Fields Of Heather: Drawing with FUN fonts in Cricut

The markers in cricut will do more than just write, with many fonts, they can actually draw! The pen will still follow the path of the blade, and that will leave you with an outline on many things, such as the cow - but on many of the decorative fonts, the outer lines will all collapse and leave you with just a decorative font great for posters! Surprisingly, these fonts seem to draw much faster than the writing fonts that I use for writing simple text.

Quick Links:

Alternative Markers that work with no adapter needed in cricut
Free Fonts That Will Write Without Bubbling
Using Fontlab Pad with Design Space (no need to install these fonts to use them!)
How to Install Fonts To Use In Design Space
Look Under Decorative Fonts, Or Dingbats, for many more options at Dafont

Look at what this machine can do! It's so much more artistic than I am! :-)
(It's writing with a Leisure Arts Marker, this is one of many alternate markers that fit right into the pen holder, no adapter needed, and does a great job writing in cricut)

For quite awhile now, I've been testing out fonts that write as handwriting fonts in cricut. FREE fonts, that do not outline when used in the writing feature. (I now have literally hundreds of samples, sorted by the pens they work with - when I originally wrote this post, I was excited to have found just 22... )

But today I learned something new. The cricut will also write FUN fonts. Drawing fonts. I don't need any signs right this minute, but when I DO need a sign, this is going to be fun.

Samples are written with the Leisure Arts Markers

FREE Fonts Used: (click on links to download)
Urban Cuisine
Sketch 3D
Cast Iron
Good Morning
Zengo
Orange Juice (this one takes extra long to write - but I love how it looks)
RingMaster (I think this would be better with a thinner tip)

Keep in mind that fontlab pad will convert any text into an svg, so there is no need to install any of these fonts. You can open them into fontlab pad right from the zip files, type the text, save as svg, and upload to design space.

Cow is from the free dingbat font Critters
Draw is the Cast Iron Font
With Is K26 Toy Blocks Font
Cricut is the Circus Font

To draw, choose Linetype, Draw at the top of the screen. Change all of your colors (the box with a question mark here, beside the word draw, is where you chose the color) and then select all and attach. Unlike when cutting, when using draw, you can attach everything even if it is not the same color. Attach will keep all of your text placed where you want it, as shown here.

This is the magical unicorn font - it draws REALLY well.

Notice that the paper banner font cut off at the end. That happens usually when I have used my laptop for a zillion things and not once shut it off all week... leading me to believe it's a memory issue. Usually if I restart my computer and make the project again, it works fine. But this is just one font, right on the edge.. making me wonder if I just pushed a little too hard against that margin... although Birthday Balloon and Open Face actually extend further to the right in this sample, so I'm just not sure.