Making Single Line Words to Use with Your Cricut or Silhouette Machine

Hi Everyone! A lot of you who use your Cricut or Silhouette machine to write, foil, engrave, deboss, etc. know the frustration of trying to find single line fonts. While single line fonts do exist if you search for them, they aren’t always free and can add up pretty quickly. Also, it may be struggle to find one that you actually like.

I do not pay for a Cricut Access membership and I am not going to pay $5 for a font I can only use in Cricut Design Space, sorry!!

I do, however, have an Adobe Creative Cloud membership at that includes tons of free fonts to use, plus I have lots of fonts from Design Cuts and Creative Market.

I know I can use my system fonts in Design Space, but if I want to use it as a writing font, it outlines my letters. Not the look I’m going for. Not to mention, the terrible letter spacing that is default for Design Space.

My system font in Design Space - it outlines the letter if I change the lintetype to Draw, and the letter spacing is horrible.

Now I’m going to show you, how to use the font that I already have and make it into a single line word that I can upload into Design Space or Studio and use as a draw file.

You will need Adobe Illustrator, either the app or desktop version. I’m going to be using the app on my iPad with the Apple Pencil for this tutorial.

First, I’m going to create a new file in my Illustrator app. Then I’m going to select the text tool.

I’m going to keep it pretty simple and type “thank you.” To change the font, I need to have my words selected and click on the “Properties” button on the right side tool bar. The font I’m using is called Santa Fe Spring (it is not part of the Adobe fonts, but I added it to my Creative cloud so I could use it on my iPad).

I’m typed my words as two separate objects so I can adjust their placements.

Then, with both words selected, I’m going to lower the opacity of this layer to about 20 percent.

I’m going to lock the layer with my words and create new layer above it, this is the layer I will be drawing on.

I select the PENCIL tool from the left side tool bar. I’m using the pencil tool because this is a very loose hand-written type font. If you would like more control, you can also use the pen tool. Just DO NOT use the blob brush, we want single line strokes, no fills.

I set my fill to “nothing” and my stoke to black. You can pick whatever color you like as long as it is visible against the typed words.

I’m going to start tracing over my typed letters with the pencil tool. I sometimes need to stop and pick up my pencil, that’s okay! If you want your line to continue once you start drawing again make sure to start on the square anchor point where you stopped.

If your lines look a little wonky, it’s ok, we’ll go back at the end and refine everything.

Once I get my letters completed, I turn off the layer with the typed text. My letters definitely need some refining!

With the Direct Selection tool I can go in and delete anchor points that I don’t need and adjust my curves with the little handles as needed.

Once I get my letters to my liking, I make each word a Compound Path.

Now it’s time to export! I select the little box with an arrow in the upper right corner and select “Publish and Export.”

I select SVG and click “Export.”

I save it to my Illustrator files on my iPad.

Now I’m going to test my file on my Cricut Maker. I open the Cricut app on my iPad and start a new project. I click the upload icon at the bottom of the screen and select “browse files.”

I select the Illustrator folder and find the file I just created.

I get this error message because I forgot to delete the layer that I actually typed the text on, it’s fine. Just press OK.

Name the image if you want and press save.

Now I select the image that I just uploaded and press Insert.

Now the image is on my canvas, I’m going to select “Edit” in the tool bar along the bottom to change my linetype to “Draw” instead of “Cut.”

I’m going to test it first with a fine point black pen. So that is what I select from the draw menu.

I’m going to scale my letters up a bit and then test on my machine.

Here is my first test with the black fine point pen.

Here is my second test with my metallic gold marker. It looks like my marker is drying out a bit, but it gives kind of a cool brush stroke effect.

I tried out my debossing tip for the first time, I need to play around with the settings to see if I can make it deeper, but it could be a pretty cool effect for a thank you card.

Making Filled Letter Draw Files for Design Space in Adobe Illustrator

Hi Everyone! This week I’m going to show you how I make filled letters in Adobe Illustrator to use with any of the drawing tools in Design Space (pens, foil transfer tool, foil quill, etc.)

Truth be told, I do about 95 percent of my design work outside of Design Space. I work faster and more precisely in Illustrator, probably because I’ve been using for over 15 years!

You will need:

• Adobe Illustrator (you can sign up for a 30 day free trial if you just want to test it out)

• A font of your choice (you can use any of the free ones that are available with Illustrator or any fonts you have purchased).

• Cricut Design Space

• Cricut Machine (I have a Maker)

• Whatever materials you want to use to test your design

Let’s get started! (Links in the article below may be affiliate links.)

My birthday was a couple of days ago, so I’m going to do a retro script Happy Birthday.

The font i’m using is called Fountain, I purchased it from Design Cuts. One of my favorite sources for fonts!

I type “Happy” as one word and “Birthday” as a separate word. I want my letters to be a little beefier so I added a 2pt stroke around them.

I make sure the ends of my strokes are rounded and my corners are also rounded so I don’t get any weird sharp angles.

