How to Design & Cut With a Cricut Die Cutter

Serious scrapbookers rave about Cricut die cutters. The reason is simple. With a few clicks of buttons, the Cricut can cut dozens of shapes in varying sizes in seconds. A Cricut comes with a set number of shapes built in, but more intricate shapes such as hearts, floral patterns and letters can be purchased to do more work and offer more variety. The machine also comes with a flimsy, plastic cutting sheet that is fed into the Cricut for the shapes to be cut.

Difficulty: Moderately Challenging

Instructions

Things You'll Need:

• 6-by-12 scrapbook paper
• Plastic cutting pad
• Cartridge and overlay keypad

1. 
    
   Cricut cutting mat

   Place the scrapbook paper on the the cutting pad. An arrow on one of the corners shows you where to start. Press the paper into place. The pad's natural stickiness helps the paper adhere to the pad.

2. 
    
   Power button to turn on the Cricut

   Turn on the Cricut, which will open up its two doors. Place a cartridge into the machine and place the overlay on the keypad. The overlay has the various designs on it that can be cut.

3. Load the paper by placing the cutting pad into the Cricut (much like feeding a printer), and hit the Load Paper button on the keypad. If the paper is smaller than 6-by-12, then you must adjust the paper size. There is a button on the keypad for that.

4. Determine the cutting speed and the pressure. Lighter paper needs fast speeds and less pressure. Thicker paper needs less speed and more pressure. There are toggle switches for that on the Cricut.

5. Set the cutting size, which ranges from 1 to 5 inches. This is done by spinning a small wheel on the Cricut.

6. 
    
   Doodlecharm overlay keypad

   Set the design and shape. Designs are things such as a tag, a card, a border or a shadow format. The shapes can be squares, circles and the like, selected by hitting the buttons on the keypad. The selected design and shape will light up green when entered.

7. 
    
   The Cut and Stop buttons

   Hit the Cut button. The Cricut takes about 10 seconds for the blades to cut the pattern on the piece of paper.

8. Hit the Unload Paper button on the keypad when done and remove the cutting pad. Peel the scrapbook paper off the cutting pad.

Tips & Warnings

• The cutting pad is fairly durable, but be careful because it does wear down over time.

Resources

• Cricut website