Did you know that you could write with Cricut pens? This is a great way to have your Cricut create perfect lettering on a project. I love to use this feature for writing out the sentiment on the inside of a card.
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One thing we should understand before we get started. The Cricut uses the term Draw when describing things that are set to be done with the pens. You will hear me say Draw a lot in this tutorial, even though we are trying to Write. I just want to help you get used to the terminology that Cricut uses.
Write with Cricut Pens – Add Text
In order to write with Cricut pens, first we need to insert some Text for the Cricut to write. Click on the Text button which I circled in the image below.
Next, type up what you want the text to say in in the text box that appears on the Design Space canvas. After you type in the text, look on the top panel. See where it says Linetype in the circled area below. Currently that says Cut, which means the Cricut thinks it is going to Cut these letters. That is not what we want. We want it to write these letters, so we want to use a writing style font. So let’s find a writing style font.
Start by clicking on the Font pull down which I have circled for you below.
This will open up a new pull down that shows you all of the fonts in Cricut and the System fonts on the device you are using. If you want to learn even more about the Fonts area, I have a more in depth tutorial HERE.
Filter your fonts to write with Cricut pens
All the way to the right in this Fonts area is a Filter. Click on that and you will see a drop down. Choose Writing from the drop down, which I point out with the blue arrow in the image below.
Once you select Writing from this pull down, Design Space will filter your list of fonts to only show fonts that have a writing style! All you have to do is scroll through the list and pick one.
Checking your font choice
Once I am done choosing a font, I always double check that I selected a true writing font. How do you check? Remember that spot I told you about at the beginning, where it shows the Linetype on the top panel? I circled it in the image below in case you forgot where it is located. If you look there now, you will see that it no longer says Cut. It says Draw. This means that the Cricut is going to Draw with a pen, instead of Cut with a blade.
The second place to check your work is on the layers panel on the right hand side of the screen. Each layer for the words I typed up says Draw on them. Look at the areas I circled in blue on the image above. If those were set up to Cut the letters, it would say Cut there, but we have these set up to Draw with the pens. This is how I verify that things are set up correctly. There is a lot of great information you can learn from your layers panel, but we will save that for another tutorial.
Next up, Attach
Now we need to tell the Cricut where on the rectangle we want it to place this sentiment. If we don’t do this, the Cricut will just write the words on our cutting mat.
I inserted a rectangle into Cricut Design Space and move the sentiment on top of it. Then I make a large selection window around everything, the rectangle and all of the text, and I click the Attach button in the lower right corner of the screen.
Attach holds the placement and position of items. Now the Cricut will know to write the text exactly where I have it shown on the rectangle. After it writes the sentiment, the Cricut will then cut the rectangle out.
Here is a video that shows the whole process of how to write with Cricut pens from start to finish. If you have any questions please leave me a comment. I want to be sure that you understand this process!
Purchase your Cricut Pens now
There are not a lot of Cricut products that I recommend. I am not a fan of their vinyl. But one item I do recommend are their pens, which you can get on Amazon by clicking HERE. If you plan to do projects where you write with Cricut pens, then I feel like this large pen set is a must have!
Can I write with other pens?
Now that you know how to write with Cricut pens, you might be asking if you can write with other pens or markers you already have.. The answer is yes, if you have a special pen adaptor. One of my students was looking around at adators, and she found one on Amazon that she loves. You can purchase it HERE.
Below is a video she did of this pen adaptor in action!
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6 Responses
I’m so confused what kind of paper to use tho? Do you use regular white paper or card stock, or do you use printable vinyl?
That really depends on what you want to do with the finished item. In this example I did it on cardstock. If I wanted to use it as a decal/sticker and have it already have a sticky backing, then I would use sticker paper or printable vinyl.
certainly like your website but you have to check the spelling on several of your posts. A number of them are rife with spelling problems and I find it very troublesome to inform the truth on the other hand I will certainly come again again.
if you see a spelling error please let me know! I will update my post!
Thank you very much for helping me with inserting text into an image! Plus my pen drying out and not making contact for first few letters! You were quick to resolve the problems. Much appreciation. (I’m part of your FB group).
awesome