- Hello and welcome, this is Angie with thecountrychiccottage.net. So today we are going to do like a Cricut glossary of terms. All the terms that you've ever wondered, what does that mean? I don't understand anything that these people are talking
about on these Cricut videos. This is the one video you need to understand all of those terms. Now this video is sponsored by Cricut, however, all projects
and opinions are my own. I'm also going to try to fit like all the terms in this one video. So grab a cup of coffee, sit back, learn all the terms and then you'll know the Cricut lingo. So that when you're watching YouTube and all these videos, you'll know exactly what everyone is talking about. So let's get started with
the very first thing. Each of these are Cricut machines. There are three different
machines on the market right now. The Cricut Joy, which is
the smallest Cricut machine. Then it steps up from there. The next machine up is
the Cricut Explore Air 2. That's the one that they're
currently selling right now. There's also older machines,
like the Cricut Explore Air and one that's just
called the Cricut Explore. Finally, there's the Cricut Maker which is one step up
from the Cricut Explore. And as we walk through the terms, I'll kind of talk a little bit about the differences
between the machines. But if you want like a
major machine comparison, I'll drop a link for that below. Now please note that these
are the three machines that Cricut makes right now and these are the ones that are supported by the current software. If you see other machines for sale, you might see like a Cricut Expression and those type of machines for sale like on Facebook Marketplace
or something like that. That is older technology and not currently supported by Cricut. So when you see those, be aware that when you purchase them, you may not be able to do all the things that you see online. Now that we've talked
about these machines, let's take a closer look
inside of the machines at the parts, so you will know what all those parts are called when you're using your machine. So let's just take a look
at an Explore machine and some of the general
terms that you might hear. So this button opens the
machine on an Explore. On the Maker, you just
open it by lifting the lid. So we're gonna press
open, to open our machine. The Explore also has a slot
over here to put cartridges. So Cricut machines used
to run off cartridges. So this is sort of an older technology. The Maker does not have this. You can get an adapter for your cartridges or call Cricut and link those
cartridges to your account. Back here is just the tool holder. So you can just put various things like pins
or blades inside there. And both the Explore and
Maker have one of those. This is your tray and the Explore and the Maker
both open up for storage. This is your carriage and for the Explore and the
Maker, you have two clamps. The Joy only has one clamp. The Explore and the Maker
have an A side and a B side. The A side is for pins
and the scoring stylus. The B side is for blades. For the Explore and Maker to work for print-then-cut, it also has a sensor located in this location. These are your roller bars and then you'll notice
rollers along those. So you have gray rollers on both sides on the Explore and the
Maker that can't be moved. However, these are called
your white star wheels and those can move. And for certain materials,
you'll need to push all of those over to the right so you don't mar your material. All Cricut machines can
use pins or markers. They look something like this. The Joy markers are a
little bit different. They'll go in clamp A on
the Explore or the Maker. And on the Cricut Joy, it
will ask you to switch it out and you'll put it in the same clamp. The power button is located here. The Explore also has a dial, which you will not find on the Maker. The dial allows you to choose your paper, vinyl, iron-on light card
stock, regular card stock, bonded fabric or poster board. Or you can change it to custom. When you change it to custom, Cricut Design Space will
ask you for your material. The Cricut Maker is
basically always on custom. So it always asks for your material, as well as the Cricut Joy. This button is your
unload and load button. This button is the Cricut C and will tell the
machine to start cutting. And this is your pause button, if you ever wanna pause your cut. The Explore and the Maker machines will come with two cables. One is for plugging into the wall and then you put this in,
into your Cricut machine. The other is plugging into
the back of your Cricut with this end and your
computer with this end. Now, all Cricut machines
operate on Bluetooth. And Bluetooth is the technology that sends your design from your computer, tablet, phone, directly to your Cricut without a cable required. A Joy works on Bluetooth only. So you won't have this cable with the Joy. I'll just take a quick look at the Joy and just some of the differences. So you can see, it only has one clamp and the blade is in that clamp. The roller bar does not
have any star wheels, so just the rollers on the side. And the tray actually doesn't lift up, so there's no storage or anything. And again, it's Bluetooth only. You can also see that the
Joy doesn't have any sensor down here, so it can
not do print-then-cut. And then just a super
quick look at the Maker. Again, you would just open this up and it'll just open up like that. The carriage and the clamps
are basically the same as on the Explore. The tray is a little bit
different, but similar. And then you can see over on this side, it just has the button. So power, unload and load, the Cricut C for cutting and
the pause button to pause. Again, you'll see the roller
bars and the star wheels as well as the rollers on the side and the sensor for print-then-cut. If we take a closer look at this carriage, you'll see it's a little bit different. So they call this the
adaptive tool system. And you can see that gear in the back, that is gonna come into
play on some of our blades. So let's take a look at the
blades for all these machines. So now you have your Cricut machine. You know all the parts inside. You are ready to talk
about blades and mats. Blades and mats are the
other two components that are required to
use your Cricut machine. So let's take a look at those and sort of an explanation of each one. This is actually a tool holder from Cricut and I actually have all my tools inside. The first one we're gonna talk about is the fine-point blade. The fine-point blade comes
with all of your machines. This is the version for
the Explore or the Maker. Now, this plunger at the top allows you to push it out and then you can remove
the blade from the inside. It's just held in there with a magnet. And to change it, you
just add another one. So super simple to change,
and that's the same for all the blades with
the plunger at the top. This is the fine point-blade
for the Explore or Maker. This is the fine-point blade for the Joy. So they are different and the blades inside
are different as well. So you can't use a Joy blade
for an Explore or a Maker or vice versa, but the
fine-point blade is the same for the Explore and the Maker. So if you have a fine-point
blade and a pink housing, it's actually called
a bonded fabric blade. The bonded fabric blade
is for the Explore mostly, but you can also use it on the Maker. And it's for fabric that has interfacing on
