Tag: Craft Room

This is the third and final post in my series showing you how I organized my Cricut cutting area. Over the holidays, I worked out a new system for storing the cartridges, overlays, handbooks and mats. Check out my prior Tuesday morning posts on how to organize your handbooks and cartridges.

My final note is about what to do about those mats. I used to have a spot on the floor under the table designated to the mats. However, I found that they often didn’t make it to their designated spot. Inevitable, something would get set on top of the sticky surface.

In addition, other things (the dog, for example) sometimes were in that spot. Not a good for something as sticky as Cricut mats. Dog hair on the mats is not conducive to nice clean cuts. (See below for tips for cleaning and maintaining your mats)

My solution is simple, but revolutionary. Hang them on the wall! I used Command hooks by 3M. So if I decide to rearrange my office/craft room, I’ll leave no holes behind.

Tips for cleaning and maintaining your Cricut mats:

1) You know that plastic sheet that comes on top of the mat? Keep it and use it. Every time you finish using your mat, put the sheet back on to protect it from stray particles that are attracted to the stick surface. Since I hung mine on the wall, I simply hang the plastic sheets between the mats rather than actually sticking them.

2) If you don’t have the Cricut spatula, get one. This is an inexpensive tool that is very helpful. You may already use it for scrapping delicate images off the mat to prevent damage. It also can be used to scrap off those tiny pieces of paper (basically paper dust) that are left after you remove your image.

3) If your mat has lost much of it’s stick, it is likely due to having too many minute particles stuck to it. You can prolong the life of your mat by cleaning it with Spritz cleaner. Just spray and wipe off with a paper towel.

Happy Chirping!

This is Part 2 in my series showing you how I organized my Cricut cutting area. Over the holidays, I worked out a new system for storing the cartridges, overlays, handbooks and mats. Click here to read last weeks post on how to organize the handbooks in a three ring binder.

Today, we’ll look at my cartridge containers.

The containers are from Snapware and I found them at Target. They come with a lid and three trays that can be stacked and snapped together. For this stack, I combined two sets that came with three trays each. I’m only using 5 of the trays and one lid (I used the remaining tray and lid elsewhere.)

Each of the top three trays hold 12 cartridges and overlays. I’m using the bottom two trays to hold Cricut accessories.

Let’s look inside one of the tray…

As I was trying to decide what to use to make the cartridge dividers, I happened to see the pack of Citrus Leaf Cardstock I recently purchased at a bargain price off the discounted list.

It is the PERFECT color for the Cricut and the perfect weight for making dividers for the cartridges.

I put number labels on the cartridges to match the numbers in the binder and numbered the boxes to match the index of my binder. I also put a list of the cartridges in the lid (attached with glue dots).

Would you like to make a tray for your cartridges?

Supplies:

Small (approximately 6″ x 9″) Snapware box

Heavy cardstock, for 3 trays you’ll need 5 12″x12″ sheets

Adhesive, I used Tombow

UPDATE 12/25/2012 – Since originally writing these instructions, I have learned for 3D projects to use a combination of Tombow andLiquid Glass. The Tombow gives it an immediate hold and the Liquid Glass will make it last. I would suggest using Tombow as described below, but before pressing together add a few drops of Liquid Glass.

For each tray, cut four strips of cardstock 3″ x 12″ and one piece 5″ x 9″.  Score the first strip lengthwise 1/2″ from each side. Turn and score to make 10 sections with the following lengths in order: 1.5″, 0.75″, 1.5″, 1.5″, 0.75″, 1.5″, 1.5″, .75″, 1.5″, .75″.  Fold on the series of score lines to create peaks and 0.75″ wide valleys as shown in this picture.

Next, cut each of the series of score lines from the edge to the long score lines to create tabs along the sides of the strip.

Then cut off each of the 0.75″ tabs.

Adhere the backs of the 1.5″ sections together and fold in the tabs to create a set of three attached boxes with a flap on one side.

Figuring out what flap to put adhesive on first was a trick. I ended up doing the sides first, then adhering the faces of the boxes together.

They say necessity is the mother of invention. I needed a way to have a firm surface to apply tape to the outside of the assembled boxes and I did discover a new use for the 14″ ruler:

Repeat with the other three strips. Use the remaining 0.75″ flap to attach the first set of boxes to the second.

Repeat two times. You now have a set of twelve attached boxes. Trim the remaining flap.

Score the 5″ x 9″ piece of cardstock 1.5″ (or a little less) from each of the 9″ sides. Fold both edges up to create a tray to set the boxes in.

Apply adhesive liberally to all three sections of the 5″ x 9″ piece. Press the box to the center section. Fold up edges and press to sides of the boxes.

Repeat for each tray.

I hope you have enjoyed this tutorial. Stop back by next week for my final post on organizing Cricut items. Happy Chirping!

So what did you do over the holidays? One thing that I did was to organize my craft room. Well, technically, not the whole room, just the Cricut cutting area.

Here’s a picture of my finished work area:

Over the next couple weeks, I’ll share my tips and tricks for organizing Cricut cartridges, overlays, handbooks and mats. I had to do something because those bulky cartridge boxes were taking over my space. Can you relate?

Not only do the retail boxes take up a lot of room they are cumbersome to use. Everything has to be returned to an exact position for them to close properly.

My biggest pet peeve is how the spiral handbooks which just don’t function properly, so that is what I’m going to focus on today. One tip I heard was to tear out the foreign language pages to reduce the number of pages. While that helps, the top of the pages still get stuck in the spiral binding making it difficult to turn pages and easy to tear them.

My solution is to switch from the spiral handbooks to this three ring binder. 🙂

Needs some decoration doesn’t it? That can be my first project using my new organization system.

Similar to most books, I started with an index with a number for each cartridge. I grouped them somewhat by topic. (You will learn more about the box numbers at the top in my next organization post.)

Next I printed the handbooks from the Cricut website. To print your own copies, follow this link to the cartridge listing. Click on the name of your cartridge. From the cartridge’s page, click on the “digital handbook” link. This opens a document with each handbook on a separate page. Adjust your printer settings to landscape and multipage. I printed six to a page (two across, three down).

Next, I put them in page protectors and added tabs with the same numbers as the index.

UPDATE (12/25/2012) –Link to site with pdfs of most cartridge handbooks without the pesky watermark!

Done! I find the binder great when I am searching for a certain image. For example, if you have multiple cartridges with a Christmas tree, you can easily flip between them to decide which one you want.

Speaking of searching for an image, a handy website is www.MyCutSearch.com. Simply type in the name of an image you’d like to make.

It will give you a list of all of the cartridges that have that image, including a link to the handbook so you can take a look.

Wow, there are 44 cartridges with a Christmas Tree! Love this cool tool.

Happy Chirping!