How to Make Personalized DIY Seed Envelopes

Today’s post includes a complete tutorial for making your own personalized DIY seed envelopes – perfect for gift giving! These seed packets are great tucked into a Mother’s Day gift, Easter basket or spring gardening gift basket! Scroll down for all the details, including a complete Cricut tutorial to add personalization!

This post contains affiliate links, which means if you make a purchase through them, I may receive a commission from a third party at no extra cost to you. All opinions are my own, and I only share links to products I personally use, love and trust.

New Project Anxiety

Do you ever get anxiety before starting a new craft project for the first time? Am I the only one?

Maybe it has something to do with the fact that I’m a Type A perfectionist who gets discouraged easily and never wants to mess up or make mistakes. I’m paranoid I’ll waste my precious materials or worse – my precious time!

Needless to say, this idea for making DIY seed envelopes has been swirling around in my head for quite some time, but I was too nervous to pull the trigger on it…until now!

STEPPING OUTSIDE OF MY CRICUT COMFORT ZONE

As soon as I got my Cricut Explore Air 2, I quickly mastered the cutting features, but I was definitely having irrational anxiety when it came to learning to use my machine’s write and draw functions.

Deep down I know there’s no reason to dread trying something new, but I’m illogical like that. I wanted to learn to write using my machine, but I don’t subscribe to Cricut Access (nor do I plan to in the future).

That said, I didn’t have any good free writing fonts in Design Space to test, so I kept putting it off.

Then, during a recent pin-fest, I stumbled upon a post by Monica Snyder at SimplyCuttable.com. It was like being hit by a bolt of inspirational lighting!

In her post, Monica listed 7 free fonts that are great for writing using your Cricut Explore Air 2 and included a really pretty font named “Kinan” from dafont.com. I saw it and knew it would be perfect for the little DIY seed envelope project I’d been contemplating.

A DIY PROJECT PERFECT FOR SPRING (AND EARTH DAY)

Earth Day is a pretty big celebration in our house. I know, I know, that’s kind of an odd holiday to really go all out for – but we love it!

I wanted to keep the momentum going with my kiddos and was looking for fun spring projects to do with them. Both of my kids love to dig in the dirt and “help” when I’m working in the yard. So I dreamed-up this DIY seed envelope project, which combines gardening and recycling.

Recycle Those Brown Paper Bags

Who doesn’t love a good excuse to show your kids how to recycle?

I had a few brown paper bags taking up space in my pantry after a recent grocery run. Instead of throwing them into the recycling bin, I cut those babies up to make the seed packets.

Then, I picked up some seeds at the Dollar Store and blew the dust off of my sewing machine (which – I hate to admit – has been badly neglected since I got my Cricut).

A Cricut Tutorial for Creating Seed Envelopes

After a quick pep-talk, I finally got off my bum and played around in Design Space with a writing/drawing project. (Okay, I guess I was still technically on my bum while I did this.)

I’ve outlined each step below if you want to try your hand at making some DIY seed envelopes too.

You could customize the text and graphics to make these DIY seed packets for Easter baskets, Mother’s Day gifts or even for spring wedding or baby shower favors.

And if you are looking for other fun Earth Day projects to make with your Cricut, check out all of my favorites!

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DIY Seed Envelope Video Tutorial

Step 1: Gather your supplies for your DIY seed envelopes

• brown kraft recycled cardstock or brown paper shopping bags
• Cricut pen in black
• Cricut Explore Air 2 and cutting mat
• Weeding tools
• Standard sewing machine (I have an old Kenmore. I honestly don’t think they make these any more!)
• Sewing machine thread
• Seeds of choice
• Additional font* (See Step 2)
• Tree image (See Step 3)

Step 2: Download you font & upload it to your Cricut Design Space

So the key to writing with your Cricut is finding a very thin font that will fill itself in as it writes so you don’t end up with an outline of your letters (bubble letters, if you will).

As I mentioned earlier, while browsing Pinterest, I stumbled upon the “Kinan” font from dafont.com*. It’s perfectly thin and resulted in a clean look ifIdosaysomyself.

