Fields Of Heather: Making A 6 Generation Family Tree With Cricut

Quick Tips:

Use print then cut!! I used the draw feature - but Print then Cut would look almost identical and take a fraction of the time!
I would also use a posterboard or thicker board next time - rather than the white kraft roll paper I used for this. (A couple of years later, I redid this on a matte board )
The font I used for Drawing was Montepetrum. (Long list of single line fonts that write can be found here )
The frames are super lightweight with plexiglass instead of glass. I found them on sale at Michaels last year.
If you happen to be connected to my genealogy, you can find all of that info here: Heather's Genealogy Notes (Click on the tabs across the top for paternal lines, maternal lines, etc, or search by surname in the search box)
For a step by step (ha!) literally, on how to I did the stairs - go here.
The frames are 24 x 36

I used a precise v5 pen for the one on the left, and the thin tip of the leisure arts marker for the one on the right. But I REALLY recommend just using print then cut! I finished the last section on the one on the left with print then cut, and you can barely tell the difference between those and the ones done with the marker - and it wqas SO much faster!

When you look for Cricut Family Tree ideas, there are lots of ideas.. usually for immediate families. I wanted to put up large displays going 8 generations back... that I could quickly look at while working on our genealogy. My handwriting is not great, and i did not want to hand write into a tiny chart. So this is what I came up with, for now. Eventually I want to come up with something prettier - but as a reference chart, this works really well for me. It's only six generations, but by separating my lines from my husbands lines, I was still able to get a lot of information displayed.

Making The Tree

I started with a plain tree silhouette found on google images.

How to clean up simple clipart to use in design space

Then I created an 11.5 square, and sliced the tree into 3 sections to cut it on 12x12 paper.

For the names at the bottom, I used FontLab Pad to create my text, saved it as an svg, uploaded it, then welded it so that it would cut as once piece.

Font is Krinkes Decor

Using FontLab Pad

https://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/2018/01/using-fontlabpad-with-cricut-design.html

(Design Space now does a MUCH better job of using system fonts, FontLab Pad is not as necessary these days... but I still use it, myself)

Sizes

The white squares for the first 5 generations are 1.878 x 0.883
The black backings for those squares are 1.847 x 0.944 cut 65 (that can't be right? But I'm looking at the project in design space, and those are the measurements...)
The 6th generation, which is smaller, is sized 1.7 x 0.462
The black backing is solid, I cut 4 pieces 1,9 inches wide, and pieced them as a solid black line, down the side.