Category: Cricut

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Tote Your Cricut


“Tote Your Cricut” sounds like the title of a song, right? Not exactly a country western song; maybe one of those political-inspired rant songs? Not sure.

But it sure is a beautiful  tote for the Cricut machine!

Although I don’t “need” a tote yet, I’m putting it on my wish list of items. Who knows. I’ve been good this year (well, according to me!) Maybe Santa will bring it. Or perhaps the hubby will spring for one…except for the part where he doesn’t read my blog! Darn.

But if YOU have a Cricut machine, and YOU need a case for it, check this one out. It looks like a real beauty to me. And if you do get one, I”d love to see pictures of it….and your studio too!

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Making Cards with Cricut

The learning continues. But after looking at a few videos, and trying to make some cards myself, I decided the ones pre-designed by Cricut designers are WAY cuter and easier to make. So I signed up for a year of Cricut Access! It’s only $8 per month. I’ve already gotten my money’s worth of fun in my first day of using it!

The red and green gift tags were originally designed in the blue and were much larger. So I scaled them down a bit, which was very easy to do in the Design Space software. And I changed them to red and green. Cute!

The tree card was also shown in other colors, but I used the cardstock colors I had on hand and make it with two shades of green.

 

I purchased foam dots and glue sticks in order to make these two simple projects.

Next up: designing my own little cards

 

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Cricut Maker Out of the Box

cricut-maker-machine-7-600x564

So I received my Cricut Maker machine and it is a thing of beauty! It weights about 22 lbs and appears to be really well made. So many things are made from low-grade plastics, but this machine has a beautiful streamlined design and is heavy and has a brushed metal top. Nice!

So I jumped in by powering up the machine, plugging the USB into my laptop, and downloading the software. I then went to Design Space to look around and found the “New Machine Set Up’ in the navigation bar and figured that would be the ticket. However,  I ran into a problem where my laptop didn’t recognize my Cricut Maker. So I went on Cricut Chat and they immediately asked if I had set up the Drivers. Oops, no; I thought the software download would do that…..but no! So they sent me the link to the page that told me how to do this in a very clear step by step tutorial page, and even waited for me on the chat until I had it figured out (just over 5 minutes). After rebooting my laptop, the Cricut Maker was recognized and I was off and running!

So I continued with the New Machine tutorial and made the “Smile card” which was the project they had included the materials for with the machine. I didn’t put the pen in far enough (I hate to heavily push things into place) and so my card drawing didn’t come out all the way. But with a little bit more of a push I seated the pen properly and don’t expect to have any trouble next time I try this.

I signed up for a free 2-week trial of the Cricut Access. What that does for you is give you access to a ton of images, projects, fonts, etc. I’m thinking about signing up that because there are just so many fun and beautiful projects I want to try.

And that’s my first try with my Cricut Maker! It was pretty easy and user friendly. And the quality of the items I made were AMAZING. More posts to come as I work my way through learning more about my new machine.

Questions I found I had right out of the gate after making my first project which was a greeting card:

  1. How long will my blades last? I didn’t find an answer to this, but everything I read indicated it depended on what type of materials are used.
  2. What is permanent vinyl vs removable vinyl? Well it appears the difference is basically in the adhesive used on each type. Permanent vinyl has enough sticky to keep it there for a long time; removable vinyl is easy to lift up and doesn’t leave a sticky residue.

 

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A little Cricut told me….

2017-10-22 07_46_24-Cricut Maker _ Meet the ultimate smart cutting machine

I’m so excited I’ve just ordered a new Cricut machine!

There are a couple gals at work who have these types of machines, and the projects they create are amazing, so I can’t wait to see what kind of trouble I can get into! And now I won’t have to bother them with all my design requests.

In addition to all the paper and vinyl crafts I can create, this new machine will cut FABRIC. Yes, that’s right, you heard me correctly. It will cut fabric. Being a quilter, I’m running through all the possibilities in my mind. Because I don’t have enough to do.

My intention is to blog about the ups and downs of learning this new machine, software, and process. Learning new skills is good for the brain, and I’m guessing new synapses will be firing up regularly! So stay tuned for more to come!