I used to be a crafty little thing back in the day. In fact, developing crafts was part of my job as an Arts Specialist and curriculum writer during my non-profit days. Over time, I seemed to lose my mojo. Although my daughter and I used to make stuff together all of the time, life got busy. The next thing you know I have a garage filled with bins of craft materials I hadn’t used in years. 

All of that is about to change. I was craving more time being creative and making stuff, and fate intervened. I was invited to be a Cricut Ambassador, to share with my audience and community about all of the fantastic products that Cricut makes and the timing couldn’t have been even more perfect.

What is a Cricut?

Wait, before I get into my first project and telling you all about the Cricut Air 2, let me tell you what a Cricut is. It’s a die-cutting machine that can cut material like paper, fabric, vinyl, and more into various letters, numbers, and shapes.

When you have a Cricut, you have the ability to complete thousands of gorgeous projects! I was blown away by how many of my favorite craft blogger projects start with a Cricut!

You don’t have to be a graphic designer to create with Cricut, either. DesignSpace is their digital platform that comes with tons of templates so you can get started with no experience. You can also find free or inexpensive files online, as other crafters love to share their creations.

Introducing the Cricut Air 2

There are quite a few Cricut machines to choose from. We have the Cricut Air 2 which is a sleek machine that is larger than its counterpart the Cricut Air. It can cut through over 100 different materials, including leather!

The Cricut Air 2 comes in nearly 20 colors and costs about $299. We have the Mint one and I really love it!

What’s an easy first project for the Cricut Air 2?

Ayva and I talked about what our first project should be to test our machine out, and we decided on a tee-shirt. It took us about 4 hours, but folks with more die-cutting experience will likely be able to complete it faster. Also, it probably would have helped if I’d looked at some videos first, but I wanted to feel my way through it.

That was the wrong move. LOL!

Anyway, we ended up figuring it out. Our first tee-shirt is super cute and we’re looking forward to getting back in the craft room tomorrow and making something else!

How to make a tee-shirt

To make a tee-shirt, in addition to the Cricut Air 2, you’ll also need:

• Tee-shirt
• Everyday Iron-On
• Cutting mat
• Weeding tool
• Iron

We didn’t have a weeding tool and it was definitely missed. We’re going to make sure to have it for our next project, though. 

The first thing we did was create our design on Design Space. Since Halloween is in a couple of weeks, Ayva came up with the phrase “WHO IS THE SCARIEST OF THEM ALL?” and we added a witch hat. The font and hat were all available on Design Space. 

After we created it, we picked out the color of Everyday Iron-On we wanted to use, and then cut it to fit the cutting mat. 

Working the Cricut Air 2 is easy. You just press a button to load it and another one to start it. Then you sit back and let the machine do its thing!

After it’s done, you weed the iron-on to get rid of excess material, and iron it on to your tee-shirt. We actually used the Cricut EasyPress, but I’ll talk about that more in another post. Just know that it’s easier than setting up an iron and ironing board.

I can’t wait to make holiday projects, gifts, and more with our new Cricut Air 2! After our first fail AND win, we’re ready to rock and roll!

This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.