This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.
I have always been a crafty person. I had scrapbooks, made jewelry, sewed clothes, DIY’d as much as I could (even at my own wedding!). SO when Cricut reached out to see if I’d be interested in trying the Cricut Explore Air 2 I was all about it! It’s been a while since I’ve done any crafts and truth be told, I haven’t had much time for it between freelancing and Elara. This was a great excuse to get back into it! I ended up getting the Cricut Explore Air 2 in pistachio which is exclusively sold at JOANN.
Now to be honest, I only had a general idea of what the machine could make; cards, paper crafts, vinyl, etc. But I had no idea I could cut leather, poster and other hard materials with the machine! For my first project, I decided to create a little Diwali gift box. I’m mailing some sweets to my family and friends and figured this would be the perfect handmade touch!
The Cricut Explore Air 2 came with a black pen, LightGrip machine mat, items for a sample project, and fine-point blade with its housing. Setting up the machine was fairly simple. You have to make sure it has at least 10 inches of space in front of it so that is space for the machine mat. I thought the set up was going to be a lot more complicated than it actually was. It’s just 4 simple steps.
I connected my Cricut to my laptop, downloaded the design suite and somehow my download instructions completely skipped over the sample project and I couldn’t figure out how to get to it. I ended up giving up and just try to make my Diwali gift box first. After clicking around and getting my bearing on the software, I found a free template in the design suite and gathered all the material I needed- 4 sheets of cardstock.
The software easily walked me through how to load my paper and use the machine. I quickly realized I needed to change the pressure of the cutter for my glitter cardstock since my first run didn’t cut all the way through it. I did find that the sticky mat made my paper curl up after removing it. I had to place them under some heavy books to get them to go back flat. I’m not if thats user error or just what happens. I cut out all 4 items (bottom, top, insert, and a bow) and noticed that it wasn’t scored. I learned that I need a scoring stylus for that. I did try and just score it myself by folding each flap over but it made my box a little uneven. I ended up ordering the scoring stylus just to save time and have neater projects in the future. In the end, I loved how cute the box was and filled it was some Caramelized White Chocolate Peda Bark.
There is definitely a learning curve to this machine and I think it’ll be a while before I’m customizing and creating my own templates. I feel like there are so many potential projects that I could make with it! Table cards, projects for Elara (personalizing some water bottles for a birthday party!), and so much more! I plan on spending more time clicking through the software and seeing what other templates there are and see if I can figure out how to create my own.
