Instead of purchasing Christmas cards this year, I decided to use the card mat on my Joy to help me make some cards. I have a small box of blank cards that have been sitting in my craft room for more than 5 years, so I figured it was about time that I did something with them besides storing them.
The Joy is the only machine that has a "card mat". This is a special mat with a sleeve in it which allows you to cut the front of a card without having to stick the whole card to the sticky mat. This is great especially when working on the inside of the card because it means that the cut out front doesn't have to be stuck again to the mat (risking tearing the front while making the back of it).
Making cards using the Joy is a breeze. I uploaded a "Gingerbread Man" insert card I got from "The Bearded Housewife". This card uses both the pen and the cutting tool.
First, it cuts out the gingerbread man outline and the tabs for the insert.
Cricut Design Space shows the progress as the design is cut.
Joy cutting out the Gingerbread man. The back portion of the card is in the slot within the mat.
Next, we switch to drawing mode, so I had to replace the cutting tool with the pen that came with the Joy.
It writes a little differently than how a person would write. It will move across drawing parts of several letters and then go back and finish those letters later. It also hops from side to side, sometimes writing "backwards" and other times drawing things seemingly out of order.
I'm not sure if the writing happens in the order that the writing was created or whether the software decides when to draw which lines. I suppose that as long as all of the lines appear on the card that we're doing it right.
Final front of the card with a piece of red paper as the insert to fill in the cut out pieces.
The next step was to unload the card mat, fold the card around the other way, and then let it write "Merry Christmas" on the inside.
Quite fun, indeed.
I also made a second card. This one was an insert card with an angel on it. The Joy's card mat again allowed me to create this easily and quickly. The little surprise in this card is that the Angel and one star are to backed by a different color paper. The cut file came with a cutout piece for them, so all I had to do was glue the yellow angel to the back of the card's front piece, then slip in a rectangle of white to fill in the rest.
OK, if I had read the
tutorial, things would have been slightly different - we're supposed to switch to the pen for the second copy of the angel, not cut it out on paper and then glue it to the backside of the card front. Next time I make it, I'll do that, however, I do like this version with the angel being a different color from the rest of the background. I guess either version would work fine.
The final step was to draw "Merry Christmas" for the inside. Since the card I used was dark green and I only have a black pen for my Joy, I had to cut out a piece of light colored paper, have Joy write the message, and then glue that paper into the card.
And that's all that's needed for making cards with the Joy! I can't wait for an excuse to make more cards. I think I will make a Valentine's Day card for my husband. Stay tuned.
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