text box is exactly centered over your background box.
Step 3:
Go up to the top menu bar and turn your text box from cut to print and then make it white. (Just follow the same steps you used for your background square but rather than filling with a pattern, just change the color by selecting white.) The basic background of your invitation is ready to go. Just make sure you select both boxes and group them together using the “group” tool in the top right tool box. This will prevent either one from getting out of place by accidental clicking while you’re creating the rest of your invitation or greeting card.
Making it pretty
From here you’ll need to create whatever text you want on the invitation using the fonts available in Cricut Design Space or using fonts you’ve uploaded along the way. I used the Candy Beans font. You’ll also want to pull in any clip art or images you want to put on your invitation. I used this background and this Donut clipart. Go crazy and have fun designing. Just make sure everything you’re putting on your invitation is set to PRINT and not cut.
You’ll notice that my words have shadow behind them. You can’t do that within design space itself but check out this video to see how I did it.
Super important step to make invitations in Cricut Design Space
When it’s all designed just the way you want, “group” everything together and then go down to the bottom of the right menu bar and select “FLATTEN”! If you skip this step your machine will start to cut out each individual item even though you have them all set to print. This is just how the Print and Cut feature works. So make sure to FLATTEN YOUR WHOLE PROJECT!
Cutting out your invitations
Step 1:
Now that your invitation is all designed you need to cut it out. If you sized your invitations to 4X6 you can print 2 invitations on 1 sheet of paper. Just “Duplicate” your invitation and place it directly next to your first one leaving only a tiny bit of space between them. Then you’ll need to “attach” the 2 together to keep them in place while printing and cutting.
Step 2:
Go to the top right corner of Design Space and click “Make It”. This will send your invitations to your home printer. You will need a color printer to make invitations in color.
Step 3:
Make sure everything looks the way you want and then click “Continue” in the bottom right corner. From here, select “Send to Printer”. Choose the printer you want to print on and choose the number of copies needed. Make sure the “ADD BLEED” IS ON! Now it’s time to click “Print” and watch your beautiful invitations print on your home color printer. I like to use high quality photo paper for my invitations.
Step 4:
Once your invitations are done printing, place one sheet of at a time on your light grip Cricut mat.
That’s all there is to it, you’re all done. Making invitations in Design Space is super easy. Make sure to watch the video below and subscribe to keep up to date on all my new Cricut and DIY videos.
