I do most of my design work in an open source software called Inkscape. I have used this for so many years that it is second nature to me. But, as I learn more about Make The Cut, I am finding functions that MTC handles much better than Inkscape. One task that I prefer MTC for is when I want to wrap text around a shape.

Steps:

Import or open your shape in MTC. I drew the shape of the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, copied and then pasted it into MTC.

Open the Text and Font Box and choose your font.

Click icon to open Add Text Group, and enter your text.

Drag to resize your box of text to the size that you think will work best.

If you like, you can add a shape. I added a heart from Basic Shapes at the end of my string of text.

Drag around text and shape to select. Ctrl + J to Join.

Now click on your selected text (and shape if you have one). Hold down Ctrl while you drag the text box onto the shape you want to wrap around. Release.

Things might look a little strange, but don’t worry. You can make adjustments using this Wrap Objects to Text box. The easiest way to adjust the settings is to just play with them until you get the look you want. You can change the spacing, number of repeats, offset, etc. It is pretty simple to figure out what they do.

Keep working the settings until you get things close to what you want. It doesn’t need to be perfect because you can tweak things manually.

Click Accept. You will be asked if you want to Weld Paths now. Select NO.

Now you can move things around if need be. First drag around your design. Ctrl + P to Split (ungroup) into individual parts so you can make adjustments. You may even need to delete some letters if things look too bunched up like they did in my design.

I ended up with this. Now I’ll try this process and create an inkjet heat transfer. (For more information and settings for cutting ink jet heat transfer sheets, you can check out another tutorial here.

Here’s what I made with the heat transfer I created using this process. (…and a little Michigan trivia for those that don’t know: A person that lives in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan is called a Yooper. And Yoopers often refer affectionately to their beautiful peninsula as “The Yoop”.)