Cricut: Demonstration at Trenton Computer Festival

I spent Saturday at the Trenton Computer Festival (TCF), the longest-running amateur computer show in the United States. (Disclosure: I am Secretary of the Amateur Computer Group of New Jersey, one of the Festival's co-sponsoring organizations.) TCF prides itself as a place for the hobbyist to learn about new and interesting developments in the world of computing. We present a number of hobbyists and professionals speaking on a variety of computer- and computing-related topics, a Ham Radio licensing session, and an Arduino workshop.

This year, I went in with two goals: to present an introductory talk on home electronic cutters, and to display some of my T-shirt and other Cricut-fabricated designs at a vendor table in the hope of selling something (or at least getting some orders).

The talk went reasonably well, considering that for the first half of it I had to make do with downloading my PowerPoint presentation onto the school's computer and walking my iPad around the classroom so people could see how Design Space differs depending on the platform. (Note: the SlideShare version linked to above did not copy the Kelson Sans and Lato typefaces used by the PowerPoint template I chose, Kental NMNL from Creative Market.) After the talk ended, I carried my Cricut and computer back to the Vendor room to man my table.

Earlier that morning, I found that instead of having business-card display holders in my table supplies, I had only tri-fold brochure displays. I did have 100-lb cardstock and a variety of adhesives in my table supplies, and a month subscription to Cricut Access, so I searched its database for a business-card display holder.

You'd think that with over 70,000 images, box designs, and so on, and an audience that includes hundreds of small-business owners, there'd be something as basic as a business-card display holder. No such luck. Fortunately, it's something easy enough to jury-rig — and when complete, a design I could make public so other small-business owners can use at vendor tables of their own. (A more refined version, available over at my Cricut profile, is the subject of my next post.)

It took me a couple of tries to get something usable for on-site — which was fine for demonstrating the device, but not so fine for having my head far enough outside of my computer to engage the public as much as I'd have liked. That said, having my Cricut actually working was probably a better demo than just explaining it and showing folk my already-made samples.

There was more interest from people who thought I was selling Cricut machines or who wanted to know what the machine did, than people interested in buying my designs or having me design something for them. There were also a few folk who were looking for more information than I could present in a 40-minute deonstration, or whose family members had a Cricut (or other home cutter) and who wondered what the machine was and what it did.

Recycling Weeded Vinyl

One of the things I've learned really quickly about my Cricut is it can create a lot of wasted vinyl and specialty cardstock. While I've been pretty lucky about getting my initial materials on sale, that's still a dollar or more per 12" x 12" sheet of material, with a lot of leftovers from the small projects I've been working on.

One option for using these leftovers is to cut your printed vinyl close to edges of your design before weeding, and use the leftover unprinted vinyl for another project. This is fairly simple if your designs are all small and relatively linear, like the geocaching reference number for The Other Half's car, or the starship profile I ironed on my multiple-process mixed-media T-shirt.

It's a bit less simple if you've printed out a corner flourish for your desk or notebook.

In the former case, you can fill a sheet with multiple copies of your artwork (if you need them). As an example, I can print my computer club's logo two-across on a 12" vinyl sheet, and then cut off the remaining nine inches for another project.

As long as your vinyl sheet has a ninety-degree corner (more or less) to align to the top and left sides of the mat, and it covers the area of the mat that will be printed, you're good to go.

If your vinyl scrap is more rounded, you may need an iPad or an iPhone and the Snap Mat feature of Cricut's DesignSpace app. (Note: there's a beta version of DesignSpace for Android, but it doesn't have Snap Mat.) The way it works is, you lay your vinyl (or other material) on the mat, take a picture of the mat through the app, and use the Move handles to move your pieces to where your vinyl is on the mat. The process is a bit slow and tricky at first, but as long as your Cricut registers your mat properly, you've got a great way to save material.

But what if your piece has one or more large interior spaces, the type which can't be cut (except maybe carefully, with a blade on a self-healing mat), and/or which is better weeded? Isn't there anything you can do with that?

Of course there is... at least, I think there is. Here are some of my hypotheses and tests:

Background: ready-to-cut eat transfer vinyl consists of two (or sometimes three) layers: the clear carrier layer, the effects layer (in holographic and reflective HTVs), and the adhesive layer.

