I Used a Cricut Maker 3 (Every Day) for 6 Months to make Stickers | An Unbiased Review
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- Опубликовано: 28 апр 2023
- For the last 6 months, I used a Cricut Maker 3 every day to run my small Esty Sticker Shop. Today I will give you my unbiased opinion as someone with absolutely no ties to Cricut and no reason to hype them up. I go over the pros for the machine, followed with the cons, and then finish with the final verdict on if I would buy another or move on to a different cutter.
In the video I touch on Design Space, the speed and accuracy of cuts, making laminated stickers, making decals, and the initial and ongoing costs of maintaining the machine.
Items in My Video:
Cricut Maker 3 on Amazon: amzn.to/3NIKs2U
Cricut Mat Extender: amzn.to/3qVXLUF
8 Pack of Mats: amzn.to/42VnQ3w
(I make a small commission through Amazon if you purchase using my links)
On my channel, I make videos documenting my process in growing my small little micro business into hopefully a monster business! 
Хобби
Also thank you for this video bc I feel like all the videos I’ve seen on this have been paid partnerships raving about how perfect everything about the machine is. I love an unbiased review🙌
Thank goodness I saw this. I really appreciate it!
Great review! You made some very salient points about the machine. It is refreshing to see a real, non-sponsored small business owner give an honest clearcut review. I to do a ton of print-then-cuts for party favors, stickers, t-shirts, eco solvent decals, tumbler decals, sublimation, etc. I have been with Cricut since the infomercial days. As a matter of fact I still have my original Cricut with all of the cartridges;) But I too used my Cricuts (3) for business and the limitations on speed, accuracy and Design Space's unreliability (due to being web based software) made me try other machines. I have since tried other machines such as Graftec, Brother, Cameo, Starcraft Solo and now Siser Juliet/Romeo. My take on it is Silhouette's software is worth investing in and learning as the machine is not so great (IMHO). It to is noisy and slow and inaccurate even with the cumbersome sheet feeder attachment now available (it must be plugged into the machine in order to work and the cuts are not that accurate). Brother has failed to innovate, update and be useful as far as I'm concerned. I love my Starcraft Solo and my Siser Juliet & Romeo. Those machines are accurate with the cuts, use an actual camera for the scan-then-cut features, are fast and quiet. I use Silhouette Studio Business Edition to design to my heart's content and then import/load the designs to my machine of choice with little to no issues. I also use Affinity Designer and Photo but that's because my background is in design. Silhouette Studio is a paired down version of software like Designer but still vast and robust. I love Cricut for getting me into crafting seriously and then business but it is an ecosystem for people who love to craft but don't really have any big demands on the machine or the software. I've tried Graftec as well but ended up selling it as the learning curve was too much for me while also trying to build my business. Graftecs are also pretty expensive ($1300+). The need for multiple machines will arise at some point in your business and it was more cost effective for me to invest in consumer level machines than in prosumer ones like Graftec ($400-600 per machine as opposed to $1300-$1800+ per machine). I am able to run multiple machines simultaneously with different jobs and not worry too much about accuracy of cuts.
Thank you for sharing all that and giving us a lot to think about! Seems like you have tried it all! I haven’t seen much about your recommendations so I will check them out.
If you are using SCAL (Sure Cuts a Lot) with your new machine, I have a lot of videos on how to use it.
What’s crazy is they have put quite an emphasis on the speed of the machine how it’s so much faster than the original cricut maker and that’s the biggest difference between the two. I’m glad you mentioned that because now I will not be upgrading from maker to maker 3?because that was supposed to be the hugest difference.
Thanks for the video!
Thankyou. I appreciate this 🙏
Thank you so much for this video
Just came across this video and it’s super helpful! To get my machine to read the registration marks under the laminate, I use a black sharpie and trace over the marks on the laminate.. not ideal, but it works every time for me
Thanks for the tip!
Thanks for this review. It is a good thing to look at these machines closely. I am an old Silhouette user and the learning curve on that was steep enough to be a short cliff drop, then it became wonderful for creativity and design capabilities. It does cut accurately, but the feed sheets are such a waste of time and money to keep stuff flat and nailed down for the cutting. It does a good job of reading the registration marks. But if you really want to grow a small business, definitely go for the higher capacity machines to get more efficiencies. Both Cricket and Silhouette service a very small business model.
Do you mean the mats/sticky sheet that you lay the vinyl and paper on? Have you found a workaround? Meaning are you able to cut without them? Thanks
Great video. For lag, you probably need to clear your cache. Also, even with a fast computer, if you are nearing using all of your RAM, it will lag....especially with graphics being RAM eaters :) I also noticed that your paper is a smidgen to the right too much. It needs to be lined up right against the line on the left. It also looks like you have your mat centred inside the 2 mat guides on the left and right. Your mat needs to be butted up to the left guide. This would exlain why our cuts for print and cut are off. It all comes with experience!
Hope that helps!
Thanks for the tips! I have tried clearing the cache but it doesn’t seem to help. Maybe I need to do a clean install again. I run Adobe Premiere and After Effects with this pc though with no issues so I don’t think it’s a RAM issue as those are way more resource hungry.
Never mind, I'm watching your other video, and I see that you have downloaded the link to the new cricut mat. Thank you so much 😊.
Sure, glad it’s useful.
Thank you for this video. Very informative! When you first started putting your stickers on the mat on the screen in cricut design space, you had the exact mat and shape of the cricut mat when you cut something. Where did you get that mat from?