the back for bonding. And then if we move up from those, we'll go to a deep cut blade. So deep cut blade cuts a little bit deeper and it's for the Explore
and the Maker only. The Joy only has the fine-point blade, so you'll only find one blade for it. And then in the same family, you have the foil tool is again, for
the Explore or the Maker and it actually has three tips. So have my tips in the
bottom of this organizer. And so you have a fine,
medium and bold tip and you change them the same
way as you would a blade, by pressing the plunger down and removing. So this housing, the
deep cut blade housing and the fine-point blade
housing are all different. The bonded fabric blade
housing is different because it's a different color. The housing is what the blade is inside. So you have the housing itself and then you have the blade
or in this case, the foil tip. These are all the blades that would go in clamp B for the Explore. When you get to the
Maker, you add on a few. So let's take a look at what you add. First up is the rotary blade. The rotary blade will
come with your Maker. It has a housing that is all its own. And I do have instructions
on how to change that rotary blade, and I'll
link to a video on that below. It is a little bit more involved than just pressing the plunger. So this comes with your Maker. Now if you want to go a step further, you can get the knife blade. The knife blade, again, you have to have a knife blade housing. And then you have the knife blade. Again, the changing of the
blade is a little more intense. So I will link to a video on that below. So you need both housing and blade for the
rotary and the knife blade. Next up, we have a
variety of blades and tips and they are all with the same housing. So I actually have two housings and they are exactly the same. So this is the quick swap housing and you can get a variety of tips to go with that quick swap housing. So what are the tips? First, you have the scoring wheel and you have a single and
a double scoring wheel. So one line and two lines. You had a wavy blade that cuts wavy lines. A perf blade that cuts perforated lines. A debossing tip and an engraving tip. And I'll link to videos
about all of these below and what they do, but
you only need one housing for all of these. And it's as simple as
pressing the plunger, adding on the tip that you
wanna add on and releasing. Now the Maker has a sensor
to detect the blade. In some cases, it may be fooled. Like it can't tell the
difference between the single and the double scoring wheel, for example. But it could tell the
difference between say, the rotary blade and the knife blade. So it does actually check to make sure that you have the right blade installed. The other machines do not do that. So you need to make sure
you have the right blade before you start cutting. Now we talked about pins that
will go into the other side of your Cricut machine. For the Explore or the Maker, you can also use a scoring stylus. So the scoring stylus goes in
the pin side of your machine and it will score material. What is scoring? Scoring is making a slight
indention line on the material, so that you know where to fold it. So you could either use a scoring stylus on the Explore or the Maker. Or if you have the Maker, you
can get the scoring wheel, either single or double. Right, let's talk mats. The other thing you'll need when operating your Cricut machine is a mat. These small mats are for the Cricut Joy. So you'll need a mat if
you wanna cut any material, besides the smart materials. So our smart materials for the Cricut Joy that cut without a man. If you wanna cut other materials, you will get one mat with your machine and these are all the
options that you can get. So we have a light grip, in 4.5 by 12. Standard grip in 4.5 by 12. Standard grip in 4.5 by 6.5. And then the Cricut Joy card mat, which is four cards that
are already cut and folded. So I have another video on the card mat, I'll link that below. And we'll talk about the
differences between the grips, as we talk about the mats
for the other machines. Because the color coding and
the grip strength are the same for the Joy and the other two machines. So here are the mats for
the Explore or the Maker. So every mat for the Explore or the Maker comes in two sizes. 12 by 12, which is this size and 12 by 24, which is this big guy. So let's talk grips in those sizes. Strong grip, the strongest
grip that you can get for heavy duty materials. Think like wood, real
leather, things like that that you need a really strong grip to cut. Next up is standard grip. Once again, the 12 by 12 or 12 by 24, two different sizes. Standard grip is a little less
strong than the strong grip. So we're going down in strength. So we had strong grip,
now we have standard grip. You can use this certain
types of cardstock, adhesive vinyl, iron-on,
that type of thing. This is often like the
mat that I will go with. But the other mat you wanna
keep on hand at all times is the light grip. Again, light grip comes
in 12 by 12 and 12 by 24. Now this is really probably
the amount I use most often. So lighter white card
stocks, adhesive vinyls, iron-on or heat transfer
vinyl, that type of thing will stick to the light grip mat. Now, there is also a pink mat. The pink mat, again, comes in 12 by 12 and 12 by 24. This mat is called the fabric grip mat. That's because it's intended for fabric. It is the lightest of the grips. So I use it also for
things like crepe paper or anything super delicate, tissue paper and that type of thing. So the first thing about the
mat when it comes to you, it will have a protective liner on it. You can just lift that liner up. And then this portion is sticky. Now on certain mats,
especially the fabric grip mat, if you touch the sticky
portion with your hands, it will get less sticky so
you might want to not do that. And then there are markings along both up and down and side to side. And those are measurement markings, just for your convenience. So the sticky portion
is whatever is inside of these grid lines. And so the mat has grid lines on it, for your reference and for measurement. Now I do have a video on how
to clean your Cricut mats and I will link to that below as well, to help extend that mat life some. You do want to also be sure to replace that protective cover over the top when storing to prevent
any lint, pet hair, that type of thing from
getting on your mat. So now, maybe you're ready
to tackle some projects and cut some things, what are
the tools you're gonna need? Let's take a look at the
tools and what they're called, so you'll know the proper terminology. Let's talk tools. So these first tools, the term is weeding
tools or weeding hooks. So there are a variety of shapes, styles. There's a kit that you
can buy from Cricut. It really just depends on your preference, which one you might prefer. This next set is tweezers. Again, some of these come
in a kit from Cricut. They are used for weeding or picking up small
pieces off of your mat. Or in this case of this wide tweezers, that's used for picking
up fabric off your mat. So we talked a little bit about how touching those mats with your fingers can weaken the adhesive
and this is one way to get around that. So these are also just preference. So whichever one that you like to use. Next up, is a craft knife. So this is the Cricut
True-control craft knife. The blade is replaceable, so
we just replace that blade. It can be great for cutting materials before putting them on your
