Cricut Business Cards

It’s only appropriate to have handmade business cards for your crafts business. Here’s a tutorial on how to make them with a set of free business card templates.

One of the easiest things to make is your own business card. Starting a small business on your own takes enough resources from materials to equipment not to mention various online tools and services fees.

If you are crafty enough to start your own crafts business then you’re crafty enough to make your own business card. Not only are you saving a ton by not going to a printing service, but you can also add your own personal touch and make it more memorable.

While I’m going to demonstrate how to edit the graphics using the Cricut Design Space editor, you can use these same techniques with any other word document or graphics editor. Some other editors I would consider include: Google Docs, Google Slides, Microsoft Word, Microsoft Powerpoint, Canva, and Inkscape. These all have free versions of the tool that you can use.

Before we get started, I’d like to take note that DIY business cards do have their aesthetic limitations. Certain designs just look better with at-home printers. You don’t want to have to print a big block for fully saturated colors with your home printer. It won’t turn out well and it will warp the paper as well. I would highly recommend just a graphic with text overlay for handmade business cards. There’s still a lot you can do with graphics and text.

Materials for Craft business cards

Cardstock – I would recommend at least using medium weight cardstock (65lb+). While the default is to print on white, I would consider using colored cardstock as well. Here are some of my favorite brands:

Printer – It’s not worth it to buy your own Printer just for business cards, try a Kinkos or FedEx if you want to use a professional machine at a fraction of the price. If you are interested in a foil printer, check out my tutorial on that using foil sheets.

Cutting Machine – I use a Cricut. Check out my recommendations for Cricut machines and accessories for beginners for more info.

Templates – this set of watercolor business cards and other Cricut business card templates are all free and available.

Interested in some free templates and printables to get your creative juices going on what to make and sell?

How to use Cricut Design Space for business cards for handmade crafts

There are 2 components to your business card. One is the general cutting shape of your card. The second is any graphics you might want to add to the design.

If you are using a design for either part outside of what is available within the Cricut Design Space editor, you will have to utilize different uploading processes.

Uploading a different shape for your handmade business card template

The standard business card dimensions are 3.5x2inches. As a crafts vendor, I would consider doing a different shape or at minimum creating rounded corners for your business card since you can. This will literally help you stand out from the pile.

To upload my free set of business card template SVG, use the “Upload” tool on the left menu panel in the Cricut Design Space canvas view and select the file for uploading.

How to add graphics to your Cricut business card

To be able to work and edit with the graphics for a business card, I highly recommend using a transparent background graphic or a graphic with the background removed.

While Cricut Design Space can do this, the functionality is limited and it honestly just doesn’t do a very good job. I will demonstrate with a watercolor example.

Say I have a watercolor spot I want to add as part of the background.

Use the Upload tool from the Canvas view as you normally would. Select “complex” to preserve the resolution of the graphic. Mark the background so everything but the color part is checkered.

Make sure you save as a Print and Cut Image.

For this particular graphic, I already edited the spot so it would be easily processed by Cricut DS. Other graphics may not also be so easy.

I use a program called Clipping Magic. It automatically removed the background using a deep learning algorithm so there is no additional work you need to do.

A quick note on graphics file formats. There are many ways to save the graphics color information. The 2 main ways you will encounter are RGB and CYMK. RGB is primarily used for digital graphics why CYMK is used for print. Most printing programs can reformat this for your but I have found Cricut Design Space to be not very good at this. Sometimes my graphics just print a completely different color than it’s supposed to be. If that happens to you, check your file color format.

Once your graphics have been uploaded, there are many things you can do with it relative to your base card template. Here in this example, I’ve added it as a spot on the card in its entirety. I also overlay only half of it with the card template and sliced the two shapes. You could also rotate the graphic and only use a corner…the possibilities are endless.

Once you’ve positioned your graphics on your base template, you can now add additional text to your card. Here since I’m designing my logo within the Cricut DS app, I have added a hand-lettered name along with a motto.

Other information to consider include your email, phone number, website, address, and social links.

When your design is ready, select all the graphics and text on top of the base template and “Flatten” all of it together using the Flatten tool in the bottom right corner of the Canvas View.

If your graphic is up against a cutting edge, you can leave the “bleed” on when “Making it”. Otherwise, turn it off as it will add an extra weird edge to your graphic.

Watercolor Business Cards

If you are interested in making your own watercolor business cards, this set of watercolor swatches with transparent background is included in my free business card templates set along with the base cutout shapes.

Other business card ideas for crafters:

There are many different designs you can take on for a business card both in its form factor and its graphics. Consider using a tag that attaches to your product.

If you want to get fancy with printing, try a foil overlay which is easier than you might think.

If you want to use other materials, try a metallic vinyl for the text or your logo. This way, you can contrast the lighter text or graphic on a darker cardstock and still have it look professional.

Finally, there is always the business card as a product holder like this earring holder. (see tutorial with free templates here)