Unboxing Cricut Joy

I don’t know about you but I could use all the Joy I can get right now. What with lockdowns and restrictions I’ll bury my head in my craft room and enjoy the little things. With that in mind – Meet my new DIY best friend, the Cricut Joy!

I’ve had my eye on this machine since it’s release in March 2020. If you are not familiar with Cricut it’s a brand of electronic cutting machines. The joy is the smallest and like its larger counterparts it uses a blade to cut a variety of vinyl, card or infusible ink. You can also switch out the blade for a compatible pen to draw in place of cutting. To communicate with the Cricut Joy you only need bluetooth and a smart phone or your computer / tablet.

In the box you will find the Cricut Joy machine, standard grip mat, Cricut Joy pen and a power cable and plug (mine had a European and 3 pin UK plug) You will also get a sample of the smart vinyl, a sample of card and your set up instructions and a free trial membership to Cricut Access.

Setting up the Cricut Joy couldn’t have been easier, I have to say I was extremely impressed with just how simple it was. As part of the set up you will make your first cut using the sample of the Cricut Joy Smart Vinyl. Once this is done you can either use the templates in the Cricut Design space or start designing your own cut and or draw files.

For my first three projects I create a vinyl transfer as part of my Cricut Joy set up, then I used one of the free card templates and the Cricut Joy Card Mat to create a card with a drawn and cut teacup. I added additional text to this card using the cricut joy fine point black pen and finally used an SVG file to cut out the most adorable paper cactus.

You can see all of this step by step in my youtube video below