Yesterday, I created my Save the Date envelopes with my Cricut! It was a lot of trial-and-error, so I will save you some time by writing out directions of things I learned & what worked for me to hopefully save people time! *Also, I did not use my printer because I am currently out of printer ink!
Materials Used:
MACHINE: Cricut Maker
PROGRAM: Inkscape & Design Space
FONTS: Barrington from dafont.com and William writing font in Design Space
1. First I downloaded Inkscape to my Mac. I then created five documents for names. I did this so that it would be easier to use on Design Space (since it’s so glitchy lately!) I have about 50 cards to send out, so I did 10 names on each document (5 separate documents in all).
2. On Inkscape, I used the font “Barrington” (from dafont.com) to make each name. I didn’t worry about the size just yet; I just wrote out the names to be used for the envelopes. Also, this is a great font to use because you don’t have to “Fill” in the spaces! It’s great for writing with a 1.0mm marker!
3. Once I was done making all of the names, I followed a Youtube tutorial in how to convert an Inkscape file to an SVG file to be uploaded to Design Space. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Vl7YqNywx0
4. Next, I opened up Design Space and created five separate documents (10 cards on each document).
5. In Design Space, I made 10 squares that were the size of my envelopes (Width = 6.5 Height = 4.75) Link for the envelopes: https://www.amazon.com/.../ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o04...
6. I then used the font “William” for the addresses in Design Space. I wrote out each address in Caps Lock and aligned them to the Right. I adjusted the spaces between letters to 2.0 and made sure the 0.4mm black pen was selected in Draw. I also added two spaces between each number for the zip code (e.g., 0 1 2 3 4).
7. I then aligned the addresses to a rectangle. So my page showed 10 rectangles with 10 addresses on the bottom right.
8. Next, I uploaded the first Name file from Inkscape to Design Space. Once uploaded, I ungrouped the names and then dragged them to their responding rectangle. I centered the Name and made the size fairly large and also rotated it slightly to an angle. I made sure that Draw was selected for each Name and that the 1.0mm marker in Black was selected for the Name.
9. Once I liked the positioning of the Addresses and the Names, I grouped the Address to the Name for each rectangle.
10. Then once I liked that positioning, I then Attached the rectangle to the grouped Name and Address for each rectangle.
11. I repeated steps 5-10 for the other 4 documents, making sure that there were no more than 10 rectangles in each document to prevent delays/glitches.
NOW FOR WRITING!!!
So to repeat: For the Names, I used 1.00mm Black Cricut marker. For the Addresses, I used 0.4mm Black Cricut Marker.
With that being said, I have a few 12x24 green mats and several 12x12 green mats, so I made sure to use several mats for faster production time!
1. I lined up my mats in a way that fit 7 envelopes on the 12x24 and 3 envelopes on the 12x12 mat. You will have to play around with this. MAKE SURE THAT YOUR MAT MATCHES THE DESIGN SPACE MAT! This is the most important part!!!!!
2. I took out my Cricut blade from my Cricut Maker, so that the only thing that was in my Cricut was a pen.
3. I also used blue painter’s tape to tape down the edges (making sure that I wasn’t taping down the areas where I knew the Cricut would be writing on!) I found this out the hard way but ruining 2 cards due to not taping. For some reason, they can get crinkled or stuck in the Cricut, so def tape them! Also the tape doesn’t peel the envelopes, so it worked well!
4. I followed my Cricut’s instructions on which pen to insert and when to change the pens. When the machine thought it was “cutting” the rectangle… it wasn’t because there was no blade there
After all of my envelopes were done, I decided I wanted to have our return address on the BACK. (Why must I complicate everything? HA HA!)
So there are the steps I followed for that:
1. I created a design by creating a circle, changing the color to white, and using that as my “guide.”
2. I used the Cricut William writing font for the address and wrote out my street and made sure to “curve” that part to fit around the circle. Then I wrote my city, state, & zip and curved that part to fit around the circle.
3. I also write “The Future” in one text box and then “Goralnik” in another text box (both in William writing font).
4. Then I opened up the Font Book on my Mac and searched for the font “Cream Candy” (dafont.com font) and looked for the characters with tails. I copied and pasted the letters with tails into Design Space and then created a new text with regular Cream Candy Font. I welded this and altered the size.
5. I then lined up “The Future Mr. & Mrs. Goralnik,” centered the fonts, altered the size (1.5in), and moved it to the middle of my circle.
6. I made sure that everything fit within the circle and then I deleted the circle.
7. I made sure that all text was in “Draw” mode with a 0.4mm Black Cricut pen.
8. Then I grouped it!
9. Next, I created another rectangle (same size as above W=6.5 x H=4.75). I measured my physical envelopes and the flap was about 2inches from the top… so in Design Space, I placed the return address design in the top center (within the two inch mark where the flap would be).
10. Then I ATTACHED the envelope and the return address.
11. I followed the steps above to align my back side of envelopes to the mat, making sure the Design Space mats also matched up. I also used extra tape for this one, as I didn’t want the flap of the envelope to get stuck!
And VOILA!!!! I love it!
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