DIY Holiday Cards Using Your Cricut

This year, Hanukkah begins this upcoming Tuesday December 12th, so if you celebrate or have family & friends that do, time is running out to make (or buy) gifts & cards!

Today I’ll be making DIY Hanukkah cards using my Cricut. Keep your eyes peeled in the near future for a Christmas card tutorial (I haven’t gotten around to making any x-mas gifts or cards yet… I still have 2+ weeks, right?)

Cricut Design Space has a lot of free Christmas card projects to choose from but few Hanukkah cards (actually, I did a very quick search and I found none; a couple of other projects but no cards).

No problem though, because I think it’s more fun to design your own cards. Plus more original! I’d hate to send a card to a friend or family member only to find out they’d already received the exact same handmade card from another Cricut-enthusiast!

Let’s get started!

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DIY Hanukkah Cards Using Your Cricut

Supplies:

• Cricut (+ adhesive cutting mat, blade, and pen)
• cardstock in colors of your choice
• double-sided tape (or another cardstock adhesive)

Instructions:

1. Start a new project in Cricut Design Space. Create a text box, select your favorite font, and type whichever phrase you want on the front of the card. I went with “Happy Hanukkah.” 
2. I chose a script font and as you can see, my letters aren’t connected yet. In order to connect the letters, decrease the space in between them until they touch. 
3. If any of your letters still don’t quite look right, you’ll probably want to manually position them. To do this, select your text box and click UnGroup. This detaches the letters from one another. Now you can select individual letters and position them so that it looks good to you. Just don’t forget to select all the letters and re-Group when you’re finished.  
4. Insert two triangles using the Shapes button. 
5. Flip one of the triangles upside-down and position it on top of the other to form a star. Once everything is lined up, select both triangles and click Weld. Then scale down your star. 
6. Make a copy of your star using the Duplicate function. Then scale it down, center it inside your first star, select both stars, and Group. (Note- I changed the colors of my project at this point to make it easier to see and give a better idea of how the card will look when assembled.)  
7. Now let’s create your actual card. Use the Shapes button to insert two rectangles. Press the “unlock” button to adjust the scale. I made one 4″ x 6″ and one 4.5″ x 6.5″. 
8. Center your text inside the smaller rectangle and Attach. Then Duplicate your star several times. 
9. Position the stars around your card. 
10. We’re almost done! If you want to handwrite your message on the back of the card, you can skip this step. I prefer using the Cricut to “write” on my cards because it looks so much better than my handwriting. Create a text box, type your message, and position it inside the larger rectangle and Attach (ensure the text is set to “write” not “cut”.) 
11. In order to cut our card correctly, we actually want to isolate the small stars: UnGroup and separate them from the larger stars. Then Attach the larger stars to the card.   
12. Now we’re ready to Make It!
13. Follow the prompts on your screen to load each mat with the cardstock colors of your choice and let the Cricut write & cut each piece of the card for you. 
14. Weed your pieces from the mat. 
15. As you can see, the font I chose created and outline when the Cricut “wrote” it because my pen was a 0.4 point Therefore, I’m going to fill in the text by hand. 
16. Assemble your card using your adhesive of choice. I used double-sided tape to adhere the two rectangles, then a glue stick to secure the stars and areas that weren’t laying flat. 
17. Almost done with this card- we just have to add the insides of the loopy letters. I left these un-weeded on my cutting mat so that I could weed & paste each tiny piece individually. Otherwise, I’d probably confuse myself trying to match each little oval with it’s letter. Once that’s done, your card is complete. 

I also decided to make a second card using the scrap letters & stars from the first one. I cut out two more rectangles,  4″ x 6″ and 4.5″ x 6.5″ out of blue and white cardstock. Again, I used the Cricut to “handwrite” my message on the back of the larger piece. I assembled this card in the same manner as the first one, but changed the positions of my text and stars. Then I went in with a dark blue marker and hand drew some smaller stars inside my pasted stars (I immediately regretted this because I’m not crazy about the way I drew my stars, but oh well- crafting is all about playing around with ideas and learning from your mistakes.)    

Here are pictures of the finished cards:                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                      

I like these cards because they’re quite simple but still cute enough to hang on the fridge. Plus, you can whip up a bunch pretty quickly.

Are you planning to make your own cards this holiday season? Share your thoughts below and stay tuned for a DIY Christmas cards tutorial soon!