Stop Doing These Things With Your Cricut

It’s important to know what to do when working with your Cricut machine and what not to do. Sometimes, we learn things that no longer serve us, or something better has come. Here are some things we suggest you stop doing with your Cricut.

If you’re working with iron-on vinyl, we’ve got some great tips for working with HTV here too.

Stop Doing These Things With Your Cricut

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Cricut Explore 3 With Smart Vinyl And Smart Iron On Scaled.jpg

1 – Using Cricut Smart Vinyl

Smart Vinyl for everyday use just doesn’t make sense to us. It’s much more expensive, and there are brands of vinyl that are better for less money. Its only advantage is the ability to cut something longer than 24 inches because you can cut it without a mat.

A piece of sticker paper with a design saying "Yay!" on it surrounded by black registration marks. In the background is a green Nicapa cutting mat with a piece of white HTV on it and a design cut out of it, two pink cardstock tags, a Cricut scoring tool. In the foreground is a woman's hand over the sheet of sticker paper.

A woman's hand holding a sheet of sticker paper with 9 different sticker designs on it. In the background is a green Nicapa cutting mat with a piece of white HTV on it and a design cut out of it, two pink cardstock tags, a Cricut scoring tool.

2 – Wasting Sticker Paper

When you’re making just one sticker, you waste the rest of that sheet of sticker paper. Instead, try thinking ahead and making enough designs to fill that sheet (or duplicate the design you made). Then, you’ll make the best use of your sticker paper and have extra stickers to boot.

A woman with long dark hair wearing a purple t-shirt with MGL on it is placing a Cricut scoring wheel into the housing on a Cricut machine that already has a scoring tool in the other slot. There is a Cricut Mini EasyPress sitting between the woman and the Cricut machine.

3 – Using a Scoring Wheel

There’s nothing wrong with the scoring wheel, but with the scoring stylus, you don’t have to swap it out with your blade and can have both in your Cricut at the same time. There are some materials on which a scoring wheel gets better results, but for most, the scoring stylus will work just fine.

Woman with long dark hair wearing a purple t-shirt is bending over a Cricut machine. There is a green mat with a sheet of white HTV on it and a design cut out of it. She is using a weeding tool to check the cut. To the right of the machine is a Cricut Mini EasyPress.

4 – Unloading the Mat Before Checking the Cut

Check to make sure that the machine cut through your material completely before unloading the mat. If not, you can press the Play button again, and it will make another pass and cut again in the exact same spot. If you unload the mat and try to load it back in again, it is unlikely to line up perfectly again.

A green Nicapa cutting mat with a white piece of HTV on it. There is a design cut out that appears leafy or floral and then one saying Thank You (backwards). A woman's hand with long polished nails is touching the mat. There is a pink tag, a bottle of glue, and a roll of masking tape sitting nearby.

A green Nicapa mat with a Thank You in narrow letters in the top left corner. In the middle is a woman's hand with long painted nails touching a bright pink tag that says Thank You on it. To the right is a portion of another green mat with a snippet of a design cut out of white HTV and a weeding tool. To the left is a roll of masking tape and bottle of glue.

5 – Making Intricate Cuts on Paper

Try using HTV to make your designs with intricate cuts instead. For the tag we made in the video, we used HTV and a Cricut Mini EasyPress on a setting of 2 to iron it onto the cardstock tag. Press it for a few seconds.

Working on a green Nicapa cutting mat, a woman is placing a piece of orange tape over the bottom parts of the letters in the words Thank You.

If you do need to cut an intricate design from cardstock, you can use our trick of leaving it on a StandardGrip mat (to hold the design in place) to weed it. Place a piece of Washi tape or painter’s tape over the bottom portion of the design. Peel it up from the mat and flip it over.

A woman is applying glue to the backs of the words Thank You. The letters are being held together with a piece of orange tape on the other side. In the background is a green Nicapa mat. There is a roll of masking tape and a roll of orange tape to the left of the mat.

Using glue with a precision tip, apply glue to the back of the design. Now, you can glue it down all at once on your blank. Let dry for a few minutes before removing the Washi tape.

Green Nicapa mat with a bright pink tag on it. It says Thank You on it but the bottom parts of all the letters is being covered with a piece of orange tape. We can see a woman's two hands holding the tape over the letters. To the right is a bottle of glue with a precision tip and to the left is a roll of masking tape and the roll of orange Washi tape

Aren’t these great tips? From simplifying your crafting to saving money, these ideas can be really helpful when it comes to enhancing your Cricut craft projects.