Four terracotta pot plant markers you can cut from one sheet of chipboard (plus the label I wish I'd skipped)
A single 12x12 sheet, four markers, and the one cut setting that keeps chipboard from crumbling. The basil label taught me why spacing matters more than I thought.
I bought a six-pack of herb seedlings at the farmers market last Saturday and realized I had zero idea which pot was basil and which was oregano by Wednesday. So I grabbed a single sheet of 12x12 medium-weight chipboard from the drawer and cut four plant markers in about twenty minutes. The basil one split down the middle when I pushed it into the soil, which taught me something about spacing I'm going to tell you about in a second.
What you need (and what you probably already have)
One 12x12 sheet of medium-weight chipboard. I used the Cricut brand stuff because that's what was open, but honestly the kraft chipboard from Michaels works just as well and costs about half as much. You want the kind that's roughly the thickness of a cereal box, not poster board.
- 1 sheet 12x12 medium chipboard (around $1.50 if you're buying single sheets)
- Fine-tip blade for your Cricut (deep-point works but you'll get rougher edges)
- StandardGrip mat that's still reasonably sticky
- Four terracotta pots, any size (I used 4-inch)
- A pen or paint marker for labeling (I used a Posca white paint pen)
- Optional: clear acrylic sealer spray if these are going outside
Total cost if you're starting from zero is maybe fifteen bucks. If you already have chipboard and a paint pen, it's basically free. Time from start to labeled pots sitting on the windowsill was about ninety minutes, and that includes the part where I had to recut the basil marker because the first one snapped.
The cut settings that actually work for chipboard
Set your Cricut to Chipboard, Medium Weight. Pressure on More. If your machine gives you the custom settings option, I run mine at depth 4 with pressure maxed out. The key thing is you want a clean cut all the way through without having to do a second pass, because chipboard gets fuzzy and weird if you cut it twice in the same spot.