Then I expand my letters, so they’re paths and no longer active type. I outline the strokes around the letters.

Then using the path finder tool box I unite Happy into one path, and Birthday into one path.

I add a 1pt stroke around each so they look like they are outlined and I change the fill to No Fill. Then group all the letters (Shift + G).

To make the the fill for the letters I make a 1pt stroke that is 8 inches long (or what ever size you will need to cover all your letters)

Then, holding the Option + Shift button I make a copy of that line and place it right next to the first line. (i’m using red for my fill lines just so they’re easier to see)

The I hold down Command +D to do that same same action over and over again until I have pretty much a square shape made out of a bunch on lines.

I select all of the lines and group them together (Command + G). Then I rotate the group 45 degrees. (You don’t have to rotate the lines, I just like the slanted look with my font)

I’m going to copy and paste my letters and place them on top of the group of lines. I’m going to turn off one of the sets of letters (click the eyeball on the layers panel). I’m going to turn the other set of letters into a compound path and remove the stroke around it.

Select the group of letters and the group of lines and type Shift + M to get the Shape Builder tool. That’s how we’re going to trim our lines so they only fill the letters.

“But why aren’t you just making a clip mask?” Design Space doesn’t recognize clip masks and will expand the clip mask once you import the SVG into Design Space.

Holding the Option or Alt key, I’m going to click and drag my mouse along the lined areas I want to remove. My design is going to start looking like the below.

You can turn on the layers with the letters that still have the stroke outline so it’s easier for you to see the areas you need to remove.

Just keep pressing Option or Alt and clicking and dragging along the areas you want to remove. Some sections might take a minute to update.

Eventually your design will look like this:

Save your file as and SVG. Then we’re going to test it in Design Space. When you upload your file it’s going to bring it in as a “Cut Image.” That’s fine, just click “Upload.”

After you’ve inserted your image onto the canvas, we will change the Linetype to a draw style. With the new Design Space update this is called “Operation” instead of Linetype.

I’m going to select Foil > Medium.

I’m going to change my foil color to purple since I will be testing that color. (it’s not necessary to change the foil color)

I’m zoomed in to 200% so you can see all the little lines.

Don’t forget to “Attach” everything, and then press “Make it”

I tested my design on black 100lb cardstock, using “Less Pressure” with the Cricut foil transfer tool.

Here’s what it looked like after I removed the foil.

I’m pretty happy with the foil transfer results. Next I tried my Cricut Silver Glitter Gel pen. It came out pretty nice too.

My least favorite was the Cricut Gold Marker, the tip is too thick for this style and the moisture from the marker makes the cardstock get clumpy.

Overall I’m really happy with the results from the Foil Transfer tool and the Silver Glitter Gel pen. I’ll have to try a few more tests with the Foil Quill and the regular fine point pens.

Creating an Offset for Stickers in Adobe Illustrator - Method 2

Hi Everyone! This week I’m going to show you another way to make an offset for a sticker using Adobe Illustrator. This method uses the Image Trace function.

All you need is your sticker artwork and Adobe Illustrator. Let’s get started!

First I place my artwork onto my canvas. My artwork is a PNG file, so there’s no background.

I’m going to make a copy of my artwork directly on top of the original (Command + C ,Command + F)

Select the top image with the black arrow (V). The Image Trace button should appear in the toolbar across the top of the window. Click the down arrow in the Image Trace box and select Black and White Logo.

After it gives you your preview, select the dialog box to make adjustments.

In the Image Trace dialog box, adjust the Threshold to 254 (you can either move the slider or type in the the box). Click the arrow next to Advanced and make the following adjustments:

• Paths - set to Low

• Corners - set to Less

• Noise - set to 1

• Method - Abutting

• Create - check the Fills box

• Check the Ignore White Box

Then click the EXPAND Button in the tool bar across the top of the window.

In the layers panel I can see I have a Compound Path and some individual paths.

Select all of the Compound Paths and release them.

Then I’m going to select the entire group that was made from Image Trace and in the Pathfinder tool dialog box I’m going to select Unite.

I still have a big area of white that I need to fill in. I’m going to use the Blob Brush (Shift + B) to fill in any stray white areas.

After all the stray white areas are filled in, I’m going to go to OBJECT > Path > Simplify. Then you can adjust the slider to help smooth your path.

After you simplify your path, go to OBJECT > Path > Offset Path. I selected 8pt for my offset, you can adjust yours depending on how wide you want your offset.

Then you can select the original inside path and DELETE it.

In your layers panel, drag the new offset below your artwork. Your artwork should now be showing on top of the offset.

At this point my whisker area looks too pointy for me, I’m going to use the Pencil tool and the Smooth tool to help reshape that area.

Once I get the shape to my liking, I can change the color of my offset to white with a black stroke so I can get an idea of how this is going to look as a sticker.

Now this cute little guy is ready to be a sticker! Check my blog post from last week to see how I save my offsets as SVGs and cut them with my Cricut Maker.

Link to last week’s blog post: