A split letter monogram can be a beautiful piece of artwork for your home, and can make an wonderful gift to give. They typically created with a gap or split in the middle of a letter, with a straight line at the top and bottom of that split, with a family name placed between those lines. You will also learn some of the basic functions of Design Space including how to slice on Cricut projects you make.
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Split Letter Monogram Supplies
You can click on the products below to be taken to the Amazon links for them for easy shopping.
- Floating Frame
- Cricut cutting machine
- Cricut cutting mat
- Weeding tool
- Transfer Tape
- Spray bottle for wet method application
- Permanent or Removable Vinyl – I actually used removable since that is what I had on hand, and the vinyl will be sandwiched between the two layers of the floating frame. I have links below for buying your vinyl.
I prefer to use Siser brand vinyl for my iron on projects. I feel that is the best quality brand of iron on vinyl out there, and it weeds the easiest. For permanent vinyl I like StarCraft vinyl. People have asked me why not Cricut brand, since I use a Cricut machine. Personally I just do not like the way the Cricut vinyl cuts or weeds. I think you should find the brand you love and work with that product. Test things out for yourself. Sometimes it is just a personal preference like how some people would rather have Pepsi products over Coke products.
So once you find your brand of vinyl, where should you buy it? If your favorite brand is sold at the local craft store, then you are lucky in the fact that you can pretty much garantee that you can run to the store and pick up vinyl when ever you need it.
For me, Siser was not always sold in the stores, as it is now, so I had to get it from online retailers. Again, this is where you can either go with your personal preference of stores or go where the best deal is. One day the best price might be at one store, and then the next week it might be from a different retailer. We all do this when we sometimes pick up toliet paper at the grocery store, but then we also get it at Target when it is on sale.
I also love that I can order large rolls or small sheets when ordering Siser online. This can give you a larger variety of choices and allow to to save money on larger orders. To make sure you are getting the best price for your vinyl, make sure to check out my Vinyl Buyers Guide. Because of that, I will always share all of the different resource I am connected to and you can choose which one is best for you!
When I first started this site, I had not even heard of MyCraftSource, and now I am an influencer for them! Since all of their inflencers have a special coupon code, that means when you shop at My Craft Source you can get an extra 5% off your order just by using coupon code ShawnMosch at checkout!
Heat Transfer Warehouse is another supplier that I love, and they are actually somewhat close to me. Their headquarters are in North Dakota and I am in Minnesota. They even have their own line of vinyl, and they are partnering with other companies to really bring you a wide variety of products.
You may have noticed that there are a lot of retailers that only ship to places in the United States. This is because shipping prices can really add up. I want to be able to help my followers find their products no matter where they live and that is why I was happy to find some retailers that ship world wide! That is where the next two compnaies come in as options.
Let me introduce you to Expressions Vinyl. When you go to their site, make sure to check out the rewards program. This way you can earn points as you purchase products! Then those points can be redeemed on future purchases.
Another retailer that I work with is Vinyl and Tulle. Use coupon code SHAWNMOSCH to save 10% off your order!
I cannot forget my Canadian followers! Madame Blanks is located in Winnipeg Use coupon code SHAWN10 to save 10% off your order of StarCraft products! If you click on the link and it does not work, just know that the owners are taking a little break but hope to have everything back up and running soon! In the meantime, you could follow them on social media!
Make a Template in Cricut Design Space
For projects like this, I like to create a template in Cricut Design Space. This helps me to design my project and know how big to make it and make sure that everything will fit for the finished project. Once you have your design created and sized to fit this template, you can just delete it. This is really helpful if you are doing several lines of text or additional images above and below the split letter monogram. For this split monogram project I will be placing it on a 11×14 inch floating frame, so I am going to start by making a 11×14 inch rectangle in Design Space.
Click on the Shapes button on the left side of the Design Space canvas and insert a square. When you click on the square you will see there are four icons, one in each corner of the square. The one in the lower left corner looks like a little padlock. I have it circled for you in the image below. When padlock is locked if you resize things the height and with will stay proportional. If you click on the icon to unlock the padlock you can change the height and width to any dimension you want. This allows you to change a square into a rectangle.
Since I know the exact height and width I want this rectangle to be, I am going to type in 11 inches for the width and 14 inches for the height in the size portion of the top panel of Design Space. I have the size area circled for you in the image below. Now we can start to design our split letter monogram to fit inside this rectangle, which is the same size and shape as our frame.
Insert Text in Cricut Design Space
Next we are going to insert the text that we will use for the large letter our design. Just click on the Text button on the left side of the screen and type in the main letter that will be in your design. For my split letter monogram I am using the Cricut font, Plantin Schoolbook. I picked this font because it has a nice thick block look. If you would like to use this same font click on the Font pull down that I have circled in blue in the top left side of the screen in the image below.
Before we go any further, I want to point out that this is a Multi Layered Font, which means it has multiple colored layers already built into it. If you look at the area I have circled to the far right in the image above, in the layers panel you will see two lines. That is how we know it is a Multi Layered Font.
The first line shows a yellowish text, and the second line shows a black text. Look at the small eyeball icon to the right of the black line of text, and you you will noticed that there is a line going through it. That means that this layer is currently turned off. You can click on that eyeball to turn the layer on, but eventually we will just be deleting this second layer from the project. I talk about Multi Layered fonts more in a tutorial HERE, if you would like to read that.
Next I am going to resize my text to make it fill the template area I created better. To do this, I click on the padlock so that I can stretch the text to the size I want. Since I am using a nice thick blocky font this will not look distorted. I went to the size area of the top panel, which I have circled for you in the image below, and made the letter 8 inches in width by 10 inches in height.
Now it is time to change the color of the letter, and get rid of the second layer that we do not need. Remember, you ONLY need to do this if you picked a Multi Layered Font to work with for this project.
To deleted just the second background layers of the letter, which we have turned off, I am going to click on that line from the layers panel. I have this line pointed out with the purple arrow in the image below. Click on JUST that layer in the layers panel and then click on the delete button which I have circled in the right corner of the image below.
Now click on the yellow layer, which is the one that I am pointing out with the blue arrow in the image below. Go to the Operations section of the top panel, which I have circled in blue in the image below, and click on the square. This opens up the color panel. I set the color to black for this letter.
Create the Split in the Split Letter Monogram
Now we have to create the split in this split letter monogram. This is also when you will learn how to slice on Cricut projects. Different tutorials might show you different ways to do this, but for me this was the easiest way to create the split in the monogram and the bars at the top and bottom of the open space.
Go to your shapes button and insert a square, then click on the padlock and unlock it so you can make this into a rectangle. I made my rectangle 8 inches wide and 2.5 inches in height. Once I have the size typed in, I click on the padlock again to keep the shaped locked as a rectangle.
Repeat this process again. Insert a square, unlock the padlock and resize the square into a rectangle. This time we are going to make the rectangle 8 inches wide and .25 inches in height. Change the color of this long skinny rectangle to black.
Once you have one of these long skinny rectangles created you can duplicate it to make the second one. Duplicate is like doing a copy and paste all in one move. You can either right click on the image you want to duplicate to get a pull down of choices, or click on the duplicate button in the upper right corner of the screen.
Using Align in Cricut Design Space
Now we are going to use the Align tool in Cricut Design Space, which I have pointed out with the blue arrow in the image below, to line up all of these rectangles. First I am going to select all three rectangles and then click on Align. This opens up a new pull down. I am going to pick Align Left. This will shift things so that the far left side of all of the rectangles are lined up.
Next we want to just pick the top two rectangles, which I have pointed out with the purple arrows in the image below. Go back up to the Align button at the top of the screen, and this time pick Align Top. This will snap these to rectangles together and the skinny one should be stacked right on top of the larger one. You will see that in the next image.
Now that we have those two rectangles lined up like we want them, we want to group them together. To do this, click on the Group button in the upper right corner of the screen. I have it circled in the image below. Now we can move these two rectangles around together as one grouping.
Now we can get things set up for the bottom rectangle. Select the bottom rectangle and the grouping we just made, and go back to the Align button at the top of the screen. This time we will align to the bottom. Since that very top skinny line is grouped with the fatter rectangle, Design Space will snap things to the bottom of the grouping it is in. Once you have that bottom skinny rectangle aligned to the bottom of the fatter rectangle, click the Group button, which I have circled in purple in the image below. This will make all of these rectangles one grouping, and that will be important in the NEXT part we do.
Since we have all three of these rectangles we created grouped together, now we can pick that grouping and the letter for our split letter monogram and perfectly center those. In the image below I show how I select everything then go to Align one last time and click the Center button. This will center the grouping over the letter. Now we can use that grouping to slice the split for this split letter monogram!
How to slice on Cricut for a Split Letter Monogram
That was a lot of steps to set things up for the split letter monogram, but I think you will thank me because now everything is going to be perfectly lined up for this project. Now I will show you how to slice on Cricut Design Space. First we have to click on just the grouping of rectangles and ungroup them. You can do this by clicking on the ungroup button that I have circled in purple in the image below. This will allow you to select each rectangle one at a time.
Using the layers panel, so that you know for sure you are selecting the correct layers, click on the fatter rectangle, and then hold down the shift key on the keyboard. While holding the shift key click on the large letter. I have both of these layers pointed out with the blue arrows pointing to the layers panel in the image above.
~ TIP about how to use Slice on Cricut ~
Remember, you can only have two layers selected for slice to work. Now click the Slice button in the lower portion of the screen, which I am pointing out with the downward arrow in the image above. If you only have one item selected, the slice button will not turn on. If you have MORE than two items selected slice will not turn on.
This is why I like to use the trick of selecting things right from the layers panel while holding down the shift key on the keyboard. When you click on things in the layers panel instead of on the Cricut canvas, you can be more precise about what you are picking. You can also look at each item on the layers panel and see the space behind the preview changes to a darker shade of gray when it is selected.
After with have sliced the fat rectangle from the letter, it with look like this. Now we can go to the layers panel and find the pieces that we want to delete. For this design I now want to delete the fatter horizontal rectangle along with the middle part of the letter. There are actually three pieces to delete, which I have pointed out with the blue arrows on the image below. They are going to be the three pieces that say Slice Result that do not have the preview of the letter in them.
Depending on what letter you are using, your pieces you need to delete might look different than mine. If you are not sure if you should delete a piece or not, click on the little eyeball icon to turn pieces on and off. Also, look for the pieces that say Slice Results. The only Slice result you need to keep is the one that has the letter in the small preview.
When you are done deleting the pieces you do not need, you should be left with a split letter monogram like the one I have in the image below. Because we want those skinny rectangles to stay connected the the letter, we are going to select everything and click the Weld button in the lower right corner of the screen. I have it pointed out with the blue arrow in the image below.
Add the name to the split letter monogram
The last thing we need to do is to add the family name to the middle of the split letter monogram design. Click on the Text button in Design Space and type up the family name. Click on the color button and change the color to black. I unlocked my text, by clicking on the padlock and stretched it to fill the space better. For the width I typed in 8 inches, and 1.75 inches for the height. Depending on the font and the name you are using you may or may not need to stretch your text. I used the Plantin Schoolbook Font again.
We can now use Align again to make sure that the family name is centered perfectly in the middle of the open space for the split letter monogram. Just select the letter and the name then go to the Align button and pick Center. The last thing I want to do is go to the lower right corner of the screen and click the Attach button. Attach holds the placement and position of everything so when you click Make It, the Cricut will cut this design exactly like it is shown here in the Design Space Canvas.
Split Letter Monogram Video
If you would like to see a video of how this whole process comes together, I put together a split letter monogram video for you here.
Assemble your Split Letter Monogram Floating Frame
Since this tutorial was so long, I decided to to a separate tutorial just for how to put together the split letter monogram on a floating frame. You can head over to that tutorial now by clicking HERE. I also show you variations of different ways you can use a split monogram including using it as business signage, as a memorial project, or for a gift.
We used a lot of different functions in this tutorial, including Group, Slice and Attach. If you would like to download a free Cricut Reminder Sheet of what the different functions to, you can go to the Classes section of my site, or simply click HERE. I hope that this tutorial helped you to better understand how to slice on Cricut projects and how to design a split letter monogram.
