This post contains affiliate links and I will be compensated if you make a purchase after clicking through my links.
Last week, I wrote about how impressed I am with Cricut’s technology. I’m also a little jealous of creative people who can make delightful decorations, clothing decals, party or wedding favors, personalized gifts and much more using Cricut’s machines. I thought I’d expand a little bit this week on Cricut’s capabilities.
Cricut’s two available machines, the Cricut Explore One and Cricut Explore Air, are almost like 3-D printers for the masses. Actual 3-D printers have shown a lot of potential in science and medicine, and some companies have begun using them to stand out from competitors in various ways. Such 3-D printers cost thousands of dollars, so few can actually afford to buy one.
It doesn’t cost much to get started with a Cricut machine, and you can use their free or paid designs or come up with your own. You can upload your own images and fonts or choose from among Cricut’s available selection. Cricut’s Cut Smart™ technology lets you to cut a wide variety of shapes and sizes with amazing precision, from 0.25″ tall up to 11.5″ wide x 23.5″ tall.
The Cricut Explore One costs just $199 by itself on sale (regularly $249.99), and the deluxe starter set is on sale for $269.99 (regularly $352.93). The starter set includes the machine plus some extras: a deep cut blade with housing, vinyl sampler pack, cutting mat variety three-pack, transfer tape, gray iron-on lite, printable magnetic sheets, white window cling and stencil vinyl.
Cricut machines will cut through almost any craft material you can think of, thin or thick, including paper, vinyl, iron-on, fabric and plastics. You use the machine’s Smart Set dial to choose your material, speed and pressure.
Both of Cricut’s current machines work with any Cricut cartridge, and you can store all of your cartridges “virtually” in the cloud within your Cricut Design Space software. That way, you have the cartridge anywhere you access the online software – computer, tablet or phone.
The Cricut Explore Air adds some cool features that the Explore One doesn’t have – mainly a dual carriage for cutting and writing or cutting and scoring in one step, plus Bluetooth capability for sending designs to the machine wirelessly from mobile devices. The Explore Air regularly costs $299.99 but is now on sale for $249.99. The Cricut Explore Air kit regularly costs $418.93, but for a limited time, you can get one on sale for $299.99.
The starter kit comes with the machine plus a cutting mat variety three-pack, deep cut blade with housing, scoring stylus, candy shop pen set, basic tools set and black window cling.
Cricut’s machines look so easy that even beginning crafters and DIYers could use them to make beautiful things.