i made these with the cricut machine
dropping things it runs in the family today we're going to be unboxing the cricut maker 3. so this
machine here is essentially a cnc machine but really user friendly and it's great for people
like me who have creative vision but don't have professional maker engineering experience you
know going into our shop and trying to use the trotec laser or light burn it's really intimidating
i don't want to blow up the machine or you know set things on fire one thing that i love about
this machine is the versatility so the great thing about professional routers and laser cutters and
things like that is they do one thing extremely well whereas the cricut does a lot of things
pretty well surprisingly well actually you know a lot of people use this machine to make products
they sell on etsy or in their store this is actually the commercial grade one they have
five or six different types of machines
and there's a list on their website where you can compare all the different ones to see
which one you should choose the reason i got the maker 3 is because i wanted versatility i wanted
the most options possible for what i can cut and the kinds of projects i can make and also
i wanted the newest shiniest best one because lines get shiny toys all the time so why shouldn't
i get some in the box comes the machine itself and also the power adapter to connect it to the wall
and the usb a to b to connect it to your computer if you didn't have bluetooth connectivity on your
computer
to note it actually also works with phones and tablets i usually use my laptop just because of
the functionality the mobile is great for browsing in bed for what projects i might be interested in
doing next but actually designing and working on my laptop is way easier so the machine itself
opens up like that the machine comes with the fine point blade already but i got a whole bunch
of different blades because i wanted to be able to cut different materials and do different things
this one here is the deep point blade and this one allowed me to cut leather for a scrapbook that i
would use for a wedding coming up this one here is the engraving tools and then this one here is the
deeper point blade so just cutting thicker materials as well one of the things i like about the maker
three is that it has this quick house driving where you can actually change the tips of the
blades that you got so that one there was the engraving one and now i'm going to put the
debossing tool on when i bought the cry cut maker 3 i bought the essentials bundle which actually
came with all of these accessories here so these accessories are you know a tool to help you flatten
the materials that you're putting on the mat if you're using a mat scissors a tool to help you
scrape things off your mat we've also got tweezers this is great for when you're working on projects
that have little tiny pieces that you need to peel off to get your design scoring tool so that's to
help with folds that you might make especially like this dropping things it runs in the family
and then we've got this tool another weeding tool just to help get rid of the little bits and pieces
that you might have what is weeding weeding so that's when you have a design and you have to
get rid of the little bits and pieces that you don't want from your design so sarah got 10 000
worth of pantone color chips well this is my version of all the pretty colors which is a pen
set that i got for the cricut because the cricut can actually a draw for you as well on top of
cutting things what really yeah cricut says this is their commercial grade machine what do you
think does it look like it's built really well no on top of vinyl you can cut all kinds of different
materials so i have iron on material where the kids and i actually made a present for Linus and
so we made him pjs because his pjs is a little bit smaller than mine but it's a little bit bigger
old pages were so gross they had a hole literally that he would put his foot through in the knee so
he would put it on and he would just rip it every time a little bit more so we bought him pjs and
then i know it doesn't look the greatest but they're supposed to be pjs and they're supposed
to be things that he likes or that the kids found that made them think of him for example there's
his you know chevy volt blue chevy volt his badminton they like to read books with him but
that's some pretty small iron-on pieces right there Linus calls this my chinese knockoff
made by made by me with love so i actually made all of those not using this one i made it using
the explorer air that logistics now has i'm still really glad i upgraded just because i was able to
do a project that i couldn't have done on the other one so that's so cool yeah i made this
scrapbook for a co-worker's wedding upcoming and i used it to cut this design right here for them
i could have used it to cut the entire book but because they were square edges
it didn't seem worth the time to put it in the machine to cut
it took a long time to cut this design out of here because it's so thick here you can probably see
how thick that leather is right there it can cut paper too we made this card during a craft night
me and sarah which is really cute look at that enough about what it can do let's actually do
something with it but before that let's talk about our sponsor thanks to jackery for sponsoring this
video their explorer 1500 portable power station has enough juice to keep all your devices powered
and connected its huge 1500 watt hour capacity and 1800 watt output rate allows up to seven devices to
be plugged in simultaneously it takes only four hours to recharge up from zero to eighty percent
check out the explorer 1500 at the link below and get ten percent off with code Linus tech tips
right now we're connected to the machine using design space and we're going to be drawing our
pattern on here for what we want to cut or print or whatever the case may be so it's connected by
bluetooth right now but you also have the option of that cable if you wanted to use it design space
is made by qriket so that's actually one thing that i'm not as huge a fan of is you're tied to
their system so if for whatever reason qriket and design space are connected to each other they're
connected to each other and they're connected to each other they're connected to each other
i don't know that i would be able to use my machine still one thing that i do like about
design space and about the qriket community is that there is a huge following out there you can
find all kinds of projects you can pull images off google or you can actually subscribe to their
service their monthly subscription service which gives you ready-made projects that you can do
or images that are already designed for their software i hate paying a monthly subscription
but one thing that i do like is that they have ready-to-made projects that are good to go and
that look good so if you're just looking for something that's ready-to-make that you can
just sit down and you're you don't want to spend a whole bunch of time designing your own thing you
can just get going but that's also one of the things that i really love about the qriket if i
want to i can be really involved i can create my own from scratch design and import it and do it or
