🥵Common Cricut Mistakes You’re Making & How To Avoid Them 🥵

[Music] if you're anything like me you absolutely love your cricet machine but in today's video we're going dive in and talk about the common Cricut mistakes you're making and exactly how you can avoid them for your Cricut success if you're new here go ahead and hit the Subscribe button and give the video a thumbs up for more Cricut crafting inspiration here at maker is going to learn we're constantly getting emails inside of our customer care inbox in the comments of our videos and this is one of the biggest largest mistakes people are making with their Cricut and let me tell you exactly what it is it is everyone at home trying to do things themselves we will get emails constantly talking about how hey Tanner and team the cricket is turned red I have no idea what to do I've tried everything do you guys have any tips or tricks and where we tell you to go number one before you even waste any blood sweat or tears is to pick up the phone and call Cricut customer support I am so serious right now cricet has hands down some of the best customer care that is able to troubleshoot the cricket for you why in the world would we put ourselves through the ringar of trying things testing things almost to tears instead of just getting the support that they've already established and made available to you at Cricut member support I will tell you from the interactions I've had with the Cricut team they make zerar on the manufacturing and the distribution of their Cricut machines the reason why is they invest so much money in supporting every single Cricket user in their Journey with Cricket supporting the customer care Journey for Cricket is really expensive so when you know that Cricut has put so much money into supporting us to make sure that we have the best success there's no reason that we need to wait around that we need to put the cricet away when it's not working properly we just need to get out the phone we need to get online and get Support over at Cricut Customer Support I'm going to make sure we put some links to where to go or the phone number you can call to get help with your Cricket anytime that it's acting up I think it's so important that we're using the proper mat there's four different Cricut mats you can choose from and it goes from standard grip light grip fabric grip and strong grip I see people constantly trying to cut card stock for example on a purple strong grip mat and let me tell you my friends if you're not getting good results there's a reason why for example when you put card stock on a really strong grip mat there's no way it's going to be able to be peeled up without curling your card stock so even if your Cricut makes the best cut possible your you're still going to have far subpar results which is not what we're looking for so out of the four different mats we really want to encourage you to use what which mat is best for the project so I'm going to go over just a couple of different material I would use for each individual map all right so let's start with the green and the blue map now if you are a new Cricut user these two mats right here are going to be your best friend I use these about 80% of the time and honestly they're pretty interchangeable okay I find myself gravitating to This Light grip mat the light blue so often because it's so versatile it's great for vinyl it's great for heat transfer vinyl it's great for card stock and those are some of the main things that I use which is really really nice now coming up with the regular the awesome standard grip mat this is just an overall great mat to have and this is where I kind of stretch the limits of any mat it would be with the standard grip it's kind of the perfect meat in the-middle between your strong grip mat and a uh light grip mat so this is pretty average run of the meal if I could only have one mat it would probably have to be the standard grip and what I want to tell you is that as you work with the standard grip mat it will become more like a light grip mat but you can always for example cutting chipboard cutting faux leather anything like that that needs a little extra tack sometimes you can use masking tape painters tape just to help the corners stay down and in my experience this has been a great way to get the longest longevity out of a standard grip mat all right so 80% of the time you'll see maker going to learn pulling from one of these two mats next up you have the fabric grip mat the fabric grip mat is really designed for Cricut makers so if you have adaptive tools if you have the rotary blade this mat right here is really important for you to have when you are cutting things like burlap any type of fabrics Felts things like that and let me tell you out of all the Cricut mats this one is the one that needs the most attention and the utmost care I am constantly cleaning my fabric grip mats and I'm constantly feeling like I'm not getting the largest and fullest value out of the machine so within that one of our next common mistakes you'll see is a great hack to do with a fabric grip mat all right stay tuned for that but this is really really good to have on hand for any of the Cricut maker series and those adaptive tools all right next up is the strong grip mat and this mat right here is a really solid mat this is strong y if you've never had a strong grip mat and you're wanting to spend some time this year exploring new materials working with engraving all sorts of different things you could do that are definitely more advanced if anyone is taking our maker University course chances are you'll probably need a strong grip mat so just go ahead and stock up on one or two I love them but they're strong do not use this for heat transfer vinyl