Cricut Maker for Beginners - Easy Party Decor ♥ Fleece Fun

If you’ve been following my blog for a while – it’s obvious that I love the play and create with my Cricut Maker! But the majority of my tutorials assume that you’re familiar with the machine and know how to use it. But what about those of you who have never used a Cricut Machine or just got a Cricut Maker? This tutorial is for you! This tutorial is the Cricut Maker for Beginners where I walk you step by (baby) step through how to make some cute party decor. We’ll start off in the simple ( and possibly more familiar) area of paper crafting a banner and some confetti and move on to using some of it’s more advanced tools like the rotary cutter and knife blade!

For this project you will need:

Cricut Maker

Fine Point Blade

4 sheets of patterned 12″ by 12″ Card stock ( I used “Mystic” Deluxe foil embossed paper)

1 Sheets plain white Card stock

4 yards of ribbon

Cricut Fine Point Pen

Light Grip Mat (the blue mat)

Cricut Design Space (the program and app are free)

This File I have all ready to go

Cricut Access

Rotary Blade (be sure that the blade is sharp)

Felt (I used the Cricut Felt Sampler, Spring Rain)

Fabric Grip Mat (the pink mat)

Knife Blade

Strong Grip Mat (the purple mat)

Masking Tape

Cricut Chipboard (I used the demask sampler)

Glue Gun and Glue sticks

Gold mason Jars

Styrofoam balls

Bamboo skewer sticks

Pins

Foam

Wood Box

Once you’ve gathered all your materials it’s time to get started!

Cricut Maker for Beginners – Easy Party Decor Tutorial

Open up the file Cricut Design Space

Circut Design space is the FREE program that you use to run a Cricut Machine. You download it as a program on your Laptop/desktop or as an app on your phone/ tablet. The cool thing is you can save projects to “the cloud” and access the file on any of your devices. Before purchasing a Cricut machine I recommend downloading and playing with Cricut Design Space – since it’s the software that you’ll use to make all of your projects.

Using Design Space open up this file that I have set up for you.

In the file I use art fro Cricut Access. Cricut Access for a low (monthly or annual fee) allows you to use thousand of graphic art, designs, and projects. Note it doesn’t give you access to all of the designs, some art (like Disney Licensed art) costs extra.

Cricut Design Space can be it’s own deep dive – but to keep things simple and beginner friendly I’ve set things up for you.

When the project comes up hit the “Make it” button.

Make sure that your machine is plugged in and the Bluetooth is linked to your computer or phone/ tablet.

How to work with a Pen and Fine Point Blade and the Cricut Maker

Part of the Banner has some Drawn elements that use a pen. In this section I’ll show you how to use the pen and Fine Point Blade for beginners to make a party banner.

You should be at this screen:

First thing we’re going to cut out is the banner. I’ve set it up so the first five mats are the paper banner and confetti items. Set the base material – click browse all materials.

The Cricut Maker can cut literally 100’s of materials – so I find it easier to use the search bar than scroll through everything. I found light weight cardstock and select it.

Notice that we need to load the pen AND the fine point blade for this .

Put the pen in side “a” and the blade in side b.

Put the white cardstock on the light grip mat. Then sliding it under the guides on either side, butt it up against the rollers and load it hitting the arrow button on the Maker.

The machine will draw the pen elements first and then cut it out. Cut out mats 2 and three in a different color and mats 4 and five in another.

Pro Tip: to easily get the light cardstock off the mat, try flipping and and bending the mat to get the paper off.

Once you’ve cut out all the paper elements, put the clear cover back on the mat to help maintain it’s stickiness during storage.

Gather the confetti elements and save them for decorating later.

Take all of the banner elements you t just cut out and layer them. Line up the little circles on each side of the banner layers.

Cut 8 inch sections of ribbon, and threading through the holes on one side of each letter, tie the banner together.

Tie an extra long length (about 2 feet) on either side for hanging.

Set the banner aside.

How to use the Cricut Maker Rotary Blade to Cut Felt

To make the felt flowers for the centerpiece this section will show you ( a beginner) how to use the Rotary Blade to cut fabric.

To cut out the flowers I’m going to use the rotary blade with a fabric grip mat. Felt is one of my favorite things to cut out with my Cricut Maker. It will cut everything from nice 100% wool felt to the super cheap acrylic felt you can buy off the bolt. Note: with the Cricut felt you can use a fine point blade – but I want to show you how to use the rotary cutter.

Take the pen and the fine point blade out of the machine.

On the “B” side lace the rotary blade, the clear plastic housing should be facing out and the exposed gear on top should be in towards the machine.

Fold the metal fastener across.

Then lock it by bending the b tab into place.

The rotary blade is now ready to use.

In Design space we need to tell the machine that we’re cutting with a different material. Click the letters that say “Base Material Set to….”. By clicking it this will allow you to select a different base material. We’re going to choose the felt that has the little Cricut symbol next to it.

You’ll notice that it sets the default to the Fine Point blade. I prefer the fabric mat for flowers – so to change that click “edit tools”

This box will come up – click “Rotary Blade”

Now the Rotary Blade should be selected.

Cut out the felt flowers in different colors mats 6 to 11.

Tip: Using the fabric tongs makes it easy to get the pieces off the fabric mat without touching it.

Set the flower pieces aside – we’ll have time to assemble the flowers in a minute.

Cutting the Chipboard pieces with the Cricut Maker Knife Blade for Beginners

Now it’s time to cut out some fun chipboard pieces to add some dimension and style to the centerpiece. I love the knife blade but for it to turn out you need to make sure that everything is prepped right for cutting.

In addition to using the purple Strong Grip Mat – the edges of the material need to be taped down to prevent them from popping up while cutting.

Make sure that the tape is half on the edge of the material and half on the mat. Make sure that the tape doesn’t extend off of the mat.

replace the rotary blade with the knife blade – the process is exactly the same as the rotary blade.

Make sure the plastic is facing out and the gears connect.

Push the four “Star wheels” all the way to the right side of the roller. (The first time might be difficult – they do move I promise)

In Design Space, click “Base Material set to…” and select the correct material (Damask Chipboard).

To give you the best cut click mat 12. Making sure that none of the images over lap, center the word “party”. the material is only 11″ by 11″ so make sure that is within 11 inches on the end.

Then select the last party hat – its not going to fit on the material, rotate it so it will fit. Click “save”.

Notice the reminder to move the star wheel – but we’ve already done that so it’s time to start cutting!

Load the material into the machine and hit the “go” or Cricut button. Unlike the other tools this one makes several passes. The more intricate the cut – the longer it takes to cut out. My advice is keep an eye on the machine – but do other things while it’s cutting. While I’m using the knife blade I’ll work on other projects or clean my studio space. Once it’s done cutting it will ask you if it needs to make more passes on the material. The cut looked good to me so I unloaded that mat.