Cricut Mini Review - Iron on Vinyl
Just before Christmas I was lucky enough to
receive the Cricut mini for review. I have coveted these for a long time as
there is just so much you can do with these. I’m talking just cards either! I
have a whole Pinterest board which I regular update of things I wish to use
mine for. They range from quilts (yes it cuts fabric!) to wall stickers to
wreaths and labels. If you want something designing and cutting then it’s the device
for you.
So here’s the technical bit for you:
This is one of the smallest personal cutting
machines on the market. It is approx. 41cm long, 18.5cm wide and 9.4cm high
(16.1" x 7.3" x 3.69") and weighs in at 2.38kg (5.25lbs).
It can cut lots of different materials such as
cardstock, vinyl, vellum, fabric, chipboard (probably thin chipboard, I would
guess). So far I've only used it with vinyl and paper but I will be using it in
the next couple of weeks to cut fabric & felt. The cutting range is 0.635cm
to 29.21cm (¼" to 11 ½") and the cutting mat is 21.59cm x 30.48cm
(8.5" x 12").
I decided to try for my first attempt a T-shirt
for my dad. It’s a family joke that he’s a grumpy grandpa (nicknamed by all the
grandchildren as Tatters) First off was to decide which font to use. I love the
arrange of cartridges, while you can create your own design there is a huge fountain
of designs and fonts which can be used to design pretty much anything you
wanted, and chose a nice font. First time, perhaps once having cut, I should
have chosen a text less fiddly but I adored it and think the missing middles of
the p, b and a,s will be easier next time!
The design was easy and fun to create but the
bit I had bit nervous about came up. The actually cutting…. BOY was it easy! I
opened the vinyl, followed the step by step ie flip the image, place vinyl on
mat, turn cricut on, ensure settings are correct (incredibly basic & easy
to change) cut! Truly it was the simple!
I’ve read a couple of review where people
have said the cutting nicked or it wasn’t deep enough. I can only presume they didn’t
check the settings. There’s plenty of jpgs around online and heres one below
incase you aren’t buying the product direct from cricut (they put the settings
inside) So far I haven’t had an single issue with the cuttings. They were clean
and the mat is in perfect condition. The
other bad review I’d heard was they were noisy. I can only presume it was balancing
on a something metal wobbly because you can hardly hear the thing!
The result! I loved it. It was far
far simpler than I actually thought possible. The huge range of cartridges
(Which are free to browse) mean you don’t need to worry about designing but if
you want to create something even more unique there’s plenty there to get you
started. I’m now off to start designing my quilt, cushions and even some
clothes! I know fabulous hey?!
Comments
Post a Comment