Make Your Own Word Books
Using Cricut and Cricut Design Studio
It's pretty easy to make your own word art book with Cricut Design Studio. It looks more complicated than it really is - and when you're done, you'll be thrilled with the results. Let's get started!
MATERIALS:
5-10 Pieces of coordinating heavy weight paper or cardstock
fiber for binding
Cricut (baby or Expressions)
Cricut Design Studio
Glue/Scizzors
Embellishments of choice
Cropadile or hole punch
INSTRUCTIONS:
1) Pick a word – most any four to five letter word will work nicely. I’m doing LOVE in this example.
2) Pick a font. You’ll find that most fonts will work if you play with them, but some are easier than others. George or Plantin Schoolbook both work well, and I absolutely love the Micky cartridge for doing this; it’s so chunky cool. I’m using Plantin Schoolbook in my example.
3) In CDS (Cricut Design Studio), add one layer for each letter in your word and name the layer accordingly. If you are printing each letter in a different color and you’re organized enough to know that already, add the color to the layer name as well. (I’m not very organized…My layers are L, O, V, E.) . I like to add a non-cutting page just for previewing as well.
4) Select the shadow alphabet and set your default size to the desired height of your booklet. I made mine 5 1/2 inches.
5) On the first page (L in my example), add the letter specified in the layer title. Move it a couple of inches from the left side of the mat. Be sure to use your gridlines to line it up; it’ll be easier to place the remaining letters accordingly. One thing to remember as you’re placing your letters… don’t modify the width if you plan to cut the “regular” letters out of coordinating paper, unless you want to spend a lot of time trying to get them lined up! (I made that mistake on my first book !)
6) Move to the next layer and click preview so that you can see the last letter. (You can turn on Keep Preview as Background if you like from the “View” drop down.)
7) Place the next letter and move it just to the right of the last letter. You’ll probably want a bit of overlap, but don’t worry if it’s not perfect at this point, we’ll come back and tweak things as we move along.
8) Repeat step 6 and 7 until you have all the letters placed. One point to remember as you are placing your letters… if you will be cutting 8 ½ x 11 paper, your letters shouldn’t go past the 11 inch marker. (I made that mistake on my first book!)
9) Once all your letters are placed, tweak until you’re satisfied with the way the word looks. You don’t want the letters so overlapped that you can’t read it, and you don’t want them so far apart that it looks like an acronym. I turned my O a bit to give it a little bit of a quirky look and moved my L a little more to the left to ensure that you could more easily read the word.
10) Go to the 1st layer. (Shadow is still on.) If you are using something other than George or Plantin Schoolbook, you’ll need to change to one of these cartridges so t hat you can access the square or rectangular shape.
11) Turn off background preview (CTRL-L)
12) Add a square (or rectangle) shape to the left of the letter. Adjust the width (and height if necessary) until it overlaps your letter a bit. For the first page, you may overlap a bit more liberally if you’ll be cutting the “regular” letters out of coordinating paper. I overlapped my L so that there would be a little cutout between the square and the L. I also had to resize the box a little to make it fit better, using the gridlines to line it up.
13) With the rectangle highlighted, select CTRL-C to copy the box. It will paste to the exact same position on the next layer.
14) Move to the next layer and CTRL-V to paste the box on this layer. Adjust the width to slightly overlap the left edge of the letter.
15) Repeat step 14 for each layer. (Some people like to add a back page – Turn on background preview if you’re adding this page so that you can easily see how big to make your box. I’m NOT adding a page for mine.)
16) Turn preview on to see your handiwork
17) You may need to tweak a bit. You’ll want to consider letters that have hanging bits… like the bottom of a Y like in this MERRY book.
To solve this, I rotated the Y until both the top and the bottom are overlapping the box slightly. You may have to trim some points, but your book will be much more stable if you do it this way. You might find that other letters are challenging as well… If you’re doing “HAPPY”, the Ps might look a little odd. In this case, just rotate until a bit of the bottom part of the P is not joined to the box (much like the bottom of the V in my LOVE book. (BTW, this is my “mistake” of not planning for 8 ½ x 11 paper! My Y looks a bit odd! LOL)
18) Go back to the 1st layer; select the rectangle and click the meld option. Select the letter and click the meld option. Do this for each item on each layer.
