Cricut Tips

I love my Cricut!  As a crafter there are 2 things I've never been very good at: 1) stamping  and 2) fussy cutting.  It has never stopped me from doing either, because what's the fun in it if there isn't a challenge?  Thankfully my Cricut keeps me from messing up too many images while being challenged ;)

You can love your Cricut too!  Here are some tips:

1)  You need to buy this:  Glue Pen

     This puppy will save you $$$$ by allowing you to reuse your cricut mats.  When the mat has lost it's sticky, scrape off all the little bits of paper.  Then very liberally apply the glue pen glue all over the mat.  Let it dry and wah-la you've got a new mat to use.  And this glue pen will give you tons of applications so don't worry.

2)  Know how the Cricut will cut

 

 This is the handbook you get with your cartridge. If you turn your handbook to the right:

 

This is how it will cut- the top of the handbook like how you load the paper into the machine.  

Also, the inch measurement you put on your dial will be how tall the image is (so in the case of the flipped handbook the size will be from left to right)

3) All letters are the same keys on different cartridges

So for my Close To My Heart cartridges: Art Philosophy has shapes listed on the keypad, Artiste has letters on the keypad, and Artbooking has letters.  When I want to cut out letters on the Art Philosophy cartridge, I just stick the Artiste (or Artbooking) keypad on (NOT the cartridge) and type in the letters.  You just have to make sure on the side buttons you have already selected "font".  So much easier than searching through the handbook!!!

4) Learn how to use Cricut Craft Room

Learning the Cricut Craft Room is a blessing!  It will save you paper and you can transform your images into different images with it.

Here is a link for a tutorial: (video is below too)
 Cricut tutorial

For the Artbooking cartridge, the images on a key are linked together for whatever size is listed in the handbook.  If you want to cut an image a different size you will need to select "real dial size".  But if an image is layered it won't work.  So unless you want to go through a lot of paper trying to find at what dial size your layered image will fit, you can just go to Cricut Craft Room and perfectly size it.  

Cricut Craft Room is FREE.  You will just need to connect your cricut to a computer in order to cut.

  5)  You can extend the life of your mat and paper by cutting in "portrait" mode

If you are always cutting just how it loads that means that the right side of your mat will wear out faster.  Loading it portrait mode will cut from the left side of your mat going across the top instead of down.  This is also good if you have a section of your paper that you want to cut that is going the wrong direction for you to be able to cut any more loading it normally.

Hope these tips help you!  There are a ton of cricut tutorials online that I'm sure teach you even more, but these tips are the ones that have really helped me a lot and I use them all the time.