The last few months have been hectic. As I mentioned previously, I’ve been remodeling the house. While the remodeling is done, there’s been a lot of post-construction work I’ve taken on and then moving everything back in. I’m only partially moved in, however if I didn’t get some craft time in soon I was going to go mad! All the stuff I love has been packed away in boxes and inaccessible.
The new Cricut Engraving Tip has been sitting in it’s package for quite a while and I made sure to make some time to unpack the Cricut and give it a try.
It had been a while since I’ve done a painting and I had one that has been sitting unpainted for over a year (see post: Still need a Bob). Linda and the kids have been without a husband/father all this time.
So far, the Cricut knife blade has been a disappointment. As I mentioned in my last post, I was taking my template idea back to the drawing board. Maybe I started with way too intricate of a design. Let’s start over with a random polka dot design.
I loaded my polka dot SVG into the software and pushed start. Right away it started the same stabbing motion and slowly started stabbing out my circles. So far what i’m noticing is that it’ll cut lines and slight curves with relative ease. Which, makes sense when you’re sliding a flat knife through a rigid material. Some turns will not be possible. I was hoping that it could at least cut a nice circle though or at least cut the first few layers quickly until it gets deeper into the material.
I’m finally ready to try out the new Cricut Maker Knife Blade. It’s been sitting next to the machine all week and I have some time to play with it.
The knife blade is made to dig in and cut thicker materials, like the 2 mm chipboard materials being sold. I went back to one of my never-started projects collection and grabbed a bag of cashmere scarves that I planned on dyeing at one point and I thought I’d make a template for that project. I wanted to use chipboard so I could use light-sensitive dyes. Even if the dye liquid bleeds into the material, UV rays wouldn’t be able to penetrate the board keeping the image sharp on the scarf.
In the past week, I had put together some files I wanted to use as a template. One of those templates was a Damask stencil we’ve probably all have seen a thousand times. If it can cut this out of the chipboard then I should be able to pretty much cut anything.
One of the things I’ve really been wanting to try was making a wallet with the Cricut Maker. A few days ago I began scouring the internet for patterns. I wanted something free and simple to try things out. When I came across the MakeSupply company’s website, I was pretty much in business. They offer free templates you can download and even videos on putting them together. I downloaded a Bi-Fold wallet template, converted it from PDF to SVG images, and uploaded it to the Cricut app.
I have real leather to work with but I pulled out some faux leather instead. This is my first wallet, after all, I didn’t want to waste more expensive materials. Faux leather is pretty thin and the machine easily cuts through it with perfect cuts. Continue reading “Making a Wallet with the Cricut Maker”
Didn’t I just said I wouldn’t get around to trying the Cricut Maker until all the cleaning I was doing was complete? Apparently, I’m a big liar because I had an hour before bedtime last night and I jumped right into unboxing the new machine.
One nice thing I noticed after opening the box is they gave you a few pieces of material to get you acquainted with the machine. Once you load the software you can do these simple test projects with the materials provided.
Speaking of software, I’d like to point out the new machine lets you use pretty much any device. I thought I had saw an iPad in their advertisements, but I didn’t realize you could use android as well. To get started, I just pulled out my android phone and told it to run the first project.
It’s a simple card and kinda cute. It demonstrated it could draw and cut the paper. Which, my old one did. What I did notice with the tools on this machine is that everything is much finer. The cutting blade actually cut fine angles and pieces without issue. The previous machines it was more of a needle tearing through the paper, which worked, but also caused problems if you did anything tiny.
Also the pens are finer. These are more like micron pens instead of fat markers which pretty much made the pens on the previous machine useless since they could only do large letters.
Last, you could test out cutting fabric to embellish the project, which was what I was most interested in. The sample fabric was basic quilting cotton and it cut 4 straight lines without a problem. I would’ve hoped for something slightly more impressive as a demonstration, but it did the job.
After browsing the marketplace for projects to cut, I realized there wasn’t much for me there. I’m well aware I’m not their typical demographic. So a market place of frilly items like doll clothes and lady hats isn’t going to provide much value to me. But I’m used to that. Generally, I prefer to design my own projects but it’s nice to know if I need party signs or random things that they are available.
I spent the weekend cleaning, again. I’m still cleaning my room. It’s not that I’m a slob (I am though), it’s that I have too much stuff for my tiny room. What I’ve been doing is more of a deep clean and simplifying my life a bit. I’ve been going through every drawer, all the clothes in the closet, even under the bed where the monsters are and throwing out things I don’t need.
I made my way through half the closet, half a dresser and one of the desks. Yes, one of the desks — I have multiple. I also have 3 dressers. I’ve really crammed a lot into my small room.
You see, I take up most of the house so I opted to not have the master bedroom. Instead, I take up the other 3 bedrooms and a garage, which all serve as craft rooms. Also, my crafts spill out into the dining room as well but let’s pretend that isn’t happening.
So after all the cleaning I have been doing, I still have half a closet and a desk to clear. Then, I have this to play with:
It’s been sitting there for 2 weeks now waiting for me to finish cleaning and I can’t wait to play with it. I’ve had several models of Cricuts before, but this one is extra awesome. Now it cuts fabric and chipboards and all types of materials because it has new cutting heads. So it’s really going to be used for several types of crafts I enjoy.
Next room to clean is the sewing room. Once I get the Cricut cutting fabric, I’m going to want to do some sewing!
