Cricut Tips

Thought I would start sharing some tips I have picked up along the way. Some of them may be known, but you never know, I might have found something out that you don't know.

First up is cricut tips...

• The cutting mats I go through on this machine are horrendous, particularly because I primarily cut Bazzil on it. However, I was told that you can slightly extend the life of your mat if you wash it with some washing up liquid and a sponge scourer (you know, those things with the green scourer on one side. I tried it, and I have to say, it works. Ok, the mat doesn't come back to full on stickiness, but it does help a lot.

• Another little thing I do when my mat is starting to lose its stick is roller over the cardstock with a clean brayer. It helps to apply an even pressure for rubbing the card down. There is nothing worse than starting a cut for the card to come dislodged.

• When it comes to sticking my words and shapes down, I like to use a Xyron, either the 150 or the 510. Now, your fingers can get pretty damn hot with a lot of rubbing over the adhesive strip. So, I take the effort out of it by getting my brayer out again and rollering over the strip. Any fiddly little holes, I go round these with an embossing tool. This gives you a pretty clean, residue free shape to apply to your project.

• Finally for now, I have never got round to buying a tool kit yet. But I find that a plastic ruler works great as a mat scraper. So, unless someone ever tells me there's something I can do with the tool kit that I could never do with anything else on my desk, I'll spend that near £20 on something pretty!
  

Hope you've found something useful in here anyway.