Cricut Explore 3 Smart Die-Cutting Machine + Starter Essential Bundle, Seafoam

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] The assembly was easy. There is a low noise level. The durability is great as well as the versatility. The precision is also nice. i recommend!!!

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] The cricut is such a cool thing to have to create a variety of things, ranging from stickers to mugs and tshirts. It was easy to set up with Bluetooth. There is a bit of a learning curve but once you watch a couple of tutorials, you'll get the hang of it. When cutting, it's about the same level as the sound of a regular printer. After watching videos and reading Reddit, I knew to make the lines in ny project thick and that worked out really well with the precision. I made this tote bag for my sister's Christmas present. The fading is user error but not too bad for my first piece!

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] This item is awesome. It easily connects to wifi and laptop for easy setup for designs. It is a very good quality machine top of the line item. It is not really loud which makes working on different things a breeze.

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] I love my cricut! It is sooo easy to use and the perfect thing to have during the holidays. I can't wait to keep creating! It's really going to amp up my crafting!

[This review was collected as part of a promotion.] Rating this Cricut isn’t easy; I have the Explore Air 2 so I was super curious about the added speed, Smart Materials and removal of the dial for the Explore 3. Cricuts are incredibly diverse and just plain fun to use but the major gripe I have goes to the Design Space app, which you have to use but is incredibly inflexible in terms of device compatibility and a bit clunky on the interface. I’ll get to that after the pros. Setup is just super easy. Again, you have to have a fairly recent system with the newest OS so it’s prohibitive to people who like to use older (and honestly, plenty powerful enough for this machine) setups. I used a 2019 iPad mini for this task and it goes one of two ways once you download the app; either you need to start a new account (which just needs a valid email for verification and a password) or you can easily use an existing account in Design Space. Either way, it’s as easy as selecting you want to add a new machine, make sure the machine is powered on to search for it, pick it off of the list and it immediately asks you to do a test cut. And this test cut isn’t something to be intimidated about because it walks you through each step; use the black vinyl in the big envelope you saw when opening the box, slide it into the rollers as directed, press the indicated flashing button and that’s it. I was in disbelief about how quick it was so that I kind of just sat there for a few seconds before I looked and saw it was done. So the improved speed is pretty drastic. This was a really great demo of the smart materials since no mat was needed. Already covers both the beginner and the long time fan wanting to test the new features. Love the mint color. My older Cricut is the same color but I love that it is matte. The gloss ones always look so aged once surface scratches kick in. It has the same tool indent with the addition of a shallow side so you can pop the shorter bits in without having to struggle to fish them out later. The doors still slow swing open and there’s still that handy tray in the bottom door for blades or markers or other bits. The machine itself is no fault. Beautiful, functional and a lot of fun to use. It’s the saving grace because Design Space can be a real headache to the more experienced user. Maybe I’m spoiled being a graphic designer but I really long for an easy way to import my files from PhotoShop or Illustrator instead of having to load them into Design Space, just for it to mangle the file and have to additionally make sure the cuts and scores and print are painstakingly correct before you can hope the test prints are promising. Of course, as I mentioned, you can forget about using older devices unless you know a thing or two about circumventing compatibility, but accordingly, this also endangers warranties and support, so they don’t make it easy to find a workaround. Again, there’s no reason WHY older computers couldn’t handle this and speaks ill of companies that make it hard to find a range of support, repair or otherwise keep expensive machines like this from ending up in a landfill by stunting usability. But this is a gripe for the experienced designer since most people will happily stick to the DS library and never both to delve into customizing outside of it. For the beginner to intermediate user, you should get a lot of enjoyment out of it. You’ll need to keep up that DS subscription though because the free files are severely limited. Overall, there’s a lot to like about it. I’d love to try out a Maker 3 since I’m curious about the ability to cut unbonded fabric and wood, both things that would help to make doll furniture and decor much easier to make. All the same, I do wish Cricut got a lot more friendly for the original/custom users because it’s one of the things making the experience less than perfect. I highly recommend getting one with a starter package too. Mine came with a lot of tools (scrapers, weeder, Xacto knife, scissors with a cover— no scoring tool so pick one of the those up if greeting cards are an aim of yours), two tubes of cutting materials, a tube of transfer paper, a really hand manual cutting slide tool and a full pack of the different strength mats. If you’re wanting to try a bunch out before you know what you want to use it for most, that’ll give you some wiggle room. You can also later pick up deep cut and fabric blade housings or the marker packs. The blades usually always go in your B side where the markers, scorers, etc are A side; your machine will always prompt what it needs in multi step tasks. Definitely try it out. Whether you scrapbook, need to cut out fabric for doll clothes, love making personal tags, greeting cards, envelopes, 3D projects like paper lanterns or ornaments, you’ll be surprised by how much easier and cleaner this can make otherwise arduous manual tasks.