do not use this for card stock do not use this for vinyl it will literally sometimes rip the backing off of your vonnel like just don't do it okay so be sure to use it just for the projects deemed necessary and if you're a maker's Garn member we have a reference guide breaking down exactly what Matt to use for hundreds of different materials that can help you with your Cricut success another common mistake we see people making is that they feel like they have to use Cricut brand mats and what I want to tell you my friend is that is just not true it's not the case and we here at makers's going to learn after testing literally every mat we could find on the market we have really enjoyed the quality and the um similarities with the nicapa mat compared to the cricket brand mats and you may say Tanner why the difference why would you go nicapa versus Cricut I have nothing no problems with the Cricut mats but here's the one thing I can tell you that is the difference between a Cricut brand mat and the nicapa mat that really helps shift things for me and that is when I'm wanting to use a Cricut brand Matt I feel like I can only stock up on them when they're on sale right like there's has to be a really good sell to justify me stocking up on some but what I love about nicapa is it's almost the same exact quality but they always are at a better deal on Amazon so I don't have to worry about them going on sale they have an everyday low price which is almost pennies similar to the Crick brand ones on sale so with that information you may say you know what I'm just go stock up on Cricket brand mats when they go on sale it's easy for me or hey I'm just going to go to Amazon stress free order the mats when I need it moving right along but still in the realm of cricket mats y'all stop throwing away your Cricket mats okay all you need to do is not even take your cric mats to the sink let me be the one to tell you I have tried cleaning my cric mats every way possible I've used products from the Dollar Tree I've used the Dawn dish soap I have made a mess in my kitchen cleaning my cric mats and y'all there's a better way okay stop throwing your Crick mats away I want to prescribe you to clean your mats at least two times all right you can clean your Cricut mat up to two times before any reason to toss them all right and here is the little fact that you need to know about it is the best the easiest the simplest way to clean your Cricut mats is with a baby wipe seriously this is all you're going to do you're going to take a baby wipe out you're going to start up in the top corner and you're going to rub in circles and you're going to notice as you're going through cleaning off the Cricut mat that all the debris is going to come off and what you'll notice that is under this debris is the tack is the stickiness of the Cricut mat seriously I can clean an entire mat within 3 to 5 minutes I completely mess free I didn't have to go to the kitchen nothing like that and you're going to have great success so the next time you're at the Dollar Tree Walmart Target pick up an extra thing of baby wipes keep them right by your craft table and have them when you're ready to go I promise you you will save so much money compared to constantly tossing those actually really nice Cricut mats that you just need to clean all right this next one is a common mistake that honestly happened to me y'all you're never going to believe this one I don't think but I have to tell you the story and honestly it may shock you all right I got obsessed with Cricut really quickly and I fell in love with heat transfer vinyl and then I would try to expand my palette and array to use more vinyl projects things like that but I started realizing that vinyl was not cutting right for me or I wasn't able to do it without having a craft fail over and over and I started investigating why that was and y'all you will never believe this one hack changed my entire experience with vinyl and that is all you need to do and all you should be doing after you cut an image with your Cricut vinyl or any vinyl on your Cricket you need to burnish it all right this one second super super simple shift in my uh process gave me endless amounts of results all right I went from having a craft fail or struggling with my relationship to vinyl to being in love and obsessed with cutting vinyl on my Cricket just by making this one shift and again it is just burnishing the vinyl down let's talk about why that is and why this happens so when you're cutting on your Cricket the blade is literally cutting the vinyl but what's happening is the vinyl is actually coming off the carrier sheet a little bit even if you can't tell or notice it's been you know uh cut and there's just a lot happening to it so therefore the vinyl is already accustomed to being off the carrier sheet well when we think about that and take it into consideration as we go to weed all right we're going to weed and I will say I was weeding like I always do on a Cricut mat before when I wasn't burnishing and I still wasn't getting good results so think about that you've just freshly did a Cricut cut now you're starting to weed what was happening to me was I would be starting to weed and all these pieces that should be staying down were coming up and if the images and the little circles and little dots and all the little you know things and the apostrophes and the commas if you start having all of those coming up that's going to cause you to be very upset and if that's happened to you I just want to let you know it's happened to me too it's a common Cricut mistake we're all making okay so all you need to do is burnish with an old gift card with a regular burnishing tool um a Breer honestly y'all what ever you have you just