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

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 ordered it and at first I was struggling to use it but it’s a really great machine , I think I just need to know more about it , but it’s easy to connect with your devices and actually the package come with everything inside .

Love it

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.

I received this for Christmas. It was easy for me to use and learn, you can use it on your phone or a computer! When unboxing it I noticed I almost threw away a pen that came with it (so if you buy this watch you don’t make that mistake). I’ve done many things with mine (cups, plates, shirts, keychains, signs, picture frames, hats, “stickers”) about 6 months of use and I can tell my blade needs changed, the Cricut mats are only expected to be used 40 times, I learned that you can wash and reuse them! With my blade I’ve worked with vinyl and leather. You can use the pen for writing or drawling! If your into crafting it’ll keep you busy!

This is an extraordinary machine! I had no idea of the hundreds of things you can do with it. I am a mix media artist and love crafting as well, specially with fabric and paper and this machine fits exactly for crafters or hobby. The Cricut works beautifully and the cuts are neat and fabulous. I dont have to buy doilies, envelopes cards, stencils, paper boxes, etc. etc. The possibilities are endless. The instructions are good, but it takes some time to really start with projects. It took me around two days, 3 hours a day, to learn the features and different designs, which is OK because the final product looks so professional that is worth the time to learn. Its amazing in how it can cut tiny details. If you are planning to use the Cricut with different projects and materials, I would recommend to get the three cutting mats. The machine comes already with a 12 x 12 regular mat, but there are some materials like heavy chipboard, felt and thick paper or fabric that will require a stronger blade and strong mat which is light violet in color. The other mat is for thin, fine, or light materials. In addition you can also purchase the 12 x 24 mat as well which is useful for big letters or banners. The only Con I found was the size of the cut and print feature. The machine can only print a cut no larger than 6 x 8 I called the company, and was informed that they are working on this issue, but have no exact date on when the upgrade for 12 x 12 prints will be available. In my case, so far I dont use it that much, but if you are going to cut transfers for t shirts, then I would not recommend it until the upgrade for larger cut and prints is available. The machine is a light and thin beautiful design and color. I had no problem in looking for a space in my crowded tiny craft room. I only had to place it in a book shelve I emptied and fit perfectly together with the tools, (not included) which I dont find that expensive. It comes with lots of images free , However, I would suggest that for only $7.99 a month you can have thousands of images, projects, and fonts. Any month you dont want to use the images, then you dont pay the $7.99 or $9.99, which is worth it. Customer Service is excellent as well as their chatting and lots of videos, projects, and endless ideas. Finally, you will not regret buying it.

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!

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

I have done many projects in card-stock, vinyl and foil transfer. I have been very pleased with the results. It is especially awesome at cutting out vinyl, even very intricate designs. It does not cut intricate designs in card-stock as well. I have found that unless you use the premium fine point cutting blades the (non-premium) ones wear out really fast. I went through 1 a week, and I wasnt doing that much cutting. The machine is really nice, just stock up on blades.

The Cricut Explorer Air 2 is an excellent piece of hardware for the money. The extra speed of the Air 2 vs the original Explorer doesnt seem to come with a compromise to the quality of the cut. The machines biggest flaw Ive run into is the software. When you are still new to the Cricut or new to crafting in general the Cricut seems like a dream come true. Once youve gotten very skilled with using the machine the software is a hurdle. Design Space is a joke. Because they didnt want to invest in software instead of the web control site they built instead, even with 16GB of DDR4 memory the design space software hits the browsers RAM limit and crashes all the time, losing all your work. It does not have an auto-save feature to help with this either. Uploading: Design space makes importing images a chore, being over simplified there are not enough tools and options to completely process a single image into different pieces for layers. Also if you dont do it all during upload, getting it done within design space will add on 3x the effort to just get a clean image you can work with. If you have a graphic that will need to be disassembled into pieces for assembly in design space, you have to upload the image multiple times and manually pull out all the details from each piece, saving them as separate uploads and then inserting them into a single project. Design Space: -Once youve gotten past the upload issues, youre in a design space window ready to create. Design space loves to eat RAM. So much so that if your design is complex, the browser will crash or lock up. If these two things dont happen, great. Lucky you. -Depending on the browser youre using the software will scale images differently on the output getting cut on the mat. So even though youve made super precise designs that all have to fit together just so...your cut is going to be in a different place on the mat that you chose, or the design is not to scale making it useless. Since there is no compensation for this in Design Space, you end up doing a lot of costly trial and error to adjust for the difference in scale. Chrome works best, IE is the worst, Safari isnt much better. -YOU CANNOT EXPORT ANYTHING. NOTHING. Everything you design belongs to Cricut and is locked into Design Space. If you want to design something in Design Space, then export that for sending to say, a t-shirt shop because you initially were going to make everyones shirts yourself, but found that it would be too large a job or inefficient on costs...too bad. Youre going to do it on the Cricut, or youre not going to do it with Cricut at all. -There are too few tools for creating free form shapes. I have been trying and trying to use whats there to make a simple shape for a vinyl side stripe for my car.. forget it. The shapes are too generic, and unlocking the L and W dimensions only lets you drag a shape out in ways that wont allow you to change an angle of a curve to make a custom shape..you can work around it with a lot, a LOT of patience and time but will have to settle for simple shapes if you dont have a pre-made vector graphic to upload. Cutting Mats: The cutting mats are really cool the way the grid more or less matches with the grid on the screen in Design Space. That said, they lose their sticky very fast for the price tag. If youre using these mats, youd better keep that clear plastic shipping cover they all come with and stick it back on after every use. I have one mat that I kept the clear sheet on it and one that I did not...the difference is night and day. Ive watched videos on how to restore the tackiness of the surface of the mat but it hasnt returned to its original tack, causing anything with a curl to peel up constantly. (like vynil from a roll..a staple of this machines worth). Youre going to need two mats minimum, one standard stick, and one light stick. (Green mat, and light blue mat). Card stock will come apart trying to use a standard stick mat, but peels off excellent on the light stick mat. Vynil on the other hand usually has a curl and needs the standard stick. Overall: This machine is still great, but the longer I use it the more I wish I had bought something that allows you to create things that dont have a Cricut logo on them. This machine is entirely focused on getting you into the Cricut ecosystem, having you subscribe to Cricut Access, and pushing you into buying Cricut accessories. I have not bought any cartridges, they seem like a throwback to the older machines, pre-Explorer. The cartridges seem like a waste of money, you get some of what youll actually like and use...and the rest, like an album CD from a singles artist, is junk youll likely not ever use. Everything thats in the cartridges are available al-la-carte in Design Space allowing you to buy them based on your project need individually..although the prices are stupid expensive for what they are generally. $5.00 for a single font choice. $10 for a project component. If youre not a designer, if youre not THAT serious about crafting and eating from Cricuts hand for content is fine for you, the Cricut is going to be amazing. If you are more skilled than beginner or have become skilled while using the Cricut and are getting more and more advanced, the Cricut begins to lose its luster. Ive spent hours and hours daily on this device with the Design Space software. Ive gone through learning from dozens of hours worth of online tutorials and youtube how-tos.. Ive bought hundreds in materials and have dozens of active projects, I am an avid user. Take that for what its worth, Ive beat this thing up and heres what I have found. Hopefully this helps someone else before they buy.