i can just pick something off the shelf i'm going to be personalizing my laptop today because i
don't have anything on it right now i got some images from sarah for our channel logos and what
i'm going to do is i'm going to upload them to design space right now to cut on this really cool
vinyl that i got
and
you don't actually have to use qriket branded stuff there's a lot of third-party people that
make replacement blades or materials or cardstock or whatever the case may be so i have four
different files here okay we can only upload one at a time we'll do that and so when you upload an
image the qriket actually needs an svg to cut and it'll help convert it to an svg for you to get
this to be an svg we have to get rid of the background so you can see anything that's
checkered here means that i've gotten rid of that as well so i'm going to get rid of the background
of that that i don't want that cut so i'm going to apply and continue and i'm just going to do a cut
image right now and we're going to upload that this one today oh no what happened it seems like
it was asking me to update its data terms of service and now hopefully we're working again so
that is definitely one of the downsides to using proprietary software oh wow sarah gave me a huge
image i don't think we're going to cut something that big so what do you think should we cut a
four inch LTT logo something like that yeah and
i'm going to do some other channel ones we're going to do ShortCircuit
that one's super fun right now all of my images are black which means that it would cut
all on the same mat or a piece of vinyl that we're going to put in so if i want to use different
colors or if i want different cutting sessions i have to change the colors of these we're going to
do each one a different color these colors don't necessarily mean the color that i'm actually going
to do but it would be helpful if they were representative oh well jono maybe you get to pick
it yeah super shiny i love it while jono does that i'm actually going to be using a mat for this
project with the maker 3 you don't have to use a mat if you get smart vinyls and honestly i've seen
youtube videos where people will actually pretend that their vinyl is a smart vinyl like they're
tricking their machine into doing it because smart vinyl costs quite a bit more i like using my mat
part of it is i can lay it out exactly where i want to and if i don't have a piece that is exactly
12x12
by 12 or 12 by whatever dimension i want i can just put a tiny piece that i want to use on the
side and it'll still cut but if you don't use a mat you can't just load a small piece inside you
have to load the whole whip so smart vinyl is essentially vinyl but has a thicker backdrop
so that it's more stable and it goes in without a mat and it'll just cut the top layer but it just
provides extra support for it i'm going to challenge dbrand i'm going to make my own
little cry cut business cricket business so this is the standard grip mat which means it's a little
bit sticky to help your project stick to it that's exactly what you want because you don't want it to
move while it's in the machine otherwise it's not going to cut properly we're just going to flatten
this down so that it's sticking properly um oh and apparently this tool sucks because it scratched
my vinyl what the heck oh no yeah i think this sheet of vinyl is 12 by 24 and they do have 12
by 24 mats but because my design is only going to be four by four i'm not going to bother doing
that we're just going to give it a shot we're ready to cut uh right now we've got the base
material set to the holographic vinyl we've got the pressure set to default we've got the tools
loaded correctly there's no tool required in a normally this would be for your scoring stylus
or your pen if you're drawing something and then we've got our fine point blade already loaded so
we're ready to load our mat so hopefully this works with the roll at the end we'll see oh you
know what i think the maker 3 actually measures your mat length so this might not work i forgot
about that oh no it didn't
yay as you can tell i'm still learning how to use this too perfect so it measured and it says it's
ready to go it's flashing the start button so here we go we're gonna see it cut every time it's
cutting i can't help but just stare at it it's so mesmerizing it's like those facebook crafty videos
those five minute crafts that you just you're just glued to the whole time and it's done can you see
the design oh that's so cool yeah okay so what we're gonna do is we're gonna pull it off the mat
sometimes you might have to give it
one or two tries before you actually get what you want but i'm expecting this to work first
go just because i'm using the cry cut material and i chose the right setting cricket material
cricket material oh my gosh i always do that you're supposed to remove all the bits that you
don't want or you could just remove your design another thing too is a lot of people will use
transfer paper which is this clear sticky paper where you put it on top of your design
pull the whole thing off and then stick it on something and then pull the transfer paper off
but because my design is one solid piece and it's pretty big and i'm not really
worried about this piece fitting not quite right or in the right location i'm just going to go for
it and peel it all right where should we put it where let's put it right here yeah do you like
that jonah yeah i can't see so you're you're guiding me here oh cool hey oh i'm just going
to open this and get ready to cut this one i have lots more projects to come i want to make stencils
for our kids room so that we can cut out whatever design we want and there's all kinds of things you
could do corazón do kids signs using the actual thread signed modularbs you could do handwritten
school signs you could use your Darwin즈 interviewing team just because i love that because i think as a
kid I'm going to make all these basics I'm not sure if that's going to make it look very convincing
but I think if it's going to be pretty good i don't know if it's a lot of right non good looking ます
using the actual lasers during a Thursday night workshop class with Colin but I probably could
do it on here if I was willing to use the uh what's it called that bassa wood or basil wood
I can't remember bassa which is the thinner wood but we ended up using quite a thick wood and you
can tell it's actually not that loud which I really like the laser in there is really loud
okay so we're gonna peel that off and this time instead of weeding I'm just gonna take our design
right off because I think it'll do that transfer paper is probably not a bad idea but I tend to be
kind of just winging it with my crafts and I wung wrong because I did tear it a little bit
but that's okay what did I do no see oh I should have used transfer paper oh my gosh I tore it
all right here we go we're gonna do it again and we're gonna do it with transfer paper this time
so what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna cut this out and then we're gonna put the transfer paper on
so yeah it would definitely be a lot easier to just leave it on the mat like this which is what
I use to do it on the mat
normally do. I'm just being bad right now. See? There we go. We cut a transfer paper
approximately the same size. So we're gonna put our transfer paper on, smooth that out.
