Cricut machines are a must-have for basically any hobbyist or craftsman that wants to save time on numerous projects and DIY works. These devices allow you to cut from a wide range of materials in an easy, efficient, and quick manner to save you precious amounts of time while delivering high-quality results each use. In this article, we’ve reviewed 10 of the best Cricut machines you can use for your projects right. Join us as we take a closer look at these incredible devices.
Cricut Maker 3
If budget is not an issue for you, then you should definitely check out the Cricut Maker 3 for professional-level cutting that cuts twice as fast when compared to the original Cricut Maker. It’s also 10x more powerful in total cutting force compared to the Explore Air 2 to cut up to 300+ materials for all your crafting, cutting, scoring, and embellishing projects. The Maker 3 is compatible with all the Cricut Smart Materials such as smart paper, smart vinyl, and smart HTV Iron-On, which are perfect for long and precise cuts up to 12 ft. without using a machine mat.
The versatility and high-quality performance of this machine give it the ability to work with a rotary blade, knife blade, scoring wheels, foil transfer tool, and other tools available for creative decorative effects for your crafts like engraving, debossing, and more. Buying this product includes the fine point blade + housing, USB cable, power adapter, free trial subscription to Cricut access, as well as a welcome card. Cricut access enables you to create 100 ready-to-make projects online so you can practice and take your creativity to the next level.
Cricut EasyPress 2
The EasyPress 2 by Cricut is a great option for hobbyists and enthusiasts for creating heat-transfer vinyl, or other sublimation projects for t-shirts, tote bags, pillows, aprons, and more. The precise temperature control and built-in timer enable you to be confident with your creativity as the feature allows you to make endless possibilities without the fear of your overall project turning bad. The EasyPress 2 has two available sizes from 9” x 9” or 12” by 10” depending on your need. It’s lightweight, portable, and very easy to store when you’re on the move. The machine also has an insulated safety base with an auto-shutoff feature making it safe to carry anywhere.
The EasyPress 2 is compatible with most major heat-transfer vinyl and infusable ink products from most major brands making this the perfect companion for home and commercial use. This machine makes heat transfer projects on many blanks a breeze as it’s as easy as setting the time and temp and placing the plate on the project to enjoy long-lasting results. It’s available in 3 different colorways such as mint, raspberry, and lilac so you can choose the color that best fits your personality and style.
Cricut Explore 3
The Cricut Explore 3 takes a massive leap compared with its previous version as it’s 2x better to unleash your creativity in minutes. You’ll be able to cut, draw, score, and do so much smarter and faster than ever before with this DIY machine. This cutting machine works with 6 different tools for cutting and embellishing up to 100+ kinds of materials with ease. This includes cardstock, vinyl, iron-on, glitter paper, cork, bonded fabric, and so much more to create everything from craft projects to big-time DIY commissions. It’s also compatible with Cricut smart materials such as smart paper, smart vinyl, and smart HTV iron-on for long and accurate cuts for up to 12 ft. without a machine mat.
Whether you’re creating personalized home décor, decals for your car, or logos for your t-shirts, the Explore 3 brings incredible precision and speed that lets you just load and see it come to life in minutes. You can also combine the Explore 3 with the expanded suite of Cricut Materials and Cricut Tools and Accessories to take your creativity to the ultimate level. Buying the Explore 3 comes with a premium fine-point blade + housing, USB cable, power adapter, a free trial subscription to Cricut Access, as well as a welcome card to get you excited to start crafting right away.
Cricut Maker
The Cricut Maker gives you the freedom to create DIY crafts like vinyl decals, sewing projects, balsa models, paper crafts, and more. It’s equipped with an array of tools like powerful blades, pens, and scoring tools to give you a wide range of possibilities for a lot of your project ideas in mind. The rotary blade cuts through virtually any fabric in a quick and accurate manner without any backing material required. It also works well for cutting crepe paper and felt. The knife blade meanwhile works like an X-ACTO knife to cut heavier materials like a matboard, or a 2.4mm balsa.