mat or finishing any cuts that maybe didn't get finished. Like in the case of wood,
that happens quite a bit. This is a spatula. This is amazing for getting
small pieces of paper and that type of thing off of your mat, or cleaning up the mat after
like a bunch of small pieces are on your mat after you
cut and they're all scraps. And you can just kind of scrape
them off with the spatula. It's perfect for that. Definitely a must-have
tool and a lot of times, it comes in a kit with
some of these other tools. So next up we have a scraper. So these are perfect. So this one's a large one,
this one's a small one but they do the same thing. So they are perfect for
pressing your material down onto the mat, furnishing your vinyl down to the transfer tape. And we'll talk about vinyl and
transport tape in a minute. But these are really must-haves for your Cricut and especially
those vinyl projects. Next step is scissors, which
are a must for any crafter. And if you wanna get a
little bit more fancy, this is a rotary cutter. So basically you press
this and it retracts the safety cover and
then the blade is exposed and you just roll it along
something like fabric to cut. And this is helpful for cutting like perfectly straight lines on fabric, which is especially important if you're gonna put
them on your Cricut mat. And next up is a tool that
not many people know about, especially when they get started. This is called a Breyer. So it is basically a roller. This is amazing for extending
the life of your mat. So you roll this over your material, on the mat and it pushes
it down into that adhesive. It really helps extend the life and helps you use those mats longer. So I highly recommend a Breyer
to all new Cricut owners. Then there's a couple of other
tools that are super handy. So this one's a paper trimmer. So you add your paper to the inside, it's called a paper trimmer or cutter. And then this piece here cuts your paper. And then I would also highly recommend keeping a ruler on hand. Another must-have for any
crafter, like scissors and a ruler are just a
must-have for crafting. All right, so now that
you're more familiar with your machine, we're gonna
jump into Cricut Design Space and we're gonna talk
about the terms there. So if you've ever
wondered about like weld, slice, flatten, all of those crazy terms. Let's take a look in Cricut
Design Space at all the buttons and I'll explain briefly
what each of those mean. This is Cricut Design Space. Cook Design Space is a free program and you can download
it at design.cricut.com onto your computer, or
look on the app store on your Android or iOS device. So let's look at the main menu. So when you open it up, it'll
look something like this. So first of all, you'll have any projects you've made across here. If you haven't made
any, this will be blank. You can hit new project here or new project here to
open up a new project. You'll also see some projects below. So what you'll see is projects
that if you just click them, you can just make that project. If you see an A beside it,
that means it comes free with your Cricut access subscription. Cricut access is generally,
you get a free trial when you buy a new machine,
so you might as well use that. It is a monthly fee and it gives you access to free projects, free images and free fonts. I suggest that you use
it for your trial month. See if it's worth it for you
and then continue from there if you would like to pay that monthly fee. If you cancel your
subscription and do not pay the monthly fee, you can still use Cricut Design Space for free. You don't have to have
Cricut access to use it. So let's take a look
at some of the options on this main menu. So first of all, you have home,
which is where we are now. Canvas is the name of where
you will design your projects in Cricut design space. You can also do new machine
set up and calibration. So calibration will
depend on which machine you have chosen for Cricut Design Space. So you can choose from the
machines over here in this menu, just pull this dropdown down. So if I have Explore chosen and hit calibration, you'll
see that I can only calibrate for print-then-cut. If I have Joy chosen, there will be no options for calibration. And if I have Maker
chosen, I can calibrate the rotary blade, the knife
blade or print-then-cut. So basically before you do your first print-then-cut, you should calibrate. Otherwise, if you have any
trouble with any of these, then you do a calibration. Also over here with your machine
selection, is save options and that's where you can save
your project as you design it. As well as my projects,
where you can get to all of the projects you've saved. Over here you can also
manage your custom materials and that's where you set
up your own materials. I have another video on that
and I will link to that below. You can update your
firmware if you need to, see your account details, link cartridges, we've
already talked about that that's an older technology. Cricut access is here and a few settings. So that we are on our canvas, let's start making a project. First, let's talk about some
of the buttons on the side. So the top is new and that will give you a
new project or a new canvas. The second is templates. While I always recommend that you measure whatever blank you're using, like if you're using a baseball T-shirt, I would suggest measure it and then size your project appropriately. The templates can actually
help you size your project. So if I pick a baseball T-shirt, you can see that on your screen. It does not save with your project and they are for reference only. So I'm actually just gonna choose a new project, to get a blank canvas here. So after templates, there's projects. If you click projects,,
these are all those projects that we saw on that first screen. And this is a place where
you can search by category or by word, if you type that here. One thing I wanted to point out here, for categories, you can click
free or free for Cricut Maker if you have a Cricut Maker and you can see those projects
that are free for you. You can also search through the images that are already in Cricut Design Space. And you can do that by choosing
any of these categories or searching for an
image in the search bar. You can use these options on the side, to filter down those images. One that I like to use is ownership. And I like to click free, so I can see all of the free options that are available in Cricut Design Space. Next up on the left, we have text. If you click this button, you can type any text that you would like. And it opens up if you font
options across the top. So the first is picking any
font that you want to use. So you can change your font, just by clicking on a different font. The font options are as follows. So the first option is all,
so that's all the fonts. System are ones that are on your computer or your electronic device. Cricut are ones that are
already in Cricut Design Space. Again, the A will indicate the ones that are free with access. And you can filter those
down by a variety of options, including multilayer,
single layer, writing. Or you can actually click my fonts and find those that are free. Your system fonts are always free because they're on your computer. So now that we have a font, we can choose a few different things. So the first is regular, bold, italic, bold and italic or writing. So if I wanna write with
