I’m definitely a little out of my element when I take these reviews. I’m not really the kind of guy arts and crafts. Sure, I’ll do with my occasional project four years. I also love to make something (beer, music, small electronics) and generally have a fairly strong DIY streak. But I do not really traffic in the same medium as the traditional crowd Cricut: cardstock, fabric, vinyl, and so on.
This sort of thing over the area my wife. He made decorations, bouquets and invitations for our wedding. She crochets video-game-themed blanket. And he made a robot costume out of cardboard and aluminum foil for our children. So to be honest, I was kind of hoping he comes to the table with a group of the project idea to put $ 300 Cricut Explore 3 through its paces. Suffice to say, he let me down. (I still love him, though.) So I was mostly on my own because I am trying to figure out what exactly an Engadget review of the Cricut machine will look like.
I think for a start, we have to establish what exactly is the Cricut. This is basically a desktop CNC machine designed to cut things such as cloth, paper and vinyl, as opposed to wood or metal. The whole idea is to let the average DIYer you quickly and easily cut intricate shapes and patterns with extreme precision.
The first thing I do: I made a mixtape smooth vinyl decal to stick on my laptop. Then I made one to stick to one of my guitar pedals. And decal floppy disk that I put on the canvas board I painted. You get the picture. Basically, I just cut a bunch of decals.
The process for doing things is almost idiot proof. Room Design app (available for MacOS, Windows, Android and iOS) where you layout your creation is very easy to use and offers access to more than 1,000 free images and more than 250 projects, ranging from simple stickers to mask 3D cardboard. And if that was not enough, you can pay for Cricut Access membership (starting at $ 9.99 per month), which opened more than 200,000 images and “thousands” of the project. Or you can pay individually for licensed content from the likes of Disney, Marvel, Warner Bros., and Sesame Street. Or you can upload your own image.
The latter is quite simple provided you keep a line drawing, but it does require occasional cleaning job. For example, I downloaded the silhouette of Superman for my child to color in (he wanted to create his own superhero stickers). But before I could cut using my Cricut must select and delete the background, otherwise it will just cut square.
Instructions on the application for projects predesigned thorough and clear. And that even applies to people who are relatively complex requiring several cutting tools, markers and several different materials. Walks you through each step you load the pen to draw on white cardstock, then cut the shape out, before having you swap in a different color of card stock and scoring tools. And to design truly involved, such as 3D cardboard mask, you will find a PDF with assembly instructions. (Well, most of the time at least. I only found out after I cut pieces of cardstock fox I try to build that it “tips for assembling” as opposed to detailed instructions.)
