Easy Mother's Day Cards for Cricut beginners

I’m going back to cardmaking basics with a simple and fun retro-style Mother’s Day card that is perfect for beginners. Choose your Mom or Mama’s favorite colors and just put these together with cardstock and pen! I used one of my favorite fonts, Jump, which looks like warm, hand-drawn illustrations from the 60s. I have used this font for foiling, but I also love it drawn with pen or markers.

The finished cards are about 5.75″ wide and just over 3″ tall, so they fit in a standard 4×6″ envelope.

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Materials and tools:

Cutting machine – I’m using a Cricut Maker 3, but you can use any cutting machine with SVG-compatible design software
Scoring Stylus or Scoring Wheel (or you can fold the card in half/score by hand)
Cut file – download the SVGs from our Resource Library
Cutting mat – I’m using a blue Light Grip 12×12″ mat
Brayer
squeegee/scraper
cardstock – I’m using 65 lb cardstock, Astrobrights and Recollections brands. You need 3 different colors for the layers
pen for writing the font on the front, I used Cricut Glitter Gel pens in Black, Plum, and Peacock for the 3 different cards I made
adhesive – I used dollar store tape runner, you can use glue if you prefer (I like Art Glitter glue)

photo of supplies needed to make layered MOM and MAMA mother's day cards: cardstock in 3 colors, brayer, scoring stylus, pen, tape runner, and scraper tool

Download the SVGs

Both the MOM and MAMA SVGs for these cards are bundled together in one download available in our Resource Library. Find the Mother’s Day section of the library and you will see the image for the zip file, just download it and choose whichever design you want to make.

preview images of the mothers day card designs

Upload & prepare your file in Design Space

Basic cut will be the default operation for all line types in this file, so you have to tell Design Space which lines to draw, score, and cut.

Open Design Space and start a new project.

1. Upload the SVG (if you have trouble with this step, you can check out our full guide to uploading images)

Click the Upload icon in the lefthand sidebar
Click the Upload Image button and follow the prompts (Upload image > choose the file from your download folder > Upload)

2. Select the image and Ungroup (top of Layers panel at the right side of DS canvas)

screenshot demonstrating how to ungroup the layers of an uploaded SVG to Design Space

3. Working from the top layer downwards: The first two layers are the text layers (this is the original text plus an inset layer to fill it in; you can check out our tutorial if you want to know how to fill in letters with a pen).

Select both layers and change the operation to Draw > Pen. Select your pen type and color from the color menu next to the operation pulldown menu. Mine is Glitter Gel in Black.

screenshot demonstrating how to change the linetype from basic cut to draw with a pen in Design Space

4. Select both pen layers and the first (white) offset cut layer. They should be centered, but if you have moved any of the layers, use the Align tool to make sure all three layers are centered horizontally and vertically. Then, click the Attach icon at the bottom of the Layers panel.

screenshot demonstrating how to attach drawing layers to cut layers to create a combined operation that will produce written text on a custom cut cardstock shape

5. The next offset layer (purple) does not require any changes.

6. Highlight the next layer (it is a single line) and change the operation from Basic cut to Score.

Select the score line and the card base layer underneath. If you have moved either layer, make sure they are centered horizontally and vertically, then Attach them together.

screenshot demonstrating how to change the line type from basic cut to score in Design Space, and then how to Attach the score line to a cut shape for a combined operation in Design Space

7. Save your project then click the Make button.

This project will be made on 3 mats. Make sure to follow the prompts on the Set, Load and Go screen, and this project should be simple to draw, score, cut and assemble!

First layer: draw then cut

Use your brayer (or a felted squeegee, or your hands) to attach your first layer of cardstock to the mat. I’m using white for my first layer, which will include the drawing from the gel pen.

photo of applying the white layer of cardstock to the light grip mat using a brayer

Load the tools you need into the machine: a pen in Clamp A and your Fine Point Blade in Clamp B. Choose your material: for 65lb cardstock, choose the Medium Cardstock setting. If you’re using an Explore Air 2, choose More pressure on the Set Load & Go screen.

Be patient with this first layer because it takes time for the pen to fill in the lines: my machine took about 8 minutes to finish the writing on this layer before it cut.

photo of Cricut Maker 3 set up for drawing and cutting white cardstock for MAMA card

Once your layer is complete, flip your mat over and remove the cardstock from the mat using your squeegee (you might call this tool a scraper).

Be careful with this layer – depending on what type of pen you use, the ink may smudge (this happens a bit with the glitter gel pens).

photo of correct way to remove cardstock from cutting mat, flipping mat over and removing the white cardstock layer with a squeegee/scraper

finished white cardstock layer, MAMA drawn in black glitter gel pen on white cardstock

Second/offset layer: cut

Attach your next layer to the mat. This layer is the middle offset.

attaching the second/middle purple layer to the cutting mat using a brayer

Set up your machine and cut the offset layer.

photo of cricut maker 3 set up to cut purple offset layer for mama card

Now remove your cardstock from the mat the same way as before.

photo of removing purple cardstock from cutting mat after cutting offset layer for mama card

finished cut purple offset layer for mama card

Card base: score and cut

The final layer is the card base, and I’m cutting this out of pink Astrobrights cardstock. You will need to score and cut this layer, but if you don’t have a scoring tool of some kind, you can always just fold the card in half.

photo of attaching the pink/base layer of cardstock to the cutting mat using a brayer

Set up your machine with the scoring stylus and blade.

photo of maker 3 with scoring stylus and fine point blade set up to cut card base for mama card

Finally, take the card base off the mat and you’re done cutting!

photo of removing pink cardstock card base from cutting mat

finished cut pink card base for mama card

Stick your layers together and you’re done!

Now I have my top white layer, purple offset, and pink card base:

photo of all finished pieces of mama card ready to be assembled, white pink and purple cardstock layers

To assemble, just use glue or tape runner to stick the pieces together. After I put the layers together, I like to go over them with a brayer. I recommend placing a piece of copy paper over the top layer while flattening to make sure you don’t smudge the ink.

using tape runner to add adhesive to the back of the top layer of the mama design

placing top layer on middle offset of mama card

using a brayer to flatten layers together after adding top to middle layer of mama card

Fold the card base before you add the top 2 layers of the card. Just fold along the score line, then use your brayer or squeegee to flatten the crease.

folding and flattening the card base along the score line

Now add the top 2 layers to the card base and you’re done!

adding tape runner to the back of the middle offset layer

placing top and middle layers onto card base

photo of using brayer to flatten all layers of the mama card together

Here are the finished cards!

Each of these fun cutout cards is super simple and fast to make, but they still have that personal touch. Photos don’t capture how cool and shimmery the glitter gel pen turned out.