How to Use a Cricut Expression Die Cutting Machine

Enhance your scrapbook with die-cut characters.

Embellish your story telling with cut letters and shapes from a Cricut Expression die cutting machine. Despite the options for changing fonts and sizes on the personal cutting machine, it requires following just a few basic steps to use the special cutting dies for letters, shapes and numbers. Adding the creativity to those steps is up to the user.

Instructions

1. Press the power button to turn on the Cricut die-cut machine.

2. Load your favorite Cricut cartridge. The paper-cutting machine uses a library of different Cricut cartridges. Each cartridge comes with its own fonts, symbols and cards. Select the cartridge you want and insert it in your cutting machine.

3. Place the overlay on the keyboard. Each Cricut cartridge comes with a keyboard overlay. The overlay is made of rubber and is placed over the keypad. Make sure the title on the keypad matches the title on the cartridge.

4. Load scrapbook paper in your cutting machine. Place your scrapbook paper on the sticky surface of the Cricut cutting mat. Use the "align paper corner here" guide to place your paper correctly. With the arrow on the mat facing the machine, load your paper into the bottom front of the cutter.

5. Guide the mat gently into the rollers at the front of the Cricut Expression. As it catches, press the Load Paper key on the key pad.

6. Use the keypad to enter the characters you want to cut from your paper. If you want to spell the word "love," key in L-O-V-E.

7. Enter the dimensions of the characters. Use the size wheel to adjust the characters to the size you want to cut. If you choose 2 inches, then each of your letters will be 2 inches.

8. Press the Cut button to begin cutting your characters on your Cricut Expression die cutting machine.

References

• Cricut: Cricut Expression Manual