need to burnish that vinyl down and then you need to weed your vinyl it is a game changer it is a huge shift for me when I started burnishing that vinyl down and I started getting amazing amazing results when I was able to do that and I fell in love with vinyl again so if you have been having a tough relationship with vinyl I just want to encourage you to start burnishing it down and give it another shot I have friends constantly asking me Tanner how can I get the most out of my projects how in the world can these projects last me a lifetime and my friends what I want to start off by saying is it depends on the relationship between the TAC of your vinyl to your blank and as we adventured this and explored this year after year with our cricket Journey we found the number one thing people were not doing and they were not cleaning their Cricut blanks they were not cleaning it they were uh smudged they had fingerprints and all of that and what happens when you have a blank that is not truly clean that is not ready it is not ready for adhesive so what happens is over time it's not actually attached to the blank but what's happening is it's attached to the smudges the imprints the um you know anything like that that's not truly a clean surface but luckily we have everything you need all you need to do is pull out some rubbing alcohol bonus points if you get the nail polish remover pump from the Dollar Tree for a125 this is go load up your rubbing alcohol you'll be able to take a piece of paper towel one two pumps clean off your Cricut blank and you're going to be good to go this thing has totally change the way I Cricket craft and let me tell on myself for a second all right how you'll find find out this is working and possibly working too well is that y'all when you clean your Cricket blank like this let me tell you you are going to have one shot you're not going to have a shot and a half you're going to have one shot to apply your cricet vinyl onto the cricket blank because after you've cleaned it with rubbing alcohol you're going to see and feel such a difference to the VL just sticking down to your surface to your blank whether it's a chalkboard JY uh glass you know anything like that any surface like that that you are able to clean off you're going to notice you have One Shot For Better or For Worse you have one opportunity but that my friends is how you're going to get a great result and have longlasting Cricut projects all right this last one if you're a fan of the makers going learn YouTube channel and if you're not go ahead and hit the Subscribe button but this one we use all the time so here's what I want to show you over in design space if you are working say with a 12x12 picture frame or a 12 X2 blank or any sort of blank this is what we recommend you do is bring that shape of whatever you're working with into design space so for example say you're working with a 12in x 12 in square you are going to want to bring a square in you're going to want to change that size to 12 in by 12 in and now it's like you've brought your project into design space so instead of having to really measure over and over the blank you now know how much room in the most accurate possibility possible when you bring it into design space right you have accuracy you're not confused there's no frustration but here's what I want to tell you I like to change mine to a light gray and then as you bring in other images as you bring in text box things like that you're going to notice that you can just see the size of everything and it's a lot easier and it's a lot stressfree from having to guess and go between things like that and then once you design it once it's good to go all you need to do is delete that blank that we just made before cutting all right after you have designed with it and you feel really confident about your design you no longer need it in design space we're not using it for anything we're just using it to mock up the size of blank that we're working with to size our Design Within that shape and that my friends is one of the easiest and best Cricut hacks you can do instead of having to measure over and over guessing what size your blank could be what size your image in the blank should be the text all those things you can just bring that image and that blank over into design space I've taught this 2s of Cricket crafters and it saved them over and over from having to cut something out weed it only to find out they're half an inch off and it's too big right that wastes so much material and time energy and effort we don't want you to have to do that so go ahead start bringing your blanks into design space and you're going to have amazing success every single time I've got to know which common Cricket mistake have you been making let me know in the comments down below I cannot wait to have a conversation with you because let me tell you every single one of these Cricket mistakes I have done one time or more uh in my Cricket Journey so I know that you've experienced some of these too but the best thing is now you don't have to make that mistake again all right here's what I want you to do I want you to go ahead hit that subscribe button check out Maker's going to learn down below you can get started with our membership for only $1 you get 20 download credits that's 5 cents a download so we'd love to have you part of our community there's over 18,000 downloads 1,000 plus fonts you get access to my full comprehensive 30 days to master your Cricket challenge that right there is worth hundreds of dollars and you get access to for only a dollar so check it out down below and I hope you check out this video right here because if you love this one you're really going to love this one all right see you soon [Music]