Cricut Explore Air 2 - A DIY Cutting Machine for all Crafts, Create Customized Cards, Home Decor & More, Bluetooth Connectivity, Compatible with iOS, Android, Windows & Mac, Mint

My Cricut explore air 2 was the best purchase I ever made. Now, I can design T shirts , and make other crafts. Also, It’s easy to use and I love it very much!

Not worth the constant EXPENSE. Its useful but when the blades dull to the point of replacing after ONE vinyl cut, it starts to feel like a gimmick. Yes, its a very precise little cutting machine but be realistic in your expectations, you dont just purchase the machine itself. Youll need cutting mats of all grips, youll need to purchase the vinyl, or iron on sheets, weeding tools, if you iron on anything youre going to definitely need to get the iron they sell, that will need a carrying case as its expensive ceramic plates cant be banged up or youll break it, the cricut itself constantly constantly constantly runs out of the blades, its the biggest disappointment of a purchase overall Ive ever invested in, oh, did Mention that you actually have to purchase the software to utilize this thing and that is a $10 a month subscription charge! Everytime you turn around, youre having to buy more and more just to use the thing. I think that it is deplorable. Its greedy. Its beyond wrong to not make your product into a constant EXPENSE these things are not cheap and neither is any of the supplies youll need to take stock in. I wish I could have had a trial run with this before having to fully commit to this machine, Im a very artsy person, I have a million ideas and ways in which Id love to utilize the machine but dang it seems like I simply just cant afford it. Very disappointed.

If you have any interest in arts and crafts, this is the machine for you! Ive only had my machine for a few short days, but Ive already made my first few projects and know that Ill be making them with very little in the way of training. The first project is laid out with simple online instructions and took only a few minutes to complete. Once you see how easy it is to make that project, youll be amazed at just how impressive the results can be. More importantly, youll be given a tour of the entire process, from setting up the machine to installing the software with easy instructions and with videos directly from YouTube. There is absolutely nothing difficult about taking this machine out and beginning to use it for whatever crafting projects you have in mind. I myself got the bug from having spent a few days watching a friend working from his shop where he creates all sorts of items that this machine creates with ease, from vinyl signs, Decals made from vinyl or Sticker paper, custom business cards or Birthday cards, anything you can come up with in a print shop can be made from your own home and at a fraction of the price of one made in a professional shop. Honestly, this machine can replace your needs for any local shop, unless the dimensions are your main concern, and even in most of those cases, you can still make your own vinyl signs and decals, youll simply have to limit the size to the available dimensions of the machine, or youll need to paste together larger pieces on your own. This simply means that instead of having a two foot tall logo thats ten foot long, you would need to make one foot tall segments that can be two foot long each, and simply line them up to create your own sign. Most shops that advertise with vinyl signs dont use letters larger than one square foot anyway, so youd just be making each square as an individual letter and then line them up yourself, instead of stretching one long strip to make your sign. The work isnt significantly different, so why pay multiples of the price of this machine for one sign, when you can buy the machine and make all the signs you want from that point forward? Then when you consider that this machine can work in tons of different materials, ranging from paper to vinyl, leather to copper, there really arent many limits to what you can make with this machine. With a little time and some minimal effort, youll be making arts and crafts projects that you can give to your friends and family, and sell at any yard sale or flea market within days of arriving at your house. The best part of all is that this machine is tiny. Its footprint is so small that I have mine setup on a tiny table that was no longer needed in my living room. I simply placed a towel over the table to prevent it from being scratched, and I was set. Im just now learning how to make more creative designs like custom boxes and bows, but with no time Ill be making those with ease. My only advice is that if you decide to buy one of these amazing machines, make sure you get everything youll need to explore your own creativity. Make sure to buy all the add-ons, things like the deep cut blade, the paper crafting tools, the basic crafting tools and the scoring stylus and a set of the color pens for your own messages. From there, buy some quality paper card stock, Oracal 651 vinyl in all the best colors for simple designs or for more intricate designs, making sure to buy all the popular colors such as your primary colors, but also metallic colors such as gold or chrome, get lots of black and white as youll be using those the most, and without fail, but transfer tape, lots of transfer tape, because having yard after yard of vinyl will do you no good if you cant actually place it on something, so transfer tape is equally important to your needs. Buy more transfer tape/paper than vinyl, because youll almost always need transfer tape that hangs over the edges of your vinyl cutouts so that you can layer different colors or have the vinyl decal hold in place so that you can align it to whatever your placing it on. Buy a good exacto blade knife, your going to be using it constantly if you decide vinyl crafting is for you. Id recommend you purchase a good cutting device, whether that be a guillotine style cutter or rotary cutter, make sure you buy one large enough for your vinyl or paper needs, so it will need to be at least one foot wide and long enough to cut lengths of a foot accurately. Some of those cutters dont come with a space long enough to cut squares of one foot so make sure you chose one with either an extension that will let you measure one square foot, or youll be guessing beyond the length of the cutting device itself, or youll need to mark the vinyl somehow and that will end up just eating up your time. From that point, you can decide if you need specialty materials, things like faux leather, copper foil thats normally found in rolls but also comes in sheets for use with the scoring tool to make beautiful embossed pieces, heat transfer vinyl that comes in several glittery colors or regular colors for making iron on designs that can go on everything from pants or shirts, to caps or other clothing items. They offer magnetic sheets that you can use to make magnetic business cards or decals, printable sticker paper, heat transfer jewels (bedazzle style gemstones), or any other material you wouldnt imagine needing but will find out once youve installed the software on your pc or phone, and are able to browse the online design shop. Whether your just an everyday tinkerer that needs something to fill your time, or you want to create your own small business out of your living room, this machine is well worth your time and money! Best of all, you dont have to take my word for it, just go on YouTube and research Cricut projects and youll get a sampling of exactly what youll be able to make with this amazing machine!

