how to use digital paper in cricut
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How to Use Digital Paper in Cricut Design Space?

How to Use Digital Papers in Cricut Design Space?

Every day I come across new things to do in my Cricut Design Space, and I fall all over for it once again. My interest started increasing exponentially the day I learned about how to use digital paper in Cricut. Once you start using digital papers on Cricut, there is no going back!

I can’t keep all of this information to myself any longer! I am so excited to share it with you guys because trust me you are going to adore your designs once you learn the use of digital paper in design space. It is finally time to bring all of your SVGs into use that you have accumulated in your downloads over the years. The process that I am going to walk you through right now is going to give them a stunning transformation!

Using Digital Paper in Design Space

So without any further ado let’s get into turning our SVGs into stunning stickers by using digital paper for Cricut.

The following steps summarize everything that you need to do before you hit the print button on your Cricut machine:

1. Getting Started:

First off, open Cricut Design Space. Start a new project and upload your SVG file on the canvas.

2. Setting Your Design:

Select the design you just uploaded and ungroup it. This is going to assist you in rearranging stuff.

 

3. Downloading Digital Paper

You can either upload the digital paper you have been keeping for so long. Or browse over the web for tonnes of free digital papers, Check out my shop too for some lovely Patterned Digital Papers. Download any one of them and upload on your cricut machine!

4. Uploading Your Digital Paper:

Here begins the magical part. To upload a digital paper in design space, click on the upload button where you will see two options: upload image and pattern fill.

You have to select pattern fill as the other option is for uploading images and SVG files.

The upload takes time so be a little patient! Once it’s done, a notification will pop on the top left of the screen.

5. Setting up The Cricut

Naturally when you upload an SVG, Cricut is going to assume you are just going to cut and print it like always. To change this, you have to click on the operations button on the top left and select the standard cut method! It is gonna turn your file into print THEN cut feature!

6. Sticker Filling

Here comes the important sticker filling part. Select the part of the image you want to fill with digital paper and click on the color box in the toolbar at the top of the screen.

7. Print Settings

From there shift the print type to pattern and select the pattern you had previously uploaded. Once your shape is filled with the digital paper you chose, see if it is repetitive. If so, let’s work on fixing that!

8. Scaling the Pattern

Click on the edit pattern button which will allow you to shift and scale the pattern until it looks perfect. There are no proper guidelines to doing that, you will have to explore what works best for you!

Make your adjustments. You may as well flip and rotate it. Do everything you need in order to make it look perfect for you. Once it’s done, move on to the next step.

9. Setting the Background

Drag the filled image away from its original part as you don’t want to touch it and mess it up. Now use the offset tool if you’d like a background on your sticker! Again, do what works for you the best. I prefer the 0.25 offset but you decide for yourself. You can also change the way you want the corners to look, do you want them round or edgy?

Click on apply, once done!

10. Removing Unwanted Spaces

If there are unwanted spaces in the background, fill them in with shapes.Drag the filled image back to its background. Adjust the size and space of everything. Recheck everything and if you’re satisfied with the final look, select everything and flatten it. It’s now ready to print!

Tadaa! You just made a sticker for yourself with digital paper from an old SVG that’s been in your inventory for so long. It’s as easy as you could think of! 

If you want to see how it looks check out my video in the link below and see for yourself. Try these out and let me know in the comments how it turned out!

how to use digital paper in cricut
install fonts on your ipad
CategoriesCrafting Tutorials, Machine Tutorials by

Installing Fonts on your iPad

So you have been collecting a rather large number of fonts and you are left wondering – “What’s next?”. If you work on an iPad it can be a little crazy to find an easy way to install fonts (TRUST ME I KNOW). So hopefully by the end of this article, you will be pro at installing fonts on your iPad.

If you don’t have any right now but are a sucker for freebies? Then you HAVE to check out Fontbundles.net they have a HUGE selection of freebies that rest forever in the freebie spot as well as a weekly freebie that lasts well 7 days (starting every Wednesday!). Disclaimer! I am an affiliate there. The links shown are affiliate links. What does that mean exactly? Well, when I refer you over there, if you make a purchase they give me a small portion of the sales. It’s not enough to buy a boat, but by golly, I can take an extra trip to the Dollar Tree at the end of the month!

*Some other great articles that you should probably check out if you are in love with freebies best places that you can visit right now and download 100% free fonts with commercial use. These sites offer the BEST quality and are totally trusted. As I mentioned in a previous blog ” Best Places For Free Files “, if you have a FAVORITE font designer, keep in mind that on Fridays, they often have a freebie available for a limited time! I also know an incredible designer that offers “$2 – Tuesday!” Although not free, her fonts are ah-mazing!

Please check each site for their own specific terms and conditions in regards to their files as some may have a limit on the number of products that you can make with each file.