the pen, so my best option is to choose this writing. and allow it to change to a writing font. And this often only works
with the Cricut font, so be aware of that. You can also change your font
size to a specific size here if you would like, just by typing that in. You can change the letter spacing. This letter spacing is
most important on fonts that are cursive fonts,
like this font that's shown. So the letter spacing helps you to move those letters closer together. And you can even go into
negative to get those as close as possible. Now every font doesn't play perfectly with the letter spacing, so we can do a few different things for that. What we can do is click
go, and we're gonna skip on over here to advanced, and
we can ungroup to letters. This makes each letter its own piece. And now, I can move those
letters individually to wherever I would like them. And now I'm making this word
look more like a cursive word. Now how do we keep it that way? We'll go over that option in a minute. So a few more options with text. So what I've typed is; testing for me. And now I can change the
line spacing this time. So when I change the line spacing, it moves it closer together. You can also change the alignment when you have multi-line text, so left, center or right. And you can also ungroup to
lines on this advanced option. So when we ungroup to lines, that means that each of these
words is a different cut. So now I can move them
independently of one another. And the only other option
we need to go through on the font menu, is actually curve. So I want to note something here. This curve option is only
available on computer. So on any of these options,
if you are confused about why your screen looks differently, it could be one of two things. The first is that that
option is only available on computer like curve, the
knife blade and the foil tip. Or you could have the wrong
machine chosen in the corner. So when I have Maker chosen,
more options will show up than Explore or Joy. So make sure you have the right
machine that you're using. So to curve text, you can just move this to the right or the
left, to curve your text. Or you can type anything that you want right into the box. The only other option over
here on the left is shapes. So when you pick the shapes,
you can actually draw right in Cricut Design Space
with a variety of shapes. You can use these circles on the corners, to change a few things. So the red circle will actually delete it. You can also delete
something by hitting Delete or Backspace space on your computer, or delete in the layers panel. This arrow that's in a circle will actually allow us to rotate that. You can rotate it using the circle or when I click on that
square, a rotate option opens up in the top. And there, I could actually pick a custom angle for my rotation. What also comes up are two arrows together and we can drag those
to resize any object. Also if you have an object
picked, you can change the size to something exact by typing it in to the panel at the top. Now this lock button is important, especially if you have
something like a square. So if I unlock this square, this button changes to
four ways instead of two. So now I can drag it and distort it, any way I would like. There is also a lock on
your panel up at the top, so you can unlock and lock from there and type in the size you want as well. Also in shapes, just one
more thing I wanted to note. If you're using the Explore
or the Maker, you can draw score lines as well with the shapes. And we've talked about the scoring stylus and the scoring wheels. The only other thing
on the left is upload. If you click that, you
can upload your own images or patterns, so you
click image or pattern. And we'll talk more about
patterns in a minute. For images, there are various file types. The first four listed are JPEG, GIF, .png and bitmap. These four are image file types. So .png files usually have
a transparent background and they're the easiest to upload if you're gonna upload an image. The others are fairly
standard image file types. The next two types of files you can upload are SVG and DXF. SGV is the optimum file to
upload to your Cricut machine. It stands for scalable vector graphic and it feeds in all the
information that the Cricut needs to know, to make a good cut. And you won't get any distortion, like you might with a image file that is not of the best quality. So look for SVG files for
uploading, if you can. I have videos on uploading
files of all types on all devices, and I
will link to those below. If you scroll down, you can also see images that you've recently uploaded. And if you click view all, you see all that you've ever uploaded. So we're just gonna cancel this for now and look at the rest of the
options in Cricut design space. So up at the top, you have undo and redo. So anything you've
done, you can click undo and it will undo the last operation. And then if you click
redo, it will redo that. If you have any layer selected, you can do a few different things. So the first is line type. So we have cut and draw. So cut cuts with the blade,
draw draws with the pens. The cut and draw would be
the only options available if you had a Cricut Joy. So if you have your Cricut Joy chosen, those are the only options. But when we expand out into
the Explore and the Maker, we get a few other options. So we have the score,
which is the scoring lines. The foil, all the way at
the bottom is on the Maker as well as the Explore. And you just hover over
and then you would pick the fine, medium or bold tip depending on which one you're using. Now when I pick any of these, my object actually
changes to reflect that. And it also changes on my
layer panel and tells me exactly what is going to
happen with that layer. So score is indicated by a dashed line. Foil is actually indicated by a gold line. And then for the Maker only,
you have four more options for those tips we talked about. Engrave, deboss, wave and perf. And when you pick each of
those, it will show you over on the side, what it is but there's really no other indication of what the cut actually is. So I'm gonna change this one back to cut. The next is this box and that allows you to change the material color. So this is important if I want this to be out of yellow material, and I want this to be
out of yellow material, and I want these to be out of black. I would want to make sure that the testing and the text
are all the same color and the shapes are the same color. That way, they will cut
out of the same material. Next option is fill. So no fill indicates a cut, but if I want this to
print for a print-then-cut, so if I'm on the Maker or the
Explore, I can click print. Now it's gonna print
this as a yellow square or I can click this box
to change the color. This is where those patterns come in. I can actually change to a pattern. There are various patterns
already in Cricut Design Space or you can upload your own. I can click on the pattern and
it fills with that pattern. And you can also see
over here on the side, now that I have filled my object, my layers panels says cut and print. So that indicates what it will be. I'm actually going to undo
those last few actions and go back to a cut. Now, a few more options. First of all, I can click select all at any time if I want every object on my canvas to be selected. So that's kind of handy. The edit option allows you
to cut or copy or paste. You can also use shortcut