I bought the Cricut explorer 2 air. first of all i called into the company to ask questions before i purchased the machine. i did alot of reserch online also watching videos etc...then i felt good about spending 300 dollars on all of it, and vinyls, cutting matts, cutters etc..when i got the machine in the mail and set eventually set it up. The first thin you do is create an online cricut account, put in your serial number and go to design space.com. The problem i started having is you cant download the program onto your desktop pc so in order to use the machine you have to be connected to the internet No one said anything about this: The 2nd thing is in order to use the online service you have to pay 10.00 per month No one said anything about this. So if i dont use it for 2-3 months i still have to pay right? There is some hidden things they dont tell you about before you buy this..i dont think its right to have to pay 120.00 a year to use this machine that i already purchased. if i had know any of this i would have never bought this. Im sending it all back for a refund. Beware: Update: i also purchased cutters and cutting mats that i never used, so i sent them back for a refund its been almost a month and no refund yet. im just one of the dissatisfied customers they have or had.

To use the Cricut you need to either create or upload designs in their software, Design Space. They have a subscription to Design Space available where they give you access to images and fully designed projects for about $10 a month. Otherwise you can create/buy designs on your own and upload them into Design Space to cut out. For a couple of days the company notified customers that there would be a new policy moving forward where uploads into Design Space would be limited to 20 a month unless a user subscribed. There was customer uproar as these were not the terms we agreed to when we purchased the machines. Cricut has now reversed this policy so I am updating my review. Ive had my machine for a few years now. I think its pretty fun. We used it a lot for our wedding: to address our invitations, make jacket envelopes, seat reserved signs and other decorations. Ive used it to make a small box divided into 12 slots to hold my pens. Right now Im using it to make decorative screens for the bottom of our upstairs window to add just a little privacy. Design Space, the software, bugs out really easy and isnt designed well. Im trained in Illustrator and Affinity Designer so I use those to create my designs. It can take longer to cut something out and then weed it all off the mat than I realize, and Ive had some designs tear due to either a dull knife or being too intricate. Its not perfect but it sparks creativity and is a bit like a grown up toy.

Bought this Cricut machine to make t-shirts and its quickly become a favorite for my kids who Love making their own decals. We’ve made shirts and sticker using both the web-app as well as the iPad app and it’s such an easy process even my kids have done it themselves. For Spring Break we took the family to Disneyland and had planned to wear matching shirts that I designed. Initially I received quotes from online shirt makers and the cost of that one project was easily higher than the cost of a cricut machine + materials. So we decided to make them ourselves. The shirts came out amazing and even after a few washes they still look brand new. One small negative I have however is the cricut app. I with there were more ways to edit your image template to ensure the decals come out perfect. It’s happened a few times where I’ll drop in an image I’ve made and the cricut app processes it in a way that rounded out some sharp corners. Other than that the cricut is great for medium-large format decals, shirt transfers, etc. If you’ve ever paid someone to make custom shirts or decals for you (or are considering doing so), I highly recommend considering a cricut instead.

I’m so excited to use this I’m just in love with it already and I haven’t even used it yet

She is good with it so I am good.

If you’re looking for a Cricut I recommend this one! It’s amazing and so easy to use

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