Use your Cricut Machine to Texture and Cut Your Building

I have learned a new technique that can be used to both texture and cut your building using your Cricut machine using either a debossing tip or a scoring stylus. This is of particular use when the pieces of your pattern are too large to go through your embossing machine. I use this technique to make my next pattern, Hiorne Tower.

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Cricut Machine Texture Specific Materials

How to Use Your Cricut Machine to Texture and Cut Your Building

The tower pieces of Hiorne Tower are too large to go through my BigShot to be embossed. Normally I would instead stencil on the stone work using a stonework stencil and grit paste, but I am short on time. I have also been looking for an opportunity to share a way to texture your buildings using your Cricut machine taught to me by reader LeAndra Miller. If you have a Cricut Maker, you can either use the debossing tip or the scoring stylus. If you have a Cricut Explore, you will need to use the scoring stylus. This only works if you are using cardstock. I used 80# textured solid core cardstock that I found at Joann’s. It is also available at Amazon. I have found that Kraftboard and cardboard tend to be too thick for this method to work well. I skipped directly from 80# cardstock to Kraftboard, however, without trying the various weights in between. If you have a favorite weight of cardstock, I would suggest trying it on a small sample and seeing if you like the results. I found the 80# textured cardstock to be thinner than I would like. Next time I will try this with 100#.

When LeAndra shared the following technique with me, I had no idea that there were patterns that you could use to deboss or score your building pieces included in Cricut Design Space. While the vast majority of the patterns require you to subscribe to Cricut Access, there are 46 free patterns included. You find these by going to Images > Design Elements > Patterns, and then clicking on the free button. The Cricut Access patterns include a brick pattern.

If you use one of these patterns, you will need to resize it to cover your largest piece. Since each of my turrets are 8.556 inches tall, and the widest piece is the crenulations at 8.158, I resized my pattern to be at least this tall and wide. I actually made mine slightly larger so the edge lines of the pattern wouldn’t show. Change your pattern piece from cut to Deboss (even if you are going to use score) and place your pattern over the pieces to see how they will look. Once you are happy with the pattern size, duplicate it and put it off to the side. You will end up duplicating it many more times and don’t want the size to change.

To texture each piece you will do the following: duplicate both the texture pattern and the piece you want to texture. From the duplicate of the piece you want to texture, detach, ungroup, and delete the scoring lines. Place the wall or roof piece UNDER the deboss pattern (you may have to use the arrange button at the top), highlight both pieces, and click “Slice”

Now pull your sliced pieces apart. Delete all except for the piece that looks like your roof or wall and says deboss.

Now take the original wall or roof piece with the score lines attached and the sliced deboss piece and use arrange and then center. Zoom in and double check these because depending on the slice results they may not be lined up exactly. At this point if you will be scoring instead of debossing, change the debossed piece from deboss to score. Select all the pieces and hit attach. Then just repeat with the next piece. Below you can see the attached debossed piece on the left and the attached score piece on the right.

When all of your pieces are finished, click Make It. If you are using the scoring stylus instead of the deboss tip with a Maker, remember to change your tool to scoring stylus. LeAndra also suggested to use more pressure.

Here is a picture of the same piece, using the debossing tip on the left and the scoring stylus on the right. You can see the debossing is deeper than the scoring, and I scored it twice. To do this, check the scoring BEFORE you unload your mat. If you do not feel like the indentations are deep enough, press the “C” button on your Cricut to have it go through a 2nd time. You can unload your mat after it finishes scoring for the 2nd time but before it starts to cut again. I tried debossing a 2nd time (though I was happy with the results after 1 pass) and it ripped my cardstock around the edges where it had previously cut. The other way you can have it deboss or score twice is back in Design Space , before you attach the debossed piece to the pattern piece, duplicate it. Now arrange and center the original wall or roof with both sliced deboss pieces, check to make sure they are aligned, and attach.

So the only real problem I have with the patterns in Design Space (both free and the ones available with Cricut Access), is that I feel that when you make them large enough to fit the walls of Hiorne Tower, they end up not being as detailed as I would like. Thus I made my own pattern. You will find it with the other files of Hiorne Tower under the name stoneworkpattern.png. I don’t know why, but I could not import a svg file and have it slice, so I made a png of the file as that worked. To import it into Design Space, on the left of your canvas, press Upload >Upload Image, then browse for stoneworkpattern.png. On the Upload Image screen, choose Simple > Continue.

On the Background Remover Screen do not choose any of the options. Just press Apply & Continue. On the Select Upload Type page, choose Cut Image > Upload.

Add the uploaded image to your canvas. Remember to change it to Deboss! You can now use it like any of the Design Space patterns following the steps above.

You can see how I used this technique in my Hiorne Tower tutorial, but it can be used for any building pattern you import into Cricut Design Spcae.

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