Bounding Box How To

I am an avid CorelDraw user and 99% of by design and layout gets done in Corel.

When I’m doing a bunch of signs, I’m setting them up to be quick and easy, not saving every bit of vinyl. Let’s be real. 12x12 sheet of vinyl is less than a dollar, incorporate that waste into the cost factor of making your sign. What you make up in time is much more cost effective.

This is also the way to set up a multi-color project, stencil or reverse weed design.

Open Corel Draw
Create a new Document
(I’m using a 10 x 10 x 1/8” piece of birch plywood)
Resize document to be 10 x 10
Import your file (this particular file is an *.dfx and Cricut has to be an svg to cut)
Resize image to 9x9ish (you want to give yourself a little bit of edge)
Center it on your page (highlight everything and use 5” in the x and y axis
Here is one of my favorite tricks. Make sure nothing is selected, then double click on your rectangle tool. It will put a boundary box on your page. Make sure this box gets exported with your sign.
Save Corel File (I save by name and size. Example – blackcatapothecarysign(10x10).cdr )
Highlight all and we’re going to export (File, Export, your file name is there, save type as should be SVG)

Open Cricut Design Studio
Click on new project
Click on upload, then upload project, choose your file and upload
Click on uploaded file and add to canvas
Ungroup everything and select the box only, then Cut it (CTRL+X)
Select all (CTRL+A), and weld it
Paste the box back on (CTRL+V) and make sure you put it to the back
Select all again and align it center horizontally and vertically
Leave everything selected and hit attach. This will make it stay where you put it when it goes to cut.
Send it to make, load up your vinyl and that’s all folks!