About Me & My Cricut
Last summer (2017) our youngest son got married. His mother in law made all the decor for the wedding and the reception, and it was unbelievable. She's an artist, and she did a lot with paint and wood, but she also used somethingcalled a "cricut". I was fascinated by everything that magic machine could create, and that year, I decided to purchase my own cricut explore air 2. I
simply walked into Michaels and bought pretty much the first one I saw. That was not the wisest way to do this, I should have done some research first, but it ended up working out ok for me. I'm perfectly happy with the Explore Air 2. The Maker can cut material without it needing a stabilizer - but although I do quilt, I find a hand held rotary cutter so much faster, I can't see myself using the cricut for that - at least not right now. The maker can also cut very thin light wood, which is interesting, but it takes hours to cut most items, and isn't really a feature I'd use. I probably would have been perfectly happy with the cheaper Air 1 myself - as I never use the built in bluetooth option, I prefer the usb cord. If anything, I probably should have looked more at the Silhouette machines. I didn't even know silhouette existed when I bought my cricut - and I definitely did not realize that the cricut requires internet and is completely web based. Silhouette can be used with regular software and internet it not required. Since we live on a farm in the middle of nowhere with no internet options... well, I should have done my research. I use my phone as a hotspot, which is what we do for internet here for everything else as well.
simply walked into Michaels and bought pretty much the first one I saw. That was not the wisest way to do this, I should have done some research first, but it ended up working out ok for me. I'm perfectly happy with the Explore Air 2. The Maker can cut material without it needing a stabilizer - but although I do quilt, I find a hand held rotary cutter so much faster, I can't see myself using the cricut for that - at least not right now. The maker can also cut very thin light wood, which is interesting, but it takes hours to cut most items, and isn't really a feature I'd use. I probably would have been perfectly happy with the cheaper Air 1 myself - as I never use the built in bluetooth option, I prefer the usb cord. If anything, I probably should have looked more at the Silhouette machines. I didn't even know silhouette existed when I bought my cricut - and I definitely did not realize that the cricut requires internet and is completely web based. Silhouette can be used with regular software and internet it not required. Since we live on a farm in the middle of nowhere with no internet options... well, I should have done my research. I use my phone as a hotspot, which is what we do for internet here for everything else as well.
The thing about buying a cricut is that it does not come with an instruction book. It's a machine in a box with a sample project and instructions for that one, simple, project alone.
That's it.
So you join a few facebook groups with the name cricut in the title, where they all tell you to watch youtube videos.
I hate youtube videos. Seriously cannot sit through them. Especially if they have a logo, a theme song, and an introduction. You have WAY exceeded my attention span just with the "you can skip this advertisement in 4 seconds" - so I end up quickly trying to fast forward the video to find the answer to my question, and it does not work. I have never successfully followed a youtube tutorial. I know they are incredible resources for others - they are not a bad thing. They are just absolutely not for me.
So when I started figuring out this machine, mostly by trial and error, but also by watching what others did in facebook groups, and a lot of googling, I took pics step by step as I worked, and wrote down how I did each thing. I often have a blog post open as I create a cricut project, I type the tutorial as I do it, and try to be incredibly transparent about what went wrong along the way, so you can learn from my mistakes.
At the top of each post, I try to do a "Cliff Notes Version" with the important information, so if you are googling an answer you don't have to read the whole post for a quick answer. But then I continue with my step by step, including mistakes, for those who want, or enjoy, more details.
You can follow my blog, by going to the main page http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/ and entering your email on the top right. I've added this as someone requested, so I'm really not sure how annoying it is, or how well it works. Let me know!
Or, much easier if you like facebook, you can like my Crafting With Fields Of Heather facebook page. Check out the photo albums there, I have been sorting the blog post headers into themed albums, to make it easier to find the resources you may be looking for.
You can follow my blog, by going to the main page http://fieldsofhether.blogspot.com/ and entering your email on the top right. I've added this as someone requested, so I'm really not sure how annoying it is, or how well it works. Let me know!
Or, much easier if you like facebook, you can like my Crafting With Fields Of Heather facebook page. Check out the photo albums there, I have been sorting the blog post headers into themed albums, to make it easier to find the resources you may be looking for.
I hope my tutorials and cheat sheets save you some time - learning this machine can be intimidating! But it's SO much fun, it's worth it, I promise.
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