What you need:

  1. iPad
  2. Font (link takes you to Font bundles for free fonts!)
  3. iFont (free app available to download)
  4. Program to use it in (this tutorial will use Procreate)

What you do:

  1. Download your font! Seriously have you checked out the Free font of the week over at FontBundles?
  2. Click on the Download button (down arrow next the URL) to show all of your downloads.
  3. Click on your recent download zip file. It will pop up a folder that contains your zip files.
  4. Tap your ZIP for it to automatically unzip your file.
  5. Open that new folder and tap on the .otf. Your font should shop up with A – Z and the standard “The quick brown fox….” text displayed.
  6. Tap the button in the top corner (looks like a box with an arrow pointing up).
  7. Select “Copy to iFont” and open the app if it didn’t already pop up.
  8. Tap “Install” on the left hand side.
  9. You will now want to open up your iPad settings, go to General, and then select Profile. You should see “downloaded profile” with your font right under it.
  10. Tap the font and then tap install.

A few photos to help you out 🙂

Font Bundles! My guilty pleasure. Find your fave font and donwload it.
Click the download button, and open up the download folder by tapping on the font zip.
Tap the ZIP folder and it will automatically unzip your folder. tap the unzipped folder.
Tap the OTF to pull this screen up. Tap the “upload” in the top right corner. Copy to “iFont”.
This if iFont! Tap “Install”. If anything pop ups, select “allow”, and done. We now move to your settings.
Go to General > Profiles. Tap the “downloaded profile” font and hit install. You can now use the font!

You are now SET! you can play with your new font in any program. If you know an easier way to install fonts, PLEASE tell me! This took a minute to figure out and I would love a shortcut.

How to use Silhoette Studio and upload designs
CategoriesCrafting Tutorials, Machine Tutorials by

Uploading Files Into Silhouette Studio

So you read my Design Space post for Cricut users but you have a Silhouette instead of a Cricut and you are not sure exactly what to do? No problem! I teamed up with my bestie who does have a Silhouette and she helped me create this awesome tutorial for you!

Uploading SVGs into your studio program is about as easy as it comes (no seriously! I promise!). In order for you to upload SVG files directly into your software, you must have an upgraded version of Silhouette Studio. You can get the Designer Edition for 49.99. I know they sometimes go on sale, so if you want to wait for those deals, you are more than welcome to! In this tutorial, Silhouette Business Edition is being used. This is the top tier program of all the studio editions. You can find a complete list of the comparison between the different studios on Silhouette’s website with this link.

Although free, Silhouette Basic Studio Edition will not upload an SVG file. However, the program will upload a DXF file and most designers will provide that file along with the SVG when you make your purchase. The upload process for an SVG is the exact same for a DXF.

4 Steps To Uploading into Silhouette Studio

  1. The first step, of course, would be to open your Silhouette Studio program.
  2. In the upper left corner select FILE > OPEN,  or use the shortcut CTRL+O for PC users.
  3. An explorer window will pop open and you can locate the file on your computer. When you have found your file, select the file and Click OK.
  4. Now you are done! I told you uploading SVGs was simple!
silhouette studio part 2

Now that you know all about uploading files into Silhouette Space, it’s time to get started on your big projects! You need to grab your choice of vinyl and your mats and get crafty! Eek! I am so excited for you. Get ready to experience the magic.

How to upload files in Cameo Files
CategoriesCrafting Tutorials, Machine Tutorials by

Unzipping Your Files

If you have bought a crafting file or downloaded anything from the internet chances are you have ran into a .zip extension. If you haven’t, welcome to the world of crafting! .Zip files are a group of files that a designer “zipped” into a folder to compress them for an easy upload & download. If you don’t know how to unzip them, it can be intimating or even frustrating if you try and upload this file into Design Space. You may even feel like your file is broken. Take a minute to *breathe*. It’s not broken, we just have to unzip the file and your great design will be located inside.

Let’s first take a look at what we are looking at. When you download a zip, it should appear like the image below. See that zipper – windows is so clever.

To unzip the file, you will want to located the file. Whether it is located on your desktop, in your download files, or where ever, the next steps are all the same.

Windows

  1. By either “Double-click the ZIP folder” or “Right-Click and Hit Extract All”.
  2. You can select where you want the file to go by hitting “browse”. You can create a new file within that folder or allow it to pick the default. Once you have picked your desired location, continue by hitting extract. *Pro-tip – click “Show extracted files when complete” to save yourself the next step.
  3. You can now open that new file. It should look something like what is shown in the second photo below.
Extracting the Zipped Folder
Your New Extracted Folder

Mac

Now while I do not have a Mac, I did look up instructions on exactly how to unzip the folders and it appeared to be just as straight forward as Windows *Yippie!*

  1. The first thing you want to do is locate your zip file (of course).
  2. Double-click the ZIP folder. This will prompt the computer to extract immediately.
  3. Wait for the unzipped folder to open. Now that the ZIP folder is done extracting, the unzipped version of the folder will open to display the extracted contents.

What’s Next?

Now that your files are unzipped, you will want to check out this How to guide on uploading your files into Design Space. You can do that by clicking on this link here.

