Cricut has been a long time dream brand of mine. I have loved their products forever and finally I have my hands on the new Cricut Explore Air 2. Check out the 5 reasons I love my Cricut Explore Air 2 and get a sweet tutorial on the beautiful leather tear drop jewelry.
This is a sponsored conversation written by me on behalf of Cricut. The opinions and text are all mine.
My Dream Brand
Most influencers have a list of brands that they just love and would love to partner with. Cricut has been at the top of my list for 10 years. Yes, 10, which is how long I have been a Cricut owner and a blogger. When I was asked to become a Cricut ambassador a few months ago, I basically felt like I had won the lottery.
For the first time in 10 years I was updating all my craft supplies and I could hardly wait to get my hands on the Cricut Explore Air 2. When the box of goodies arrived, that was the first item I opened and I was READY to learn and create. It has been amazing learning how to do new things and stepping out of my typical vinyl and paper crafts into new ideas and I just LOVE what the Cricut Explore Air 2 can do.
5 Reasons I Love My Cricut Explore Air 2
I cannot stop raving about my love of this machine. It does so many things and I am constantly learning more about what it can do and trying new techniques and materials out with it. I have so much that I just adore about this, but I wanted to share the top 5 reasons I love my Cricut Explore Air 2.
1. Easy to Store
Storage in our house is a hot commodity. We are not the understuffed and I needed to be able to easily store the Cricut Explore Air 2. The machine folds up and slides easily onto my desk leaving plenty of space for me to work on other things. I am also able to design on the go via my laptop, iPhone or iPad and browse thousands of images, fonts and ready to make projects and customize them to meet my visions. Love that I am not storing a ton of cartridges anymore and everything is compact and simple!
2. Sets Up Easy
Crafting in the past with these machines has been a huge learning curve, but not anymore. Cricut has made set up so simple and the directions are easy to follow. I love how you can quickly set your material settings and that everything is just a quick turn of the knob or press of a button to get the machine working great. If you have a material or setting not listed on the dial, simply go to “custom” and use Cricut Design Space to choose your settings.
3. So Versatile
I have had this machine for just under 2 months. In that time, I have cut felt, fabric, foam, leather, vinyl, sticker paper, foil, paper and probably more that I can’t even think of. This machine is so versatile and has the ability to cut a HUGE variety of items in the designs that you choose. The Cricut Explore Air 2 cuts and writes up to 2x faster than previous models and can cut more than 100 materials! So easy to realize your creative vision with so many versatile options.
4. Storage for Days
In addition to the Cricut Explore Air 2 being easy to store itself, it also has some awesome places to store extra blades and housing items as well as your Cricut tools! I just got new tools but my kids are wrapping them for me for Christmas, so I didn’t get to include them in the picture.
5. Cartridge Compatible
I am from the days of Cricut cartridges. I have a lot of them and I was kind of bummed to not be able to use them because there are some fonts and pictures that I have used for years and loved. I was ELATED to find out that I was able to use my old cartridges and link them to Cricut Design Space so I can have them forever and ever!
Leather Tear Drop Jewelry
I grew up in a biker community. Leather is life and I have been wearing it for my entire life. I absolutely love it and wanted to try my hand at making some beautiful leather tear drop jewelry out of it. I went ahead and used a teardrop file that I had found on Cricut Design Space and then set up my Explore Air 2 to get ready to cut.
Using the deep point blade, I cut out the leather pieces that I wanted. I am making a few sets of these, but one set will need 2 drops for the earrings, 1 large drop for the necklace and 1 medium drop for the necklace as well. Then you will need a necklace, some o-rings and if you want a charm.
Using some small needle nose pliers, I separated an o-ring and then layered on the large and medium leather pieces and then put the charm on. Finally, I threaded the necklace through and closed the o-ring.
I used o-rings for the earrings as well and then the set was ready to go. Everything turned out really wonderfully and I just love them. The set is really light to wear and was super easy to make. I will say that they back of the leather is still rough and so I need to figure out what to do to keep it from shedding. If you know, please put that in the comments.
