Homemade Business Cards (with a Cricut)

This month is the American Educational Research Association (AERA) Annual Meeting, which means I (and my friends) have to get ready to network! I've had this project in mind for a while, and it's fun to do when you have a bit of time and access to a cricut. Why pay to have business cards made when you can have some fun, personalized business cards made in a few minutes? This project is very low-key and something you can even do if you just want to try it out. Hope you enjoy making them!

Supplies

This one is pretty simple materials-wise, that is given you have a Cricut already. All you need is:

• A Cricut-compatible pen (any color)
• A Cricut mat (I think the light grip is best for this project, but light or standard both work)
• Paper (pre-perforated or cardstock)

I have two different templates that I will share for pre-perforated paper or regular cardstock.

Step 1: Business Card Basics

What goes on a business card, you ask? Me too; I'm not incredibly business-savvy. So I consulted some experts (read: google) and here is what I came up with as the suggested info (these articles also have helpful tips about what the design of the card can do for your business/brand!):

From Vistaprint:

• Logo
• Company name
• Tagline
• Your name & title
• Contact details
• Your address -online or physical
• Social media handles
• A QR code

From Brandly:

• First and last name
• Job title or position
• Email address
• Phone number
• Business address
• Website
• Social media

Finally, from Design Shack:

• Name and business name (if you have one)
• Basic contact information such as an email address or phone number
• Something that tells people what you do – designer, photographer, web developer etc.
• Website URL to showcase your work

So, clearly, there are a lot of options for what you can/should include. The commonalities between these are:

1. Your Name
2. Where you work
3. What you do
4. Something to contact you - your email, business phone, and/or business address
5. A website - your social media, your website (which I have some suggestions for!), or some other online presence

There seems to be other things to include, but since we are making this with a small space to write, I wanted to make sure it had the necessities and let the homemade-ness speak for itself. Since I mainly envision using these for conferences, I didn't include my website. Just the best way to contact me! If you use the template that I attached, you will only be prompted for:

1. Your name
2. Your email
3. Your institution/workplace
4. Your position

Step 2: Pre-Perforated Cards

Using this cricut template will make the process easier since I worked out the spacing, but you will probably want to play with it a bit given whatever you want to add will be different sizes.

I made the words stay in a 3"x1.25" space, and leave about an inch on either side before the next box, which pretty much lands it directly in the white part (with some trial and error, which I show).

You can place this paper on your mat the same way you would regular cardstock, but be warned that depending on the age of the paper they might start coming apart as you go to take them off. They did a really good job of staying put during the cut though!

Step 3: Non-perforated Cards (aKA Cardstock)

For regular cardstock I had to get creative since it also needed a cut border, but I managed to just add a rectangle around that did the trick! This template is nice because you can just copy and paste it as many times as you need, no worrying about spacing! Also we were able to make it in a shape that allowed my friend to have a symbol and their website.

Here is the link to the template!

Step 4: Ready to Hand Out!

These were pretty straightforward, I hope they are useful to you in all of your networking endeavors!