There’s a handy docking slot on top of the machine to hold your tablet or mobile device while you’re busy. It can also charge your device via its accompanying USB port while giving you access to hundreds of digital sewing patterns to simplify your sewing and quilting projects. Buying this product also comes with a 12” x 12” cutting mat, 50 free ready-to-make projects as well as 25 sewing patterns, and materials for your first project so you can start crafting right away.
Cricut Mug Press
Cricut has been providing a lot of useful machines for different arts and crafts and this Mug Press machine is no exception. The Cricut Mug Press gives you the freedom to create personalized and custom-designed sublimation on your mugs and see them come to life in minutes. It has no manual temperature or pressure settings to make it easy to use for beginners and casuals. It’s a great complement to any Cricut Cutting Machine as well as the Cricut Easy Press to complete a lot of projects such as giveaways, decors, and commercial use.
The Mug Press also allows users to design and personalize their own designs on a computer or mobile device to make their creations stand out from the rest. It makes for a professional-quality gift for birthdays, graduations, congratulations, as well as weddings. The finished projects are peel-proof and dishwasher safe when made with infusible ink materials and Cricut ceramic mugs. The Mug Press fits most standard-sized mugs so that you’ll always have the perfect gift for your neighbors, coworkers, friends, and loved ones.
Cricut Explore Air 2
This product from Cricut is the ideal machine for first-timers due to its bundled e-book for beginners with tutorials and projects to help you create your first DIY crafts. The Air 2 cuts a wide variety of materials from paper, felt, iron-on, and more to create your own personalized home decor, indoor decals, wall signs, and a whole lot more. It has built-in Bluetooth for wireless cutting, writing, and scoring to make it user-friendly for everyone. The wireless function also lets you upload images from a lot of file types on the iOS, Android, or desktop Cricut Design Space online software.
This beginner bundle includes a spatula, weeder, scraper, scissors, and tweezers as a starter kit. There are also eight 9” x 12” sheets of Cricut Vinyl and two 9” x 12” sheets of transfer paper. The machine meanwhile is fitted with an accessory adapter as well as a USB power cord. The bundle gives you everything you need to get started while learning how to use the machine and materials in an easy efficient manner to create your own personalized and professional-looking DIY projects.
Cricut Joy Machine
The Cricut Joy is a compact crafter for cutting, writing, and labeling, making it an ideal gift for anyone that loves to do DIY arts and crafts. It’s specifically designed to make more in less time due to its continuous and repeated cuts for ease and efficiency for all your DIY projects. You’ll be able to create unique, vibrant, and customized two-tone greeting cards without the mess or hassle of glue by just picking a project on the Cricut app for a wide variety of home organization projects, and more.
The Cricut Joy can make cuts up to 4 ft. and up to 20 ft. using Cricut smart materials which are available in Vinyl, HTV Iron-On, and Label Vinyl Varieties without any cutting mat needed. It’s also possible to upload and create your own designs for free using the Cricut design space on iOS or Android. Buying this product comes with the Joy cutting machine, premium fine point blade housing, fine point pen, standard grip mat, welcome card, power adapter, and a free trial membership to Cricut access.
Cricut 29-001 Personal Electronic Cutting Machine
This personal electronic cutting machine by Cricut is a simple and easy-to-use compact machine to cut letters, shapes, phrases, greeting cards, scrapbooks, and other papercrafts, with just the touch of a button. You can make your own personalized and custom-made projects that range from 1” up to 5.5” tall making this the ideal product for a lot of DIY creations. The cutting machine utilizes small and lightweight cartridges to cut all your font and shape sets coming from a wide variety of materials such as vellum, paper, cardstock, vinyl, and more.
The machine is very easy to use as all you have to do is place your material on the cutting mat. Once it’s loaded into the machine, select your cutting style and simply press the ‘cut’ button to start the process right away. You can even control the size and the style of the cut using the machine’s controls. This personal electronic cutting machine only weighs around 9 lbs. making it convenient to bring with you anywhere. The product comes with a basic shapes cartridge, one 6” x 12” cutting mat, a power adapter, and a user manual.