UnZippingFiles

using cricut design space to upload files
CategoriesCrafting Tutorials, Machine Tutorials by

Uploading Files Into Design Space

Uploading Files into Design Space

As you may or may not know, Design Space is Cricut’s online software that allows us to print and/or cut our craft files. You can upload jpg, png, bmp, svg, and dxf files into their online program. (Recently they released a beta offline version that can be downloaded and played with. I have toyed with it but fall back to using online until the bugs get worked out.) Uploading files into Design Space can seem pretty difficult, but do not worry! I have taken a minute to come up with a complete step-by-step guide!

  • Regular Images – These include your files like .jpg, .bmp, .png, and .gif file types. When you upload these, they are put in as a single, flat layer. You have the ability to choose the complexity of these files and make adjustments like taking out the backgrounds so you can use their awesome print and cut feature.
  • Vector Images – These include your .svg and .dxf file types. These are scalable images, which means that you can increase and decrease the sizes of these files like a million times without losing the quality (although let’s not got crazy). These files are often ones that you purchase or download for free (through awesome places like these). You will notice that these files, once saved, will have multiple layers and groups for you to cut.

Step 1 the gallery view

Step 1 – When you want to upload an image or a file, you want to go to your Cricut Design Space. You will select “Upload Image”. A pop up will appear and you will need to choose your image from your desktop / laptop / whatever you are working with. You can also drag and drop your image/file within the dashed line box if that is easier. *You do you!*

Step 2 dragging the file into DS

Step 3 - uploading my logo

Let’s Upload An Image

Option 1 – Image Upload:

  1. Select your image that you want to upload (these are your .jpg, .gif, .png, or .bmp files).
  2. Decide if your image is simple (think 2 color, contrasting colors, easy to clean), moderately complex (okay, so we have a wee bit of cleaning up to do), or complex based (- OMG the textures! The gradients! It’s so BEAUTIFUL!) Click “Continue.”
  3. Here you will be able to use Cricuts online editing tools to make adjustments to your image. You have the ability to Select, Erase, Crop, Cha-Cha Slide – okay, maybe not cha-cha, but you get the point – to remove any unwanted background from your image. As you begin to remove pieces of your image, you will notice a checkerboard background. No, you didn’t enter a weird game like three wizards (pht, excuse me while I wave my wand), that just means that you have successfully removed that part of the image. Anything solid means that that part will still appear. *Pro-tip Do not hesitate to use the zoom feature! It helps – like magic! See below for more details
  4. When you have taken out what you want, select Preview to show the cut lines of your image. If you see any spots that you missed (Hey, we are not perfect, I had to redo mine twice *facepalm*), select the back button to return to editing and remove what you missed. When you are done doing that, select Continue.
  5. Now, name your image and tag it for easy searching later. Decide if you want to save your image as a Print Then Cut or as a Cut image. Saving as a Print Then Cut image will save the whole image – just like it is – colors and all! You will need to print the image out and then run it through your Cricut to cut it. (There are size restrictions to print and cut! 9.25″ x 6.75″ I know, I know, I wish they would give us more space, but one step at a time). Saving it as a Cut image will allow you to just cut right away. *Pro-tip Seriously tag and name it. It helps, I have lost my projects in the sea of uploads. Time is money and if you are doing it for fun, time is still time! I know I would rather binge watch TV shows than searching for a file.
  6. When you are done, select Save. *Mic Drop!* You will now be taken to your upload screen and your new, edited file will be the first thing you see in the library at the bottom. Click your file to add it to your Design Screen and let’s get crafty!
Step 4 - cleaning up space
Removing the background
Uploading files into design space - print and cut versions
Saving as a “Print THEN Cut” or “Cut”

Option 2 – Vector Image Upload:

  1. If you have already downloaded a ready to go file, (these are your .svg or .dxf files) you can upload those instead of a “regular” image. Following the same first steps, select “Upload” then pick our your SVG file or drag and drop the file into the Design Space image upload window. 
  2. Name your image and tag it (if desired) for easier searching later. Then select Save. *Pro-tip Seriously – I can not stress this enough, don’t be like me! LOL. Tag and name it. It helps, I have lost my projects in the sea of uploads. Time is money, Time is Time, Binge Watch TV & Chill, Wine Time, Party With The Boys – Whatever your thing is.
  3. You will return to the Upload screen again. Your cut file will appear as the first one in the Library at the bottom of the screen. To add the image to your design screen, click on the image to select it, then select Insert Images to add it to your design screen.
  4. Vector images will appear on your canvas as a grouped image. If you ungroup the file, the image layers can be moved and sized separately. To ungroup, right-click and select “ungroup”
Uploading files into design space - showing grouping
The Grouping

Now that you know all about uploading files into Design Space, it’s time to get crafty. You need to grab your choice of vinyl and your mats and get started! Eek! I am so excited for you. Get ready to experience the magic.

using cricut design space to upload files
How to upload designs In cricut design space