How To Make Knockout Designs in Cricut Design Space

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How Do You Do a Knockout on Cricut?

Hi crafty friends!  In this tutorial, I’m going to show you how to make knockout designs in Cricut design space.  I didn’t write about knockout designs on my recent post about how to edit text in design space because they take a little more explanation.  But I’ve had a lot of questions about it since then, so it’s time to get them answered.

Knockout designs are where you combine two different designs into one.  You can knockout an image to form parts of the text like this….

 

 

Or you can knockout text and place text inside of different text like this.

 

 

*Update:  Cricut recently updated design space and the knockout design instructions now reflect that update.

So let’s get to it.

Make a Knockout Design With an Image

 

The first thing you need to do is choose your font and choose your image.   The most common font and the one I used in the ‘I Love You’ knockout design is called Impact.  It is loaded in Cricut design space and it’s FREE!

In my America knockout designs, I used the font Moon Fighter.  Any chunky bold font will work as long as it’s a single layer font. 

So now that we have our font, type your text into design space.

 

 

Keep your image in mind while you are putting together your text.  A square shaped image will require multiple lines of text.

I prefer to put each line of text in a separate text box.  That way I can stretch out a word if I need to and I can put the lines close together.

Your letters will also need to be spaced closer together.  You can either do that by clicking the ungroup button and moving each letter individually, or by lowering the letter space on the top toolbar.

After you have your text the way you want, select everything and click the weld button on the right toolbar.

 

 

Adding The Image for Knockout

For the image part of my knockout design, I just used the heart shape from the shapes menu in design space.  You can also upload your own image.

An important note on images:  Knockout designs only work with single layer fonts and single layer images.  Think one color like silhouettes.

After your image is uploaded, size it to fit your text.  You may have to right click and then click move to front to get the image on the top layer.

 

 

How to Slice the Words

So when you have everything lined up how you want you’re going to select everything and click the slice button on the bottom right toolbar.  You will see the results of the slice in the layers menu.

By using slice we are cutting the image of the heart out of the words ‘I love you’

Depending on what you plan on doing with your design, you may not want to move it just yet.  Click on the two center slice results in the layers menu and then hit the backspace or delete button to get rid of them.

 

Your design should look like this after deleting those two middle layers.  If you are using HTV (heat transfer vinyl) you are good to go and can click the make it button.

If you are using adhesive sticky vinyl you may want to see my tips for layering vinyl here. 

 

 

 

How To Knockout Text with Cricut

 

To knockout text from text we are going to start with typing in your background text.  Just like the image knockout, you want a big chunky font that is a single layer.   This font is called Moon Fighter.  Impact Font also works well.

 

 

Size it fairly big so we can see what we are doing.  Use the letter space on the top menu bar to move your letters closer together.  Or you could ungroup your letters and move them individually and then regroup them.  After you have the spacing set select everything and click the weld button on the bottom right toolbar.

 

Now we need to pick a single layer script font.  The most common one everyone is using with the hearts in the middle is called I love Glitter and you can find it free here.

 

 

If you need help with fonts or script text, see my editing text in design space post. 

So after you have your script text moved together, don’t forget to select it all and weld it together so it stays together and cuts as one continuous shape.

 

 

I like to change the color of the script knockout text so that it’s easier to see.   The latest design space update moved the color change to the top menu.

Next, you can drag your script over the print text and size it up how you want it.  I had to hit the unlock button on the bottom left of the text box so I could stretch mine longer.

After it’s sized how you want, move the script back down.

Making The Bleed Out Text

 

 

So now we want to change our script text to print.  This is another change Cricut made in the latest update.  Make sure your script text is selected and on the top menu click on the drop down from the fill menu and select print.

Don’t worry, we aren’t going to print it, so no need to hook up your printer.

Now Click the make it button and on the next screen click continue.    This will bring you to the print screen.

 

 

On the next screen select your print mat and click send to printer.   This will bring up the print set up menu.

 

 

A new menu will pop up.  Make sure where it says bleed is toggled on to green.  Then right-click the image and select save image as…..  Name your image and save it to your computer.

Close the print menu and click cancel for the cut and print.  You should be back in design space now.

 

 

Click the upload button and upload the image you just saved of your bleed out design.  Next, select the Simple design option.

 

 

Click to delete the background of the image.  The background should change to blue checks.  Then select the eraser to erase the box that is around the bleed out text.

After that is done click the continue button.  On the next screen be sure to select the image on the right that says save as cut file. 

 

 

The bleed out will be vertical when it goes back into design space.  Spin it around so it’s back to horizontal and size it to match up with your script text.

You can right-click on the script text and select move to front and then adjust the size of the bleed out.

You may have to click the little lock on the bottom left of the bleed out.  This will allow you to stretch it longer or taller.  Keep adjusting until all of your script text fits inside the bleed out.

 

 

 

Slicing The Bleed Out Text

After it is sized correctly I like to change the color so I can see what I am doing for the next step.  Place your bleed out image over your background text.

You can select both the text and the bleed out and then click align on the top toolbar.  Align them both horizontally and vertically.  That said you may want not want it perfectly centered if it blocks too much of the background text.  Make adjustments as needed.

 

 

 

Once you are happy with the placement, select them both and click the slice button on the bottom right toolbar.

 

 

 

Separate the sliced parts from your text and select all of the sliced parts and hit the delete button.  Now you can move your script up into the space left in the background text.

 

 

 

It’s super important to remember to select your script text and change it back from print to cut.

If you want to cut this all one color be sure to select both and click the attach button before you click the make it button.

If you want the script to be a different color, don’t attach them. 

That covers just about everything you need to know about making Knockout Designs!  If you have any further questions please leave me a comment down below.

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Knockout Text Design with Cricut

 

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