1. Because the carrier is already resistant to melting at iron-on temperatures, can it be used as a protective layer for other iron-ons (such as layered HTV or typical inkjet t-shirt transfers)?
• So far, it seems to work OK for regular HTV. I've used it to iron hand-cut reflective hearts onto an old pair of cycling shorts to improve my night visibility.
• I haven't tried it yet with iron-on fabric or inkjet t-shirt transfers.
2. After weeding, the exposed part of the carrier is tacky — tacky enough to grab weed scraps from either your iron-on project or your adhesive vinyl project. Can these be used as carriers to use the weeded vinyl?
• If I have a large piece of HTV that has been weeded. Is the adhesive bond strong enough to reuse the carrier and have my Cricut cut the scrap vinyl?
• So far, I've only tried it with the carrier from glitter vinyl.
• It worked (relatively) fine for a scrap of reflective iron-on, which is almost as thin as foil HTV. The big issues were that the scraps could stretch out of plane (so they wouldn't lie flat on the carrier), and that it was difficult to keep bubbles from forming

After re-cutting

After re-cutting - close-up



• It didn't work as well for the scrap of glitter HTV, largely because the HTV didn't want to adhere well to the used carrier.

• Can I reuse the carrier as transfer tape for adhesive vinyl?
• Sadly, the answer for this appears to be "no". The HTV carrier is thicker and less flexible than the regular adhesive vinyl and its transfer tape. Even after burnishing, my Oracal 651 and Cricut Premium Vinyl both wanted to stay adhered to the carrier rather than my project. (Sorry, no pics for this one)

Similar questions exist for regular (sticky-back) adhesive vinyl and its backing. As long as the weeded scrap stays in plane and has enough stick to adhere to the used backing, the Cricut should work just fine.

Of course, if you're going to try to reuse non-heat-transfer-vinyl in this way, you will need to make sure you keep the adhesive as pristine as possible, and the carrier must be free from lint and scraps as well.



I hope this helps some of you electronic-cutter folk get some more mileage from your materials.

I Hear Cricuts...

If you spend any amount of time in a craft store or among paper crafters, you will hear them toss about words like Cuttlebug, Sizzix, Spellbinders, Silhouette, Cameo, and Cricut. Each of these are machines that help a crafter create precise embossed or cut shapes that can be assembled to make three-dimensional cards, scrapbook page accents, centerpieces and other specialized paper goods for special events, including custom favor boxes. A family with a couple of Cricut machines and a lot of time can save enough money creating their wedding, shower, or baby-naming supplies to pay for the cost of these expensive cutters and the amount of time it takes to learn how to use some of them.

Because I'm not into scrapbooking or planners, and I don't have children or nearby family, I don't have a direct need for these machines; however, many Michaels customers purchase consumables for them, and some even earn their incomes by using them. That means it's a good idea for me to understand how they work.

Our classroom includes a Sizzix Big Kick, a Cricut Expressions, and several dies and embossing folders for the Sizzix. The Sizzix is pretty straightforward: you put your paper on a plate, put your die on it, put another plate on top, and crank it through the machine. Then you take your pieces and assemble them.

The Cricut is another matter entirely. The Expressions model has a small number of built-in images and fonts, but mostly relies on proprietary data cartridges for your projects and designs. You use an awkwardly slow built-in display to try to lay these out in a way that either makes sense or wastes the least amount of consumable materials — or you can (or rather could) use a USB connection and a PC program (Cricut Craft Room) to try to manage things more quickly. Then you prepare your materials and tell the machine to do its work. Later Cricut models (the Explore series and the current top-of-the-line Maker) use different software (Cricut Design Space) that (hallelujah!) allows you to upload your own designs, rather than just relying on cartridges and whatever Cricut has made available through their online space.

It's that ability to do truly custom work that has had me interested in playing with the Cricut Explore series, and that past tense that has gotten me to finally purchase what, for me, is an expensive toy: Cricut shut down Craft Room on July 15. The nominal reasons for the shutdown is because the software is based on Adobe Flash, which is (1) insecure and (2) no longer supported by Adobe.

As part of the Craft Room sunset program, Cricut generously offered Craft Room users a significant credit towards purchasing a Design Space-compliant model, valid through July 15. I waited almost until the last minute before taking the leap and buying a Cricut Explore Air with a basic set of starter tools. Now, I'm working on translating some of the logos my organizations use into Design Space-friendly files and and trying out some ideas for custom decorations for our events.

Once I get the hang of the translations, I'll be able to see what sort of market might exist to give me some return on this investment...