codes for your computer. If I have two objects chosen or more, I can use the align function. And this allows me to align those objects however I would like. A range, let's say I have
these objects stacked now and I want my circle at the top. I would click the circle, pull down a range and then
I can send it to the front or just move it forward. I can also flip objects
right in Cricut Design Space. Now there is a mirroring function, later that we'll talk
about, on the actual screen where you can see your mat. But if I wanted to flip it
horizontally or vertically for my design, I would flip it here. We've talked about the size, the rotate. Talk a bit about the position. So we change the position here. The X position moves it left and right. The Y moves it up and down. So you can get an exact
position by typing in here. So now that we have
something on our canvas, let's talk about this save button. When we click save, we are
able to name our project and save it. If I had all objects that
are in Cricut Design Space, I could save my canvas as public. Because this font is on
my computer and I think this one is as well, I can
only save it for personal use. So I wouldn't be able to
share it with other people. So keep that in mind when
you're choosing your objects, whether you want to share
it with other people or not. All right, so now I have these two objects and let's say I want them
to cut just like that. If I click, make it, right now those two objects are not gonna be like
they are on my canvas. So they're side-by-side, instead of one on top of one another. If I pick both those objects, I have a few different options I can do with them. First, I can group them. What does group do? Group allows me, now when I pick it, they both move together,
so they are a group. However, if I click make it, they will still not be
together on my canvas. So group, just groups things together for easy movement on your canvas. The other great thing about group is there's an ungroup button,
so you can always undo it. The next option on the
layers panel is duplicate, which we've talked about and delete. Let's talk a bit about
color sync while we're here. So if I wanted this, me,
for example, to be yellow, instead of changing it to yellow, I could actually use this panel. I could grab that M for the me, and I could just drag
it over to the yellow. And now it's yellow and the same color as these other two objects. So let's go back to the layers panel and let's talk about these
options at the bottom. So we talked about that, maybe
I want this to stay like this when I'm actually making it. This middle button, attach,
will do that for you. So if I have my group
chosen and I click attach, first of all, note that it
changed from attached to detach. So you can undo it later. So if I save this or whatever,
I can detach it later. And now when I click make it, those two objects are in the same location as they were before. So now let's click those and detach it. The other option you can do
is to weld those together. So that's our next button over
here, on the layers panel. But if I click weld,
what happens is that cut and I'll click undo just so you can see. That cut of the circle goes away. So what would happen is
this would cut as one shape, just around the outer edge. So it would not fully cut that circle out, but they would stay together. Now the other thing I want you to note is there is no unweld. Once I save this, it is
permanently welded together. So use weld with caution. So I am gonna undo this. And let's talk about slice next. So I showed you with attach, so if I click these two
and attach them together. I showed you that it would in fact, cut just like this. And that circle would cut
a piece out of this square because they're attached together. If I detach those and I want to slice them. First tip was slice is you can only slice two objects at a time. So I have two objects and if I click slice, now you can see that a bunch of different pieces came up. So if I just wanted to cut that square with a circle out of it, I can actually just delete
all these others off. Now when I click make it, I will have just the square
with the circle out of it. And then the other thing you need to note, is there is note unslice. So that is a permanent action and when I save this,
there is no undoing it. So you need to also be
cautious when you use slice and make sure that you want
it permanently that way. And what I can do is just
click undo enough times, where I'm back to my original design. So this also works with text. So let's put these two together. I'm going to arrange,
send that to the back. If I was to attach these together, the me would be cut out of the square. We can accomplish that
same thing with slice. However, it would not be able to be undone once I saved my project. Right now, I can call detach and the me again, is its own object. So just be cautious when you use things like the weld and the slice. Now let's go back to that cursive word we talked about in the beginning. So right now all of these
letters are individual letters. We want them to cut as one piece so that it looks like one word
that was written in cursive. To do this, I definitely
recommend the weld. Again, it can't be undone so make sure everything is together correctly. Then click weld to make this one piece that cuts all at one time. So that's how you handle cursive writing in Cricut Design Space. So let's say I don't want
the me cut out of the circle. I want the me to print on the circle and then I want my Cricut
to cut around the circle. I'm gonna pick the me and the circle and I'm gonna flatten it. And now if you look over
here on the layers panel, it is a print-then-cut. It will print the circle
with the me inside and then it will cut
around the outer circle. It will not cut the me itself. As long as you flatten
something to an object, it will not cut around the inner object. You will also note that
now it says unflatten, so I can undo this at any time. Now let's click make it. Let's talk a little bit about what happens when you do print-then-cut. So first of all, this
box around the outside is called registration marks. So that's what your Explore
or Maker will look for with its sensor, so it knows exactly where to cut on the location. And then when I click continue
down here at the bottom, there'll be a send to printer button for just that sheet. When we click that button,
we have a couple options we need to talk about. The first, you'll need to pick the printer you wanna send it to, your number of copies and whether or not you wanna add bleed. So what happens if you add bleed is there will be in case,
this a slight band of yellow around the outside of this circle. So then if your Cricut doesn't
cut just exactly right, the bleed will cover that up a little bit and you'll still have yellow and it'll look like that perfect circle. So you can turn that on
or off, if you would like. The other thing you may wanna do is click this use system dialogue button. That means when I click print, the actual box for my system
for the printer will pop up. That way, I'm able the change settings like changing the quality of the print and anything else that I wanted to change on my printer settings before
actually printing the design. And then once you have this printed, you're ready to cut with your machine. So I've inserted an image to talk about one more button down here at the bottom, and that is the contour button. So I have this image chosen