19) Select View>Preview. The cutout should be displayed.
20) Scroll through each layer and check your work carefully. Once you’re done with this, save your file!
21) Now you want to add a page for your regular sized letters. On this page I add one letter per quarter page so that I can cut all four letters at one time. Turn off shadow; you don’t need to make any other adjustments. Here’s how mine looks:
You’ll have to make adjustments if you have the baby Cricut – or if you’ve more that 4 letters to your word! When you’re ready to cut this page, just cut 4 pieces of coordinating paper (in my case – 5x5 inches worked) and place in each quarter of the mat!
22) You’re ready to cut!
23) Make sure to adjust your Cricut settings according to your paper requirements and CUT each layer. I’ve tried chipboard and will tell you that it is challenging. I don’t recommend that you try chipboard on your first try or if you’ve limited time to do this project! Here's mine all cut out:
24) If you’re using 2 sided paper, you may not wish to cut a “back side” to your pages. I did cut a back side by flipping the page over (right side to the mat) and cut. Then I glued the fronts and backs together. (I actually wanted a little more sturdy book, so I cut a middle layer out of heavy cardstock to sandwich between the front and back layers.)
25) To put your book together, draw a light pencil line ¼ to ½ inch from the left edge of the 1st page. Make a mark ½ inch from the top and another ½ inch from the bottom. Add 1-3 additional marks in between these last two marks, equally spaced. More holes make a more stable book. (For a stitch bound book, use an odd number of holes. HINT: If you’re taking my binding class – make 5 holes!)
26) Stack your pages and use a binder clip to secure them. Use your crop-a-dile or other 1/16 inch punch to punch through the marks you’ve made. An awl will work if you don’t have a punch. Erase any remaining pencil marks. Use any binding technique you wish. If you’re using chipboard, you’ll want your binding to be loose – rings work well. Since I used heavy cardstock, I’ve used fibers and ribbons to make a funky sort of look for my I [HEART] Emi book.
27) Embellish to your heart’s content. Add your regular letters, photos, and other goodies and let us see what you create!
About the author ...
Glenda has been scrapbooking for several years and started digital scrapping in 2006. She has two daughters who are the main focus of most of the pages she creates. Glenda uses Paint Shop Pro Photo for her digital scrapbooking pages and still delves into paper scrapping occasionally as well as her myriad of other crafty endeavors - cross stitch, knitting, sewing, stamping, quilting, stained glass, needlepoint... She often has many projects ongoing at any given time!
Published on 05/04/2008. Submitted by bamablue
Reader Comments ...Dianedi . South Shore, MA | 5/4/08 1:21 pm |
Wow, this article is fantastic! I've been thinking of getting the Design Studio and you've explained everything perfectly. Awesome job! |
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scrapsakes . Orange County, CA | 5/5/08 2:01 am |
fantastic job on this... love how you did each outline letter using patterned papers, just made it look even better!! |
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MOM2SNOX . Cherry Spice with RUM in the Pacific Northwet :) | 5/11/08 5:28 pm |
Thanks for the wonderful article! I can't wait to try this out with my Mother's Day gift :) |
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beancounter | 8/24/08 10:29 am |
I just got Design Studio, and I can't wait to try this. I've seen these word books in the store, but now I can just do my own:) thanks for sharing!!! |
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justred2u | 10/10/08 10:01 pm |
this is AMAZING ... cant wait to try it!! |
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olive_eyes | 12/29/08 11:42 pm |
YOUR DIRECTIONS ARE PERFECT!! Question though, when I created the letters layer they did not fit nicely in the shadow part of the book. I used your measurements for both the book part and the letters. Did I do something wrong? |
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debby910 | 6/14/09 9:34 pm |
Perfect instructions. My ZOO book for my granddaughter turned out great for my first try. I did have the same problem as olive_eyes though. My letters did not fit into the shadowed letters welded to the boxes. They fit on them but not in them. it still looks GREAT! Thanks so much for the step by step. |
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