My New Cricut Explore Air 2

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Last weekend I got a new Cricut Explore Air 2. I had been eyeing it for a bit now and I was so excited to get it.

The Explore Air 2 is Cricut’s latest model. The Cricut can print, score and cut a variety of materials including cardstock and vinyl. I’ve spent the week playing with it and made a few preliminary products but I know I haven’t even touched the surface of the potential of this machine.

My original thinking for wanting the Cricut was to help with the branding of my projects and work. Up until now, I’ve made do with printing labels and tags on my computer but I wanted to up the professionalism and branding aspect by being able to not only cut but present my labels and tags in a more professional manner. The Cricut Explore Air 2 does all that and more.

My Cricut is from Michaels and it is the blue one. It does come in other pretty colours which you can find on their website. The Cricut came with a couple of sample papers – nothing really worth mentioning, as well as a piece of vinyl. It also comes with a standard grip adhesive mat.

Tools and Supplies to go with the Cricut Explore Air 2

After a couple of experimental cuts, I realized that I needed a few more tools to make things easier. I was initially using regular printer paper and construction paper as test paper and found that it really stuck to the standard grip mat. There is a blue, light adhesive mat that works much better. I ordered mine from Amazon. Starting out, I think it’s good to have one of each mat

I also found that a few tools would also help. Specifically, there is a spatula that helps lift items up from the mat, as well as the weeder which helps poke out cut parts of the inside of small items like the inside of letters or petals. It looks like something your dentist would use. Since I needed these two tools, I thought it best to get the basic toolset which also includes tweezers (which I find awkward to use), a pair of scissors and a scraper which is used to help clean the mat.

Now that I had all the materials necessary, I could get to work. Cricut has online design software called Design Space that works in conjunction with the machine. The only downside is that you have to be connected to the internet in order to use it, and I’m not always around a wireless connection so it can be limiting. Working at home is no problem but out and about can be challenging.

I had already designed a couple of tags in Photoshop. Anything in photoshop can easily be uploaded to the Cricut. I just saved as a PNG file and I can do the Print and Cut feature easily. The Print and Cut feature is one of my favourite things about the Cricut. I designed tags and uploaded them to Design Space. Then I print them out on to the cardstock and then put it into the Cricut to cut. The Cricut can cut pretty much any shape. No more cutting by hand!

The downside is that the Cricut Explore Air 2 is limited to cutting things that are within an 8 x 5.5 area (I’m using Google Chrome – the maximum space varies for each browser, but only by a little bit). The Cricut also prints out registration marks so that it can read it in the machine and cut your item – but this takes up space as well. So as a result, there is a lot of wasted paper – you can’t cut too many per sheet. The cup cosy that you see above can only be cut on one per sheet. The leftover paper can be used to cut small things so I guess it’s not a total waste.

With the purchase of my Cricut Explore Air 2, I was given a free 2-week use of Cricut Access which is Cricut’s huge library of clip art and fonts. Since I had limited time to use Cricut Access I thought I would make a bunch of cards since I had easy access to a variety of options.

There are a few babies being born this spring, as well as a wedding that we will be attending. I also needed a thank you card. So that gave me the basis to make a few cards. Let me be clear that I’ve never been a paper crafting person. I’ve never made cards before. This was all quite new. In order to make cards I needed some more supplies – coloured cardstock paper, a glue pen and foam pads that are adhesive on both sides. Since this was my first time, I thought I would make it easier for me by buying blank cards and envelopes. The Cricut Explore Air 2, however, can turn cardstock into cards – so you can make cards in literally any size. There is even a scoring tool (sold separately) that can be used to make it easier to fold.

My first attempts at cardmaking aren’t too bad. I chose items that didn’t require any printing – only cutting. This is where the leftover smaller bits of paper or cardstock can be used. I didn’t buy a lot of cardstock, so I was limited in the colours that I could design with. You can buy individual 12×12 pieces of cardstock in a variety of solids and patterns from Michaels, but it does add up. I can see going crazy at Michaels by buying so many supplies for this endeavour.

After my two weeks of Cricut Access is up, I have the option of subscribing monthly for either $7.99 to $9.99 a month. This is a cost that you need to take into account if you are getting a Cricut machine. You can, however, get around it if you are proficient in Photoshop as you can build and design items there and then upload them to the Cricut. For card making, I can see how a subscription would be handy. There are certainly a lot of options available, making design easier since it’s right there. When I googled ideas for Cricut cards online I must admit that what I saw put mine to shame. Many add more embellishments like beads and ribbons, as well as many more paper cuts. The fanciest I got was using those adhesive foam squares to make things “pop” off the card.

I’m looking forward to making more projects with the Cricut Explore Air 2. I consider myself to be moderately computer savvy and so the learning curve wasn’t too bad. I know that there is a way to make stickers on the Cricut – I’m going to tackle that next.

Please let me know if you have a Cricut and what you use it for. I know that there is so much potential with this machine and that I’ve only scraped the surface.