Tips and Tricks

I have come across some neat tips and tricks that have made my crafting life better, so I thought I would share them with you.

#1 Making your Cricut mat sticky again
I came across this video where someone used repositional glue to make their Cricut mat sticky again, so I had to give it a try. For those of you who do a lot of cutting with your Cricut machine you know how fast the stickyness wears off of the mats and how pricy it is to keep replacing them. I went to a local craft store and purchased a craft glue that is permanent or repositional on sale for around $2. It is repositional if applied to a project and left to dry before applying anything to it. I applied it to my not sticky mat, used a foam paint brush to spread it around really good and let it dry. It worked great!

#2 Embossing with your Cricut blade upside down
Another video that I came across was someone using their Cricut to emboss where they used their blade upside down. I have been looking at embossing machines and trying to decide which one if any I should get. After giving this a try I may not need to. Especially, since I have a Gypsy that I can design what I need and have the Cricut do the embossing for me. I purchased a package of embossing mats from Spellbinders from a local craft store, using the 40% off coupon I got them for around $6. You place the mat on your Cricut's sticky mat and then attach the paper, metal, etc. to the mat with tape, load into your Cricut and emboss away! I am all for using what you have and not spending more money if you don't have to! :)