and if I click contour, this is what pops up. I can remove any of these objects from the inside, just by clicking on them. So what happens is they're
basically erased from the inside. So if I just wanted
the outline of the dog, I could pick everything except
for the outline of the dog. And you can hide as many
contours as you want. So I could hide just one or
two, or I could hide them all. Once you're done hiding the contours, you just click the X to close. And now you can see, I just
have the outline of that dog instead of all the cuts from the inside. So contour is super useful
and you can undo it, just by clicking contour again and turning those contours back on. Finally, let's look at
our mats and options that you have on the mat itself. So now we have four different mats because we have four
different colors of material. So first thing first,
when I pull up a mat, I can move it just by clicking on it and move it anywhere I would like. I could also rotate it on this mat. These two things are useful
if you wanna save material. So if I had a bunch of these, I could save material that way. How do I get a bunch of those? Well, I can actually
change my project's copies right here on the screen. So I just increase that
to five and click apply. And now I have five copies
of that same project. And now if I thought that,
let's say, these dogs. Say it would save material
if I moved them, like this. So that's a way to save material. The other thing you can do, let's say I had 15 copies of this. I can actually put these dogs
together onto the same mat. So let's say, I think they'll
all fit on that seven. I can move this object to this mat. Go back to the nine, move this object to this mat. And now I can go to this mat and I have those other two dogs on here. And I can move the dogs around and save material by cutting
those all from the same mat. And I could probably
even fit a few more dogs if I played around with this. So that's something that's super convenient for moving those. So maybe I decide I only need 14 dogs, I can also click hide selected. That removes it from the mat completely and it won't cut it. The other thing we can do is
mirror, here at this stage. So basically you wanna mirror anything where it's face-down on the mat. Iron-on or heat transfer vinyl
is the most common thing. Infusible ink is also a
good side down to the mat. Anything where the good side is down, you wanna click this mirror button. And that mirrors the entire
mat-worth of material. You can also here, change your size. So if I have a 12 by 20
format, we talked about that there's two different mat sizes, I can change that to 12 by 24. And now all of those
squares fit on one mat, as long as I have the 12 by 24 cardstock. This is also super convenient
for moving these around if you have scraps. So if I have a scrap that is super small, I can definitely move my objects around to where that is on the mat. And these grid lines on
the mat that's shown, correspond to the grid lines
of as I showed you earlier. Now your cuts won't be
super precise in location, so leave yourself some wiggle room. And once I'm done with
all that positioning, I can click continue and I'm ready to cut. So what it's gonna do is find my machine, whether that's with USB, with
the cord or with Bluetooth, like we talked about. If you've already printed your designs, you can click, I've already printed. And this is what happens
when either using your Maker or your Joy, or your
Explore dial is on custom. You can pick from any material here, even searching for various materials to find the right one. Once you pick a material, it will tell you what blade is required and
what clamp to put it in. So what's in clamp A, what's in clamp B, and to go ahead and load your material Once you have the proper
blades and tools in place. You can also edit tools at times, which is what this button is for. And that will depend on
what material you're cutting and what machine you're on. But say on this one, I could
change to my deep point blade instead of my fine-point blade. So just keep that in
mind when you're cutting. And then load your mat
and press go when it asks. All right, we have everything
we need to start creating. Now We need something to make. So the first thing
you'll need what's called a blank or a substrate. A blank or a substrate is what
you put your material onto. It can be shirts, tumblers, mugs, glass, frames, wood, signs. Anything that you put your
material, that you make on your Cricut, onto is
called a blank or a substrate. So now let's dive into those materials and the terminology associated with those. Materials, materials, materials, what do all those words mean? Let's talk about them. So let's start on this side with vinyl. Two different versions of vinyl. First is adhesive vinyl. Adhesive vinyl has a sticky backing. So it's applied to a backing paper or sometimes referred
to as a carrier sheet, that is just like a plain piece of paper. And then it vinyls on top
with a sticky backing to it. And you can use that to apply to glass, wood, that type of thing,
any type of smooth surface. There are two different types,
removable and permanent. Just like they sound, one is intended for like temporary things. So removable, I would put on walls. Whereas permanent, I would put
on a mug that I was gonna use everyday for my coffee. Now when you're using
vinyl, you want to use what's referred to as transfer
tape or transfer paper. So this is basically a tape or a big adhesive sheet that allows you to move all
those little bitty cut bits, all at once to your surface. So you're not trying to place those. So those are kind of like the
two types of adhesive vinyl, but there are specialty vinyls as well. So the one next to this is window cling, and that's one example. So window cling would be used, obviously if you wanna
put something on a window and then easily remove it later. Now, I talked about two types of vinyl. So you have adhesive vinyl
for all those smooth surfaces like glass but then you have
something called iron-on. And that is also referred to
as heat transfer vinyl or HTV. All those terms mean the same thing. And that is a vinyl, that on
the back of it, has an adhesive that is activated by heat. So it is also on a carrier
sheet, but it is face-down. So that adhesive is up. It's heat activated, so it's not sticky. But you do need to do
a few special things, like we talked about mirroring when we talked about Cricut Design Space. You would mirror anything that's face-down on the mat, like iron-on. So there are a few special
rules when working with that, but you don't need transfer
tape with iron-on to apply it. So that's something a
little bit different. Now, I have basic videos
on vinyl and iron-on and I'll drop links for those below. So if you are starting with
those, drop to those links and learn all about them. Next is infusible ink. So you may have heard that term around maybe Facebook groups or something. Infusible ink is made
exclusively by Cricut. Comes in sheets and also pens and markers. So it is an ink that is
trapped inside of a sheet in this case of this box. And when you apply it to a
polyester blank or substrate, so it does need to be polyester. And Cricut makes its own line of blanks that are compatible with infusible ink. Now when you apply it to
that polyester surface, there's a chemical reaction and it infuses into the
surface, infusible ink. Making it a permanent design, that's actually embedded