*Always double-check the licensing for the fonts you download. I am using this font for personal use and will not be selling these seed envelopes for profit. However, there are plenty of completely free fonts on dafont.com.

Download directions:

• Go to Dafont.com and search for the font name or click on the link above. Next, click on the gray “download” button to the right of the fonts.
• Once the zip file has downloaded to your computer, open the file and double-click on the TrueType font file to open it.
• Then hit the “install” button at the top of the document.
• Once the install is complete, open Cricut Design Space and select your new font from the font drop-down menu. (If you are already working in Design Space, you’ll want to refresh it or log out and back in so you can see the new font selection).

Step 3: Download the tree image & upload it to Cricut Design Space

I planned to use the Kinan text to write:

“From small seeds grow mighty trees”

so I also wanted to use my Cricut to draw a tree on the envelopes.

This step is totally optional, but I thought since I was learning to write with my machine, I should also give drawing a shot too. If you want to draw an image on your envelopes, you’ll want to:

• Go to cliparts.co and download the svg to your computer.
• Open Cricut Design Space and in a New Project, click on the “Upload” button on the left sidebar.
• Click on the “Upload Image” button and then the “Browse” button to navigate to where you’ve saved your image.
• Double click on the file
• Add an image name and tags and click “Save.”
• Now your image will be saved to Recently Uploaded Images under the Upload tab.
• Click on your image and hit the “Insert Images” button, which will take you back to your canvas for further manipulation.

Step 4: Design & select drawing and cutting functions

You’ll want to start by adding a rectangle to your canvas. (I used a rectangle roughly 5″x7″.) This serves two purposes:

1. It creates a template so you can visualize the placement of the text and graphic on your seed envelopes
2. It will tell your Cricut where to cut the cardstock or paper after it writes/draws

Once you have your rectangle added and sized appropriately and both the graphic and text are uploaded to Design Space, play around with the sizing of the text and tree image until you are satisfied with the overall look.

The “Kinan” text you previously downloaded is a script font, so you’ll want to make sure each letter flows into the next like handwriting. To do this:

1. Type out your words
2. Highlight each word individually
3. Adjust the distance between each letter using the “letter spacing” drop down (see below)

Okay, now here comes the super easy step I was dreading for some ridiculous reason:

Click on the text and select “Draw” from the “Linetype” drop-down. Real tough, right?! Seriously, it’s that easy.

Now that your Cricut knows to draw the lines of the text instead of cut around them, select the tree image and repeat the same step. Again, pick “Draw” from the “Linetype” menu.

Now you’ll want to let the machine know that you want a rectangle cut out around the text and image. Select the rectangle you recently inserted and make sure “Cut” is selected from the “Linetype” drop down.

Next, I “attached” the text to the tree image and the rectangle so my Cricut can both write and cut every piece at once. I did this by rubber-band selecting all of the text and the graphic and hitting the “Attach” button on the Layers tab.

Step 5: Send the project to your Cricut, sit back and watch the drawing begin!

Adhere your paper on one of your Cricut cutting mats, and load your machine like normal. Follow the prompts and watch as the design takes shape!

Step 6: Grab your sewing machine

Remove the paper from your cutting mat and stack the front of the envelopes (artwork side up) on top of a blank back. Load your sewing machine with matching thread and bobbin spools, and adjust it to have a long stitch.

As you would with fabric, start with the length of the envelope and run the stack through your sewing machine. Continue along the bottom and the final length. ***Remember to keep the top of the envelope open so you can fill it with any kind of seed your heart desires!***

Once all your seeds are inside the envelope, run the last short side through your sewing machine to close the top. Trim off any excess thread and you’re done!

I’d love to hear what you think of my DIY seed envelope! Head over to my Pinterest and Instagram accounts and follow me for gift ideas shared daily!

IF YOU NEED HELP BRAINSTORMING OR CREATING A CUSTOM GIFT, PLEASE REACH OUT TO ME! I’D LOVE TO HELP!

More later! The craft room is calling, and I must go…

Other DIY Projects You’ll Love:

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