Cricut EasyPress Mini
If the EasyPress 2 is still too large or too expensive for your liking, then the EasyPress Mini should do the trick for all your small and unique transfer projects. The compact size makes it the perfect machine for customizing smaller items like hats, shoes, stuffed animals, earrings, small projects, or other unusual objects with tight spaces or hard-to-reach places. The EasyPress Mini uses a ceramic coated heat plate for a dry, even, and edge-to-edge heat transfer on all your projects with 3 heat settings to choose from. The effortless heat transfers are done by simply pressing the buttons with a precision tip making you personalize just about anything.
The EasyPress Mini is compatible with most major infusible ink brands and it permanently infuses into the base material with ease. This ensures your projects will have no flaking, peeling, cracking, or even wrinkling thanks to its flawless transfers. The Cricut EasyPress Mini is lightweight, portable, easy to store, and has a thoughtful and ergonomic design for use in the home and even commercial settings.
Cricut Expression Electronic Cutting Machine
Last on our list of the best Cricut machines, you can buy right now is the Expression electronic cutting machine. It’s one of the largest cutting machines in Cricut’s line up and its versatility ensures you’ll get your money’s worth if you get this device. Cricut Expressions allows you to do cuts as little as 0.25” to as high as 23.5” tall depending on your project at hand to make anything from scrapbooks, to classroom decor, signage, and so much more. The cartridge system this cutter utilizes requires no computer so you can start right away.
The Expression cutting machine has 6 different modes to choose from as well as 4 other functions to offer greater customization options on your cuts. The settings and the menu have also been revamped to add more functionality to the cutting machine. The LCD screen located at the top left is very easy to read and understand and there is also a portrait or landscape orientation mode to suit your preferences. A single cartridge for this cutting machine can make up to a hundred worth of dies and cuts quickly and easily unlike traditional die-cutting machines. In addition, the product comes with a Plantin SchoolBook font and shape cartridge and the Accent Essentials mini shape cartridge so you can kick-start your ideas out of the box.
Buying Guide
Price
Cricut cutting machines have varying prices and they almost always differ based on what they can do. As an example, The Explore series are some of the most affordable of Cricuts machines while the Maker series are more expensive due to being larger and having more access to other features. The smaller machines meanwhile like the EasyPress series are also cheap but are different in their function. The EasyPress series are better used for shirts, tote bags, and other smaller items.
Subscription Plan
Cricut offers a subscription plan named Cricut Access for all of their machines. Although Cricut Access is entirely optional, it’s highly recommended if you want to have unlimited access to at least 75,000+ photos, 400 fonts, as well as a lot of “Make it Now” projects. If you use your Cricut machine often, then the subscription plan is very useful in the long run. It’s worth the investment for you to create a lot more pro-level designs for your crafts. The subscription for Cricut Access starts from $7.99 per month.
Speed and Materials Compatibility
As with all effective cutting machines, you want a device that’s fast, efficient, and can cut all kinds of materials from paper, vinyl, iron-on, and many more. Having additional tools such as a rotary blade, knife blade, scoring wheel, perforation blade, and other blades are also a nice addition to assist you on your projects to cut and write faster so that you can create more high-quality arts and crafts for your friends and loved ones.
Features
Most Cricut machines now have Bluetooth connectivity. This means you can connect your computer or smartphone while designing all your projects on the app to make for an easy and convenient experience. There are other Cricut machines meanwhile that don’t require connectivity and have their own built-in modes and features for you to choose from. Choosing the right Cricut machine is entirely dependent on your personal preference as all of them are great in their own right.
FAQs
Can you use Cricut on a Computer or smartphone?
Cricut works on a laptop or desktop as long as it meets the minimum system requirements. For Android and iOS users meanwhile, you can download Design Space on the Google Play Store or the Maker app for iOS users.
Is it hard to use a Cricut machine?
On the contrary, Cricut cutting machines are actually very easy to use and are extremely user-friendly. There is a slight learning curve in order to learn the software but it’s actually the only thing to keep in mind for beginners and casuals. Once you learn to use these machines you’ll be able to create nice and incredible crafts with all kinds of different materials in no time.
