Regulars to this site will know I’m a big fan of intricate cards that look complicated but are super-easy to make, since your machine and the file do all of the hard work! I also love the fact that they can transform the most basic cardstock into something beautiful!

On cards of this type, if you have a clean and sticky cutting mat and a sharp blade in your machine, you’ll more than likely get great results.

There’s a simple rectangle on the front of the card for you to add the message of your choice – and it goes without saying that you can use whatever type of paper you want as a backdrop (I’ve gone for pink glittery card and silver metallic options.

You will need:

2 A4 (or letter size) sheets of cardstock

A4 (i.e. 5.83″ x 8.27″) sheet of contrasting glitter cardstock for backing (optional)

A pen to write your sentiment with!

Our SVG File, which you can get for free by filling in the form below:

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You’ll also obviously need a cutting machine with blade (we used a Cricut Maker with fine blade) and a stylus tool would come in handy. Aside from that – a sticky mat is crucial!

Preparing the file:

Open a New Project and click on ‘Import Images’. Choose the file you’ve downloaded – in this case it’s ‘butterflycard.svg’. Select all of the pieces and then click on on ‘Ungroup’. Now, you need to transfer some of the lines to score lines. Do do this, click on the line at the centre of the card, and you’ll see it appear highlighted in the right-hand margin. Click the ‘Cut’ (Scissors) icon next to it, and when the Layers Attributes box pops up, choose the ‘Score’ ( Stylus ) icon. It’s now a score line. Repeat the process for the two lines on the inner edges of the butterfly wings. Once this is done, select all of the butterfly (and its score lines) and the white rectangle it’s on top of. You’ll see the pieces highlighted in the right hand margin. At the bottom of this margin, click on ‘Attach’. This’ll ensure that it cuts all as one piece. Now, select the centre line of the card, and the card behind it, and, again, you’ll see both highlighted in the right-hand margin. Choose ‘Attach’ at the bottom of this column. To type a message on top of the sentiment box, you’ll need to click on ‘Text’. Type your message, and it’ll appear on the screen, in a massive size! In the top menu bar, change the font to the one you want, and to the size you want, either by changing the number in the top menu bar or dragging the bottom-left corner of the text box. (to ensure it fits into the rectangle on the card). Centre the text and click on return until it’s in the arrangement you’d like. Please note: I’ve chosen ‘Always Here’, which is one of my favourite fonts – it’s free and is a ‘writing’ font, which means it’ll write as shown, rather than an outline of the text. Now, choose the text and the rectangle it’s on top of, and click on ‘Attach’ in the right-hand margin. We’re almost there – now all you need to do is drag over all of the pieces and click on ‘Group’.

You’re now ready to start cutting!

Cutting the Pieces

There’s nothing very complicated about this – I would suggest you use the ‘Cardstock (for Intricate Cuts)’ setting, and cut it TWICE – that means, that once your machine instructs you to eject the paper, instead of clicking the arrow key, click on the Cricut key and it’ll cut again in exactly the same place.

Assembling the card:

1. Once cut, you should have the following pieces:

Bend over the butterfly wings down the scoreline. Fold the large piece in half to make a card.

2. Carefully apply a thin layer of glue to the back of the butterfly cut-out piece:

Carefully position it on the centre of the background piece, ensuring it’s straight and equidistant from all edges.

3. Glue the back of this piece and apply to the large, folded over card. Take the largest of the two smaller rectangles (i.e. the one without a message on it and glue the back:

4. Affix it to the front of the card, centrally and beneath the butterfly:

5. On top, apply your message:

That’s it!

Of course, you can change the message, or the colours/card types and you can make it smaller or larger if you wish, since it’s a vector file. All you’re limited by is the size of your cutting mat!

Want to have a go at making this yourself? Get your FREE SVG by filling out the form below. And don’t forget to share your results with us – and stay updated on future free files – at the CraftAGoGo Crucial Crafting Group on Facebook!