I love to craft. I also love to travel and maintain a beautiful, minimalist home. Cricut Joy – the newest release from my favorite crafting company – helps me do all of it with ease.
When I first put my new Cricut Joy on our countertop in the RV, the kids tried to give it voice commands. They seriously thought it was some sort of smart speaker – that's how well designed it is! I love that Cricut Joy can seamlessly fit into any aesthetic and truly any space, from the sleekest modern home to our funky little farm trailer.
What is Cricut Joy?
If you've read my post about what a Cricut machine is, you'll understand the basics. Cricut makes cutting machines with movable arms that slide over vinyl, fabric or other materials to create endless craft components. If you can think it up, you can design it, it, draw it, cut it, construct it and stick it with Cricut.
Hah, that totally rhymes.
I've used the Cricut Maker for epic projects around our San Diego farmhouse, and the Explore Air 2 for a lighter solution in the RV for making things like garden stakes around our Boise property. They're quite similar and very capable of handling amazing projects… BUT …neither of those machines are particularly compact.
That's where Cricut Joy comes in. Cricut took their incredible cutting and drawing functionality and shrunk it down into the incredible machine that they've named Cricut Joy. Because Cricut Joy seriously brings the joy! A number of readers have asked how I manage to craft in a small space like the RV, and I've always answered that I'm very disciplined about space and I prioritize crafting because it makes me happy. That said, the Maker took up my entire bedside area.
Cricut Joy? Fits in a purse! I can complete a project from start to finish at my coffee table in 15 minutes or less. This is ideal for those one-cut, one-color crafts. Want to label a water bottle? Cricut Joy to the rescue. Need a quick customized gift? Problem solved. The machine uses Bluetooth to print from your computer or phone, so you can go from ideation to creation with zero fuss.
Cricut Joy Smart Vinyl
The first thing to know about Cricut Joy is that it has a whole new kind of vinyl, called Smart Vinyl. It comes in rolls that are 5.5″ wide by as long as 20 feet in certain colors! You can repeat 20-inch long patterns down the full length of any roll WITHOUT A MAT.
That's right, matless vinyl has arrived for your quick crafting pleasure. Here's what that looks like in action. Users can create their projects in Cricut Design Space as usual, then the Cricut Joy machine feeds their vinyl through to measure and make sure the user has enough distance for their creation. Then it cuts and BOOM. Weed, transfer, apply as usual.
Of course, there are still mats to be found if you're a die-hard mat enthusiast. Seriously, though, I know there are a lot of us with a TON of traditional Cricut vinyl (or cardstock, or fabric, paper, what have you) and we're wondering if we can get that stuff to work with a Cricut Joy. The answer is YES! Mats for Cricut Joy come in varying lengths, so you can take your usual 12×12″ vinyl and cut it down to fit the 5.5″ width while maintaining length for bigger projects.
Cricut Joy also has Deluxe Paper and other specialty craft supplies created by Cricut at just the right size for this machine.
Cricut Joy Card Mat
One of the most exciting features of the Cricut Joy is the ability to bust out a custom card in minutes with Cricut Joy Card Mat and Insert Card Sets. Forgot a birthday or an anniversary