CURVING TEXT IN EXPLORE and a TIP!

           Hello, everyone, this is Charlotte C.  Thank you, Sheila, for once again letting me join in on your blog.   Today I want to share with you a few ways to create curved text in Design Space with your Explore.  And let me preface all this by saying there are ways to create word art in Illustrator and Publisher and other such programs that can be imported into Design Space, but I’m sticking with only using Design Space and Cricut images. This first part will cut the letters out of your card stock or vinyl in the shape you created (good for stencils).

•         Insert a shape you wish the word to follow, like a circle or oval; open the text box and type your word in the text box.

•        With the word still surrounded by its box, right click on the word, and left click Ungroup, and now you can move each letter individually.  Oh, but those pesky “handles” make it impossible to see what you’re doing.

•        So here’s the TIP:  Create two small circles; position one above and one below the first letter you want to move and group those three together.

•         Now you can easily see your letter and can maneuver it where you want because the “handles” are no longer in your way.

When your first letter is in place, ungroup, and move the little circles to the next letter you need to move, then the next, and so on, grouping, moving and ungrouping.  Actually sometimes mine were ungrouping themselves once I clicked off them. 

When your entire word is placed and spaced along your shape to your liking, delete the shape and the two circles you used for placement, highlight your word and click Attach.  When you click Go and your preview mat comes up, you will see that the word will cut out in that shape, and now you’ll use the negative of the cuts to position each letter exactly where you want them on your project.

If you want a single word to cut out rather than individual letters, you will have to weld the letters together to form that word.  As you’re placing your letters around your shape, position them to touch each other.  When you’re satisfied with how it looks, delete the shape, highlight your word and click Weld.  Now your word will cut in the shape you want, like this.

Maybe you want to write on your card stock instead of cutting out the word?  When you’ve first typed your word and it’s inside its box, in the layers tab change cut to write; change to a writing font if you wish.  Now proceed to ungroup and move your letters as above.  It will look like this if you don’t weld the letters. 

You can easily personalize a banner/label by duplicating it and using the duplicate as a guide to placing your word.  I changed the color of the duplicate in this example so I can see the original.  Pretty cool, right?

Thank you for stopping by today.  Enjoy the spring weather we’re finally having, and if you have any questions (I know this post was wordy), please contact me at any time.