How to Keep Letters Intact When Making Stencils in Cricut Design Space

Do you ever make stencils with your Cricut machine and after the cut is made the middle of some of the letters fall out, and you wonder how on earth do I keep those middles from falling out?  I’m here to share 2 solutions on How to Keep Letters Intact When Making Stencils in Cricut Design Space.

Solution 1-Use Stencil Font

The first solution is really easy; use a stencil font.  That’s it. 

There are graphic designers out there who purposely make fonts to be used solely for making stencils.  The stencil fonts will have the middle of the letters like “o” and “a” and “e” open and attached to the rest of the stencil so that it ensures the middles will stay intact. 

I personally like using the Tingler Script and Tingler Print fonts when designing my stencils.  You can find this fabulous font at this Creative Market shop. 

There are other stencil fonts to choose from on Creative Market and definitely worth the investment if you’re wanting to create your own stencils.

Solution 2-Make the Font Stencil Ready

The second solution is to make the regular font into a stencil font.  Now this solution is a little more complicated and time consuming, but it can be done. 

I’ll be showing you how you can make those middles stay intact when you’re creating stencils in Cricut Design Space.

Insert Text in Cricut Design Space

First insert your text in Cricut Design Space and type in your text. 

I will be inserting a print font and a script font to give a good picture of where the slices need to be in each type of font.

Click on Shapes

Next click on the shapes button in the sidebar and then select the square shape.

Unlock the Square

I like to unlock the square aspect ratio so the square can be made narrow for small slices.

Duplicate Square

Resize the square to desired length and width. 

To save time, you can duplicate the square once you have the desired dimension set. 

Just make sure the square is selected and then right click and select “duplicate”. 

If you have a longer text design that has several letters that need to be sliced, an option would be to only make one “square” at a time to keep things less complicated in the “Layers Panel.” 

That’s just an option though; it’s whatever you find works best for you. 

If you do choose to only make one “square” at a time, maybe write down the dimensions of the “square” to refer back to when making more squares, so all the openings are the same width.

Position Squares

You can position the “squares” wherever you want the letters to be opened. 

As long as the middle of the letter is connected to the rest of the stencil it doesn’t matter where you choose the opening or how many opening you add to the letter. 

For instance the “O” only needed one opening to connect it but I’ve positioned the “square” where it will slice the “O” giving it two openings. 

Just remember anywhere where the letter is closed off, an opening needs to be made

Select Corresponding Layers

Next select the corresponding layers by holding down the shift key on your keyboard and select one square and the corresponding text.  

Only one square and one text can be selected together at a time for a slice.

Slice Layers

When the text layer and the square layer are selected together, click slice.

Delete Unwanted Sliced Layers

Delete the unwanted sliced layers. 

This can be done by moving your letter or by moving the sliced layers of the square and then deleting the “square” layers. 

There should be 3 layers that need to be deleted.

Continue to Remove Sliced Layers

Move and delete the unwanted sliced layers

Finished Sliced Result

After the last layer is moved and deleted, you’ll see the letter sliced open and stencil ready.

Slicing Script Letters

The same concept and steps apply to script letters. 

Sometimes the script letters are more time consuming to slice because there tend to be more loops to cut through. 

As you can see I’ve got the “squares” positioned to cut the loops on the “S”. 

Again only one “square” and the text can be selected and sliced at once. 

Hold down “Shift” on your keyboard and select one of the “squares” and the corresponding text, then click “Slice.”

Continue to Slice

Slice the remaining “square” and corresponding text which would be the script “S”. 

Since the “S” has already been sliced once, it’s now labeled Slice Result in the “Layers Panel”, but you should be able to see the picture of the text you are slicing, so it can easily be located, selected and sliced again.

Delete the Unwanted Layers

With more than one “square” that is being sliced on a letter it may just be easier to move the text rather than the sliced pieces. 

Click on the unwanted sliced layers and delete until they’re all gone.

Ready to Make It

Once all the letters are stencil ready click “Make It” and follow the directions in Cricut Design Space.

I really hope this helps and if you have any questions about this tutorial just let me know.

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