Cricut and the like...

[DollyPollyHolly]

Does anyone have one? If so, which do you recommend?

I'm sick of spending a fortune buying things online but I don't know where to start with all the different machines on offer!

What would you like to do?

just cutting vinyl and making cards, or do you want to cut wood, engrave etc?

@KindleGirlie I initially wanted to make vinyl for cups/things for the kids but now I know there's an option for cutting wood and engraving, I'm curious 😅

If you just want to do vinyl then a joy or joy xtra is great. For engraving etc you’ll want the Maker versions. You have to buy each head for different things eg. A knife head, an engraving head etc and they’re £30-£50 for branded or £11ish on Temu (and they’re perfectly fine).

I have a Maker and I do loads - wooden bookmarks, engraving onto acrylic shapes, obviously cutting vinyl and labelling everything I own, I can make earrings cutting leather sheets (again, Temu finds), and combined with resin I do dog name tags. I make a lot of home decor items too. I love it so much.

i have a maker, it’s great, but I think they just discontinued it in most shops to make you buy the maker 3 instead (not worth the price increase in my opinion).

I would say I see a lot of people quite disappointed by the wood options though. You can cut basic shapes in very thin wood, but people sometimes try curly things or flowers and it really doesn’t cope very well so it depends what you’re hoping to do. It’s much better at vinyl. Some of the kits (like the foiling one) aren’t particularly good either.

So many people I see buy them to try and set up a business with it, but honestly there is too much competition and you won’t make anything. For just personal use, it’s really fun and I found it easy to just get up with as so many great tutorials (check out Jennifer maker on YouTube for basics).

That's really helpful, thank you.

My daughter is crazy for personalised tops, bottles, signs etc so it's purely for personal use. I may try and pick up a second hand basic vinyl one and see how I get on, then if I like it, I can upgrade.

I had the original Silhouette and eventually upgraded to the Silhouette 4.

if you are considering a purchase, you should start downloading the free weekly designs from the silhouette store now. The software is free so you can build up quite a nice stash of files in advance.

I mostly use mine for making cards, but it comes up handy in other projects as well. Most recently I used it to help make a light up piece for a cosplay costume.

I just got a really good deal on an explore 3 in Hobbycraft and love it!

I have the Cricut Maker and wouldn’t even contemplate a Joy.

However I think the whole “it cuts wood and you can etch on metal” is nonsense, it doesn’t do it well. If you want to cut vinyl, cardboard, faux leather etc it’s great.

If your daughter wants stuff to go on her clothes you will want to factor in to buying an Cricut iron on/press (I can’t remember what they are called). Using your own iron doesn’t cut it long term in my opinion and peels off after a few washes.

Nbbgf