A friend of mine had this little, cute penguin. She was having problems cutting it out on her Cricut machine. So, she asked me for help.
There are so many factors that play into why something doesn’t cut out exactly right or well on your machine. So, I thought it would be a good chance to talk about some of them.
First, the way the file is created, downloaded or brought in to the software. Do you remember when I talked about the Zig Zag Village? The file didn’t come into my Cricut completely correct and I had to mess with it a little to get it to do what we wanted.
Next would be the blade, the mat or your paper. The blade could be old, nicked or just have something stuck to it. You can clean it off with an alcohol wipe, but be careful not to cut yourself. You can visually check to see if it has a nick in it. The too dull or old part is the hardest to determine. Usually, I cut something simple a couple of times and see how it does. Some materials are harder on your blade than others. Cutting glitter really wears your blade out fast and so some people just have a blade for that and change it when they are doing other materials.
The mat could have some very small thing still stuck to it. Most of the time you can’t see it. You might be able to feel it. Also, when I am resticking my mats and I am in a hurry; I get a little ridge in some places. The fix for all of these is to wash your mat and let it air dry, then restick if necessary.
As for paper, this is not really a fixable problem. Even the “best”, “most expensive” paper I have has “bumps” or thicker fibers in places. That is just the way paper is made and the cutting machines react to even the smallest change.
Lastly, I look at the settings I’m using – what my material setting is and if I need to customize. I do have one particular cardstock that I made a special setting for because it just wouldn’t cut well for me. But that is a whole other lesson!
So, back to our penguin. When I cut it I had issues with a completely different piece than my friend. This probably meant that it was a paper or mat issue. Here is a picture. It is funky colors because I was just trying to figure out if it would cut, so I use whatever scrap I had handy!!!
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