Did you know that you can use fonts in Cricut Design Space™ for more than just a title on your scrapbook page? In this next installment of our Design Space tutorials, we are going to show you how to use Design Space to create large journaling spaces for your scrapbook pages. Not only can the words of your story be the main feature on your page, it can also be made using your Cricut®machine and your favorite Design Space font.
As you can see in this scrapbook page, you can type a large amount of text in Design Space for your journaling. With the
Align and
Slice tools, you can then easily cut that text out of cardstock and add it to your page.
To replicate our font you will need to use the Cricut
® Artistry collection. You will also need a Cricut
® machine that is Design Space compatible (any of the Explore models or the new Maker) to link your collections to your account. (If you do not know how to do this,
click here.)
The steps below show you how to work in Design Space from a desktop or laptop computer. If you use the app on a mobile device, the buttons and tools will be located in slightly different places on your screen, but the same features are available on any device.
1. Sign in to Cricut Design Space™ at design.cricut.com.
Log in with your Cricut ID and password, and then select the green New Project button in the top right corner.
2. Insert and resize a basic square shape.
To make the base for your journaling, you will first insert a square by clicking on Shapes on the left side of your screen. Then add a square to your canvas. Next, resize this square to an 8.5″ x 11.5″ rectangle. Don’t forget to click the lock icon to unlock the size and change the width to 8.5 and the height to 11.5.
3. Color the rectangle.
This is an easy, optional, step just to help you better see the text as you are journaling and then using the Slice tool later on. Since we wanted to use Bashful cardstock on this project, we went ahead and adjusted the color of the rectangle from dark gray to light pink. Click on the colored circle next to the scissors icon in the Layers panel to adjust the color of the shape.
4. Insert a line of text.
To start your journaling, click Text and then search for the Artistry font in the search box. Once you’ve selected it, type your first line of text.
5. Resize the text.
You’ll notice when you type your first line of journaling that the text is too large for your rectangle base. Resize the text to a height of 0.45″. You can do this by changing the height in the size box to 0.45. Make sure to leave the lock icon locked this time so that the width is automatically resized in Design Space.
6. Insert additional lines.
Continue adding lines of text for your journaling. To do this quickly, simply duplicate a line of text. This way you don’t have to go back in and resize the font. Click the previous line, select Duplicatein the top right corner, and then type a new line of text.
7. Arrange lines of text.
After you have completed your journaling, it’s time to arrange the lines on the base rectangle. For this page, we decided to arrange the majority of the text from the top down, leaving a space to add a photo and embellishments before the last two lines of text at the bottom. To help with spacing, you can insert other Basic Shapes, like we did here. You can insert and resize a square to give you an idea of where your photo will go or a circle to represent an embellishment piece. Don’t worry about perfectly spacing each line of text. Design Space has a helpful tool that we will use in the next step.
8. Use the Align tool to evenly space the lines of text.
Once you have your lines loosely arranged how you like on the rectangle, select the rectangle and move it to the side. Then click and drag your mouse over all the top lines of text to highlight all of them at once. Select Align and then select Distribute Vertically. This will evenly space your lines, and the in the Align tool again, select Center Horizontally. This will center the text. You can also center horizontally the last two lines on the bottom. Because there are only two lines, the option to distribute vertically won’t be available.
9. Use the Slice tool to slice your journaling into the base rectangle.
To slice the journaling into your rectangle, you have to work line by line. Place the rectangle behind your text. Then select the top line, hit the shift button on your keyboard, and select the rectangle. This will allow the Slice tool to become available in the bottom right corner. Just select Slice and your text will be cut into the rectangle. After slicing, you’ll have two extra lines of text. Delete both extra lines by selecting the red X. To see the remaining lines of text, select Arrange and then Move to Back. Continue this process for each line of text.
10. Cut your project and assemble your page!
When you’re ready, click the green Make It button in the top right corner and follow the prompts. Your Cricut® machine will do the rest of the work for you and cut this journaling centerpiece for your scrapbook page!
We hope you love this creative option for adding journaling to your layouts using Design Space. Often the journaling is something we add once our scrapbook page is complete, but with Design Space, you can turn your journaling into a main feature of the page. There are so many options for filling your page with text when you use Design Space!