Okay, and then let's peel that whole thing off. Oh, see now all the pieces I stuck on the back are left. Oh boy.
See? Here we go. That's how you're supposed to do it properly without
ripping and having to redo your project, but you can all learn from my mistakes.
And then now you get to see exactly how you want to lay it out and it's just way
easier. I'm gonna put it right there. Does that look good? Yeah. Okay, now we're gonna
peel that off. There. I think part of the problem is that I didn't clean my
laptop, like I said before, so here I am being lazy again when I really shouldn't.
So that might be part of why you see the bubbles. I've done lots of transfers
where that hasn't happened before, so. But yeah, it's like orange and pink. I love it.
It looks amazing. Really, I should have left it on here, weeded it, and then put
the transfer on and then put it on. But I was not thinking straight and just
pulled it off because I was so eager to put it on. But don't do it that way.
So I'm gonna do something sneaky. We're gonna print the TechLink logo for Riley,
but I'm gonna cut it out on the short-circuit background. We'll see if you
notice this. We're gonna do a nice bright yellow and we'll pick a nice color pen.
What color, Jono? Blue. Okay. So the way you load tools is you open the flap and then
you take the pen. You'll hear a little click and then you close it. It's a
same thing if you need to change the blade. Right now, because we're doing
paper and vinyl, we can use the fine point blade. So we're just gonna keep that.
It'll tell me I need to load a pen. It says black pen right now because I just
went with the default black, but I'm gonna do whatever color pen I want. I
have the blade that I need and I'm ready to load my map. One of the things I love
about the Cricut is that you don't have to be great at drawing. You don't have to
be a great artist to make really nice-looking stuff. This one had nothing
to do with your art ability. It was about basically folding paper.
Origami. The Cricut cut everything, scored everything, so I knew exactly
where to fold and I ended up with a really cool design piece for my kids'
room. Oh wait, it's drawing and cutting. Oh yeah! But look how well-made it is! It's
from the Cricut machine, so it can draw, it can cut, it can do all kinds of things.
Price, I think, is the last thing that we haven't talked about. I spent about 450
US dollars on this, but that was the essential
bundle that I got that came with those two sets of tools. Plus it came with a
bunch of materials that I didn't show you. The lower-end bottles start at around
I think 230 US dollars. For a lot of people it is expensive. I'm not gonna
disagree with that, but what it is is a hobby and when I make things that I
would have had to otherwise spend money for, like decals for my car for, you know,
our little family figures that would have cost me 50 bucks. Yes, I'm paying for
vinyl and I'm paying for the machine, but over time with all those projects that
I've made, I've probably already made a lot of money. I haven't done anything
like that. I've probably already earned back what I would have spent on that and
I have my machine now which I can use for future projects. And everything is
completely custom, which is cool. Or not custom if you don't want it to be and you
just want to take somebody else's design or subscribe to their service and use
one of their designs. And homemade nowadays is incredible. Like, I would have
never thought, you know, 10 years ago that I would have been able to make a homemade
this. It doesn't really look like that. I don't know that I would recommend the
Maker 3 to everybody. You don't need the highest-end model. In fact, most of the
projects I've made so far that I've shown you have been something that you
can do on the Explorer, which is a really old model. But like I said, I wanted that
flexibility and that versatility to have the option available to me in the future
if I do want to do different kinds of projects. The leather one was one that I
was finally able to do that I wouldn't have been able to do on the old one.
Also, embossing and some of the other quick swap tools that you can use on this
machine, you don't have that option on the other ones. So what I would recommend
is just to look on the Cricut website. They have a great comparison chart there.
You can see to just kind of pick and choose what you want. Whether or not I'm
happy that I got the machine, absolutely. I've spent so much time, you know, doing
this. A lot of people will buy coffee as their splurge or they'll go to the
movies or they'll go to the casino or they'll drink or whatever. This is my
splurge and my hobby. So when you count the amount of time that I've spent
tinkering and playing with it, I think it's definitely worth it. Thanks for
watching my first ShortCircuit. I hope you liked it. Thanks for bearing with me.
If you want to check out the product, click the link below.
If you like my hosting, then let me know what you want to see next time and let me
know if you want me to come back.