By Lesley Kennedy
As a mother of two girls, I have often experienced craft envy.
You meet other parents.
The ones that produce gifts for teachers like cute personalized coffee mugs while I send a gift card from some store.
Or those who volunteer to create jerseys for your kids' soccer team with each one's name printed on the back.
It turns out that would-be Martha Stewarts actually have a tool to help with that craft: a Cricut smart cutting machine you can get on Amazon.
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What is the Cricut Explore 3?
These machines became extremely popular.
With three current models, Cricuts look a lot like printers, but they're really smart die-cutters that can make precision cuts on more than 100 materials: foil, vinyl, cardstock, cork, fabric, paper, or even wood, all at a great speed. speed.
These cutouts can be used to create stickers, greeting cards, signs and more from the comfort of home.
If you've been using an older model, you'll need to invest in new "smart materials" for the Explore 3. These typically cost a couple of bucks more than "everyday" materials.
The Cricut Explore 3 (
MX$6,580 or
$355) also runs twice as fast as its predecessor, the Explore Air 2, and can do 12-inch-wide projects—ideal for signs, banners, or cutting multiple logos at once to make multiple t-shirts for, say, , a family meeting.
The machine also has a pen function to draw fonts, designs and patterns on the materials.
We put the Cricut Explore 3 to the test and these were the results:
First impressions
It seems a bit silly to call a clipper pretty, but the Explore 3 comes in the most beautiful shade of soft mint green and, right out of the box, it made us smile.
At 22.2 inches wide by 7 inches deep by 5.9 inches high, it requires relatively little space and is light enough to move around easily.
It also features a handy little docking stand to hold your phone or tablet and a bin to store some of the tools you'll need to buy separately (more on that later).
Connecting the machine doesn't take long: just plug it into the light and connect wirelessly via Bluetooth or use the USB cable to connect to your computer.
You'll need to download Design Space, the company's free app for Windows and Mac (iOS and Android).
It includes a large selection of images, fonts, and print-ready projects, and also allows you to upload your own images and fonts.
If you plan on using your Cricut a lot, you may want to subscribe to Cricut Access for $9.99 per month.
This gives you unlimited access to over 200,000 images, 700+ fonts and more, plus 10% off cricut.com purchases and exclusive offers.
As mentioned, the Explore 3 also requires "smart materials".
These are specially designed rolls and sheets of vinyl, cardstock, iron-on paper and more that are made for this machine.
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In addition to the smart materials, you'll need a selection of tools to polish your projects (the Essential Tool Set is on sale for $29.99).
And there are a host of other blades, pens, markers, roll holders, heat presses and more available.
Oh, and don't forget Transfer Tape.
You will definitely need it.
But armed, I was ready to find out if it was worth it.
Putting the Cricut Explore 3 to the Test
When you first set up the Explore 3, you'll be prompted to complete your first mini-project: Make a Simple Stamp.
Eager to get started, I followed the on-screen instructions and made the practice cut with ease.
After selecting an image of a mountain, I fed a sheet of vinyl into the machine and in maybe three seconds I had a new print to stick on my Yeti tumbler.
That was easy.
Feeling good, I used Design Space to find another stamp image to personalize one of my son's many water bottles.
He chose a cute dinosaur labeled "easy" to make.
What if!
It was super easy.
To remove the excess yellow vinyl, I simply used the "weeder" tool (it has a sharp metal hook) to remove any small bits left behind.
Next, I covered it with vinyl-stick transfer tape and polished it with a small tool that resembles a food peeler to make sure it stuck.
Finally, I stuck the tape to the water bottle, polished it again, and peeled off the tape.
And, the stamp stayed put, even after putting it in the dishwasher.
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I then printed a fairly thin taco shape constellation.
I followed the instructions to print the image (so it would transfer correctly to a shirt), added my paper shiny side down, and voila!
Once I removed the excess, I simply ironed it on a pre-washed t-shirt for about 30 seconds.
It worked perfectly.
I finally decided to make my own design for another shirt.
I'm proficient in Photoshop, so I thought Design Space would be super easy.
Almost two hours later I was about to give up, but luckily I finally found a YouTube tutorial that saved the day.
Once I got everything working fine, the cut and ironed part worked fine.
The moral of the story?
If you plan to use the Cricut (
MX$6,580 or
$355 USD) for your projects with existing images, you can follow the instructions and get it done quickly.
For anything more complicated, you'll definitely want to watch tutorials and be ready for trial and error.
In conclusion
Yes, the Cricut Explore 3 requires a little patience to get custom designs up and running.
and not to
MX$6,580 or
$355 for the machine, plus all material, tools, and subscription fees, isn't cheap.
But once you start, anyone can do it quickly.
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For more recommendations, offers and reviews read CNN Underscored in Spanish.