into the material. Where adhesive vinyl or heat transfer vinyl or iron-on sit on top of the surface, infusible ink embeds itself inside. It is slightly advanced, where you need to know what you're doing. So I do have another video on that and I'll link to that below. Another term you might
also run into is heat tape or heat-resistant tape. There is a Cricut version of that too, and that's used to hold
down that infusible ink while you press it,
just so it doesn't move. Because movement is the
enemy of infusible ink. Now you may have heard
of the term, sublimation. So sublimation is a process
with an attire printer and it's pretty expensive to get into, where the printer prints
with sublimation ink and you put it on a polyester surface and it infuses into the surface. Infusible anchors a way to do
that for the average crafter, without all of that expensive equipment. So if you ever heard of
the term sublimation, that's what it means. With a sublimation
printer, sublimation ink and infusing into that surface. But infusible ink is
something that's a little more accessible for the everyday crafter. So another box I have over here. If you have a Cricut Joy,
there's a couple terms you might wanna know. Smart materials, so they come in a box, looks something like this. And there are smart
material versions of things like vinyl and iron-on. Basically, those are sized
perfectly for your Cricut Joy so you can cut mat-less. So we talked about cutting on the mat and cutting without the mat,
which is mat-less cutting. And those smart materials
are how you do that. The other term with your
Cricut Joy is insert cards. So insert cards are
designed for that card mat we talked about earlier in the video. They're preformed card with inserts and there are specific
designs in Cricut Design Space that you can use with these
to make cards in minutes. And we also talked about
the foil transfer tool and how you can use that
with your Explore and Maker. There are foil sheets that go with that. And I just wanted to explain
what foil is for a minute, just for those that don't know. Foil is just basically a
metallic shine all-in-one sheets. They're super thin sheets
with a metallic shimmer, gives a little something extra
to all those things projects. Now, let's get into a
whole stack of materials. So when we talk about cutting
fabric with your Cricut Maker, it is just regular fabric. When we talk about cutting
fabric with your Cricut Explore, we talk about bonded fabric. Bonded fabric is just a fabric that has interfacing iron to the back. And I have an entire
video on how to do that and I'll link to that below. Next, a term you might hear is cardstock. Cardstock is actually just
a thick version of paper. If you hear something
like 100 pound cardstock or 80 pound cardstock, that pound number refers to the thickness. The bigger the number,
the thicker the cardstock. Cardstock comes in a
wide variety of colors, finishes, all types of
things for your project. One other term is Kraftboard. So Cricut makes a product
called Kraftboard. I personally love it for projects. It is basically, if you
were to buy a frozen pizza from the grocery store. That box that is around
it, it's that in sheets. Now when you think of craft board, you might think of this brown craft color. But Kraftboard actually comes in a couple of different colors. So here I have a sampler with that craft in white and black. It can cut on any Cricut machine and it's super easy to work with. Like I layer it sometimes,
to make thick embellishments. Like something that I really enjoy and I keep all the time in my craft room. Acetate is a clear,
basically plastic sheet. It comes in plain, clear and
then this is foil acetate and it has foil designs on it. So you'll see both used
in a variety of projects. Now let's talk printable materials. So we talked about how
the Explore and the Maker can do print-then-cut. You can buy a specialty
printable materials to use with that. So this is one example
and it's printable vinyl. It's one of my favorites, but
they make printable fabric, printable sticker paper,
that type of thing. So printable materials
is a term you might hear and that is just a material
that you can print on. So if I buy a roll of
vinyl that looks like this, that says premium vinyl removable, I would not be able to print on that. But if I buy a pack that looks like this, that says printable vinyl, I
would be able to print on it. Next step is felt. You may be familiar with
felt in all your crafting, and you can cut just regular felt sheets. I do recommend the Maker for most of your thicker felt sheets. But Cricut makes felt and it's thin enough and the right texture
to cut with an Explore. So this opens up felt
crafting, to those of you that have an Explore. So let's talk about leather and suede. So of course, you
probably know those terms. But do you know that there is
something called fauh leather? So fauh leather is thinner,
gives you that look of leather but you can cut it with
an Explore super easily. I've even cut it with my Joy. So look for fauh leather, F-A-U-H. Basically stands for,
or means fake leather, which that's what it is. There's also, in companion
with fauh leather, there's also a fauh suede. So you can look for that as well. And then if you wanted
to get into real leather, you would look for genuine leather, would be the term you
would look for there. And I recommend only
cutting genuine leather if you have a Maker, because
it is a little tougher to cut. I have seen some people cut it
successfully with an Explore. I wouldn't say that you
would need like some trial and error there if you tried that. Next term is chipboard. So chipboard is basically
the paper version of plywood. So how plywood is made
with a bunch of wood bits, all pressed together,
chipboard is basically a bunch of paper bits all pressed together. And it comes in varying thicknesses. So this one I have in my
hand is a heavy chipboard, which you would cut on your Maker for like super thick
embellishments and things. And you cut that with your knife blade. There's also thinner
versions that you could cut on your other machines. Now let's talk wood. So first of all, I want
to talk about wood veneer. So wood veneer is a super thin, almost as thin as paper, wood product. And you can cut this
with the Explore or Maker because I've done it. Basically if you cut it and
then add it on top of something like the chipboard or the Kraftboard, you get a pretty thick embellishment that has that look of wood, all with your Explore if you choose now. The Maker can cut basswood and balsa wood. Balsa wood comes in varying thicknesses, but it's almost spongy or
you can almost press it with your hands and it's super brittle. So I don't use it any
time for my projects, but I do know that there
are projects out there that it is good for. And you can pick it up
at your craft store. Basswood however, is basically
what I use with my Maker. I like the Cricut brand,
I feel like it cuts best. There are other brands on the market, but I always have trouble
cutting them with my Maker. So the Cricut basswood comes
in two different sizes, this is the smaller of the two. And it is like, it is real wood. Now, it can't cut like super thick. So the Cricut basswood
comes in the thickness that the Maker can cut. So you do wanna watch
out for the thickness, if you've purchased somewhere else. Now, a few more terms. Because I get these
