Learn how to do the “knockout” text technique in Cricut Design Space. Super easy to do using the Slice and Weld Tools.

This post contains affiliate links. This means, if you make a purchase through my links, I’ll receive a small portion of your purchase at no extra cost to you.

I hadn’t heard of “knockout” text until recently, but once I saw designs using this technique, I wanted to try it out! Knockout text is a method where you use an image to form part of your text. The font “Impact” is typically used in the knockout method.

I’ve posted before about Design Space tips and I have also posted about the Slice and Weld tool on the Cricut blog. This technique essentially uses the Slice and Weld tool in a little different way to create these awesome designs.

How to Do Knockout Text in Cricut Design Space

First, you will insert your text and choose the font, “Impact” in the drop-down Font menu. The Slice tool only works with 2 layers so you will need to Weld your text together to create one layer.

Ungroup your text and move everything closer together. (You can also use the Letter Space tool if you don’t want to ungroup them.)  The knockout look relies on your image forming part of your text and if the text is spaced out too much you will lose the knockout effect.

After you have your letters spaced how you want them, you can use the Align tool to line up and center your text perfectly. Select all of your text and click on the Weld tool.

After welding the text, only one layer remains as in the image below. Now you are ready to add an image.

Select Insert Images and search for “Witch”. Insert the witch image on to your design screen. Click on the circle next to your image in the Layers menu and change the color to green so it is easier to see.

Remember the knockout effect is to have the image showing only where you have text. Any part of the image not on the text will be deleted later on. So size your image to have most of it within your text. In the example below, the moon is completely out of the text so it will be deleted later on.

Now that you have your image lined up, you are going to select your text layer and your image layer and click on the Slice tool on the bottom right of the Design Screen.

You will now see the sliced image and extra layers on the Layers menu. DO NOT MOVE your image or text. You need them to stay lined up. You will want to delete out any part of the image that is not in the text. This is easiest to do on the Layers menu.

Once your extra layers are deleted you will only have two layers remaining which is what you will want to cut out. You can also see that your image only remains within in the text and forms the text. This is the knockout method.

To add the moon and bat repeat the above steps with each image separately. Your finished design will look like this:

Pretty easy right? It’s fun to use this technique for fun designs for shirts or even pillows. You can see another way to do multiple layers in the knockout method on the Cricut blog.