I thought the same thing xxx
Think he said Amazon had the mats for 2 dollars
I would recommend the Roland Versa Studio BN20! Great all in one device printing and cutting! If you really want to get out of the struggle and lvl up things
Hi, thanks, yes I have been looking at BN20A, it seems to be backordered a lot of places.
Thankyou!
can anyone tell me what printers work well with cricut maker 3 that arent 1 million dollars? and any major cons to budget printers if i get a printer that is like 1-200? thanks for reading
Can we see how you laminate? Also why? I am using glossy sticker paper and it smears days later.
Did you adjust the pressure so your Cricut cuts it twice to make sure it’s perfect?
I made a heap over 100 stickers on gold sillhouette sticker paper and had no trouble. but I have had trouble with print then cut on printable vinyl.
So it seems like an issue with cutters in this price point then, thanks for letting us know.
I was making stickers for a friend (Cricut Maker) and there was one that I just couldn’t offset and I still don’t know why. Each time I tried it just kept circling and circling. I do have a Silhouette Portrait - I had heard the same about making stickers with the Cricut - but I just can’t get the hang of Silhouette Studio. I also have one of their stamp makers that isn’t compatible with newer Mac updates and they told me to find a windows computer 🤦🏻♀️ I’ve been looking at the Brother Scan and Cut and may give that a shot. I use my Maker a lot but the calibration has been causing a lot of issues lately so I’m not sure what’s going on.
The Brother scan and cut looks pretty cool.
I have the ScanNCut and Silhouette. Because my older Sil was such a PIA for scanning and cutting, I bought the SNC machine. I really enjoy the SNC, but it's ability to see all lines and colors just isn't as fine tuned as it should be for a business. Since you need the scan to show the cut lines, the scanner capability is the utmost priority for a SNC. Not bad for a small business doing craft fairs, but a real PIA to print things out on ECO printers and then try to get a decent scan of beige or subtle color changes.
I have the Air 2 and I find design space to be very challenging. It's getting easier, but it's still very difficult.
There’s still a learning curve, but it helps there is a lot of tutorials available. I’m sure you will be a pro soon!
Another con is that when your internet is down you don't have the design software. For business this is unacceptable.
Yeah, that's not great.
Hi, thank you for your video. So the Cricut Maker 3 will cut and laminate for you, right? I am really new to this. Your video is very helpful. thanks again!
No, you have to laminate before you cut. You can either use a thermal laminator or cold laminator sheets (sticky clear laminate sheets), although I think cold lamination works better.
@@microbusinessowner thanks!
What if you stick strips of paper over the registration marks before you laminate, then when it comes out, you cut the edges and the laminate as well leaving clean paper showing only for the registry marks?
That might work but it seems like a lot of effort for something that should work on its own. My new machine reads the laminated marks perfectly but of course price points are different so a bit of unfair comparison.
This happened to my machine too when cutting too much glossy sticker paper. Sometime I cut more than 30 sheets of papers then the machine stopped reading 😢. Maybe I should also get the 2nd machine as well so if I need to cut too much I can rest the other one. Do you think would that help?
If the machine is pretty old and it’s worked great for you then possibly get another one, but personally I would look into upgrading to a more commercial machine if you are doing 30 sheets or more at a time.
Great video!
Where can one purchase a Cricut maker machine?
You can get them directly from Cricut, or many places like Amazon or Walmart carry them.
It's a hobby machine, it's not meant for commercial use. I wouldn't buy a top of the line home air fryer then not recommend it because it couldn't keep up with feeding a restaurant of people.
How did you make the blue background?
I have a video on my channel that has the svg file for download for free. It’s called Maximize Print and Cut.
I cannot cut even after calibration and calibration. I stick to vinyls and everything else but no stickers for me 😢 they are off center and it drives me insane
Hi, if they are always off center 100% of the time you should download the calibration sheet from the cricut website and make sure you print it at 100% (no scaling)! I had that issue if i print the calibration sheet directly from Design Space it would print the sheet at 97%!
I made a short that might help you if your print then cuts are always off 100% of the time: ruclips.net/user/shorts9Y_YAUKDjnw
So the Graphtec is 5x faster than cricut. That's an expensive machine but powerhouse, where you able to get a used one? It looks new though. I saw some sticker creators who have a number of cricut machines to run their business, not just one machine that is.
I got it new. Yes, I thought about getting another Maker, but I am happy with my choice even though it costs much more. I will make a video, but the graphtec has been wonderful. I have no more issues with cutting badly, it is much faster, and I am not even using it at it's full potential yet. Two or three cricut makers would be as fast, but it doesn't solve the issues of not reading the registration marks and failed cuts, which really was making me hate life.
@@microbusinessowner Great! Looking forward to your videos :)
Curious about the Graphtec. When I was getting my Epson ET, I was wondering if I should just jump ahead and get the version for larger prints, but then pulled myself back thinking I shouldn't start with a bigger expense. Now I am thinking that I should have done it as first choice.
At least yours is cutting mines will not even read the registration marks at all. Cricut is telling me it’s the software and not my machine🤦🏾♀️
Yikes, hopefully it will be fixed soon with an update?
Take your phone iPad whatever delete the app the download app again. It sometimes pushes update to your maker when you Bluetooth I did this when it got stuck in USB not Bluetooth mode. I usually use my computer and that worked so my computer worked again…
Yeah design Space is easy to use when it’s actually working 😒
Yes, very true!
its CIR-CUT not CRIKET
Go watch their official youtube channel, they pronounce it the same as the bug.
@@microbusinessowner I do appologise, I have just googeled it. Apreciate the response and your review, after watching this it helped me make the decision, again appologies for the negative comment.
All the best