questions all the time, for these next few terms. Let's compare; butcher paper, parchment,
paper, freezer paper and talk about what each
of those are used for. So butcher paper, first of all. I get mine on Amazon. And butcher paper allows
heat to escape from it. It is perfect for use with infusible ink. In fact, these infusible ink boxes come with a sheet of butcher paper inside. But if you need more, you can purchase butcher paper on Amazon. I get asked all the time; can I use something else in
place of the butcher paper? And I really don't recommend it. So the other things that you
might keep in your craft room and these come out of my kitchen, are parchment paper and freezer paper. Parchment paper, while it can't be used in the place of butcher
paper, it has its own uses. So parchment paper is perfect to put on top, when you're using iron-on, if you're layering iron-on
or something like that. It's the perfect
protective sheet for that. Especially, if you don't
have a protective sheet that's made for iron-on. Sub parchment paper instead. Freezer paper, I am
finding that freezer paper is not carried in as many
grocery stores anymore. I order on Amazon now. I actually keep it in my
kitchen because I use it, but it makes a great stencil. So one side of the freezer
paper, when you iron it, it adheres to your fabric just enough so you can stencil with it. And then it removes super easily. And I do have a video on how to do that and I'll drop a link below. But freezer paper is
something I keep all the time. It's definitely way
different than anything else. And something I didn't
bring upstairs is wax paper. And that's another thing that you might find in your kitchen. And I get asked all the time; if I can use that in
place of any of these? The answer is no. So wax paper can not be
used for any of these. I would not use wax paper for
anything where there's heat. You do use parchment paper or wax paper for layering vinyl sometimes. You might see it used in that way. So that would be a way that
you could use wax paper in your craft room, but it cannot be a
substitute for any of these and I do not recommend that. All right and finally
before we leave materials, when we're talking about vinyl, iron-on, infusible ink,
those type of materials. You might hear the term weeding. Weeding is just the act
of using weeding tools, using tweezers, using your hands to remove any excess
from the carrier sheet. So you have a carrier sheet that is included with the material. And you wanna remove anything
you don't want transferred, to your blank, like say, your shirt. And I would wanna remove anything
I don't want transferred. So everything around the outside edge, things like the centers of letters, the insides of designs, you
would wanna remove all that. And that process is called weeding. And finally, one last
thing before we wrap up. I wanna take a look at iron,
Easy Press, heat press. What are the difference
between those terms? When we talked about that iron-on vinyl, I talked about how you need a heat source to activate that adhesive. Now, you can use a
standard household iron. There are instructions for how to do that. Many people have trouble with the iron, like getting the consistent
heat source that you would need to actually adhere that to your shirt. And have like varying results with it. So that's why a lot of people opt for a couple of different things, either an Easy Press or a heat press. So the Easy Press, let's
talk about that first of all. The Easy Press comes in
three different sizes. Then in addition to that,
there is the Easy Press mini, which is this little guy right here. So this little guy is perfect
for those small projects. And then you can work up from there. So there's a six by seven, a nine by nine and then like a 12 by 10. Now each of these work the same, you just need to kind
of decide what you need for the projects you're doing. Now when you have your Easy Press, you might also wanna
consider an Easy Press mat. Again, those come in three different sizes to sort of match up with the three different sizes of Easy Press. So the Easy Press mat is
like the perfect thing for laying down your blank and then pressing on top
with your Easy Press. And the other thing I've
mentioned a couple of times, is a protective sheet
when you're doing iron-on. So this is referred to as Teflon sheet or iron-on protective sheet, sometimes. You might see both terms, but
basically it refers to a sheet that you can use between your iron-on or your blank and your heat source. So sometimes you might be ironing on. Like say, I'm adding iron-on to silk. I would probably use a protective sheet, just so the rest of the press plate does not reach my surface,
which is the silk. So that carrier sheet
that's on the iron-on would protect that small little area. But sometimes you wanna
protect the rest of the area, which is where a protective
sheet would come in. Now the Easy Press, all of them come with the Easy Press
itself, as well as a base. So the benefits of this are
basically a larger surface area, no holes like for steam, you
do not want steam with iron-on, and a more consistent heat
across the entire surface. Now, that kind of differentiates
it between an iron. But can see right now, so I
have a big heat press here for comparison, you can see
right now the size difference. So if I am concerned about size, these Easy Presses do the same
thing as a larger heat press. The larger heat press
is sometimes preferred by those running a T-shirt
business or that type of thing. But the Easy Press, I find
is perfect for home crafters and is actually what I recommend
and what I use most often. But I do have a heat
press in my craft room. These are made by a
variety of manufacturers. You can find them everywhere. And basically you put
your material in here and there's a couple of different types. But the basic idea is you
put your shirt or your blank in here with your iron-on on top and maybe your protective
sheet, and then you close it and it's the same thing. So both of these heat up
to a temperature you set and then they heat for a
time that you set as well. So that's in the case of all of these, that you would set a
time and a temperature. So hopefully that helps explain Easy Presses and heat presses. And you need these for
anything that's heat activated. So heat transfer vinyl, HTV and iron-on. Remember, those all three
mean the same thing. You would also need
them for infusible ink, either the sheet, pens or markers. They would all need heat to
infuse into that surface. And then if you ever got into sublimation and bought a sublimation
printer and all that, you would also need a
heat source for that. So now guess what? You watched this entire video
and you are a Cricut expert. Now, did I forget a term? Is there something that
you're still confused about? I want you to drop down
to the comment section and leave that term, so I can
either point you to a video where I explain that or maybe
do a future video on it. But I'll definitely
respond to your comment and let you know what the term means. Now, if this video helped you, if you learned something
new because I hope you did, please give us a thumbs up. If you haven't already headed
over to our YouTube channel, hit that Subscribe button. We have Cricut videos every week and I know you'll learn something new. And if you've loved this video, you're gonna love our other content. So thank you so much for joining me today and I'll see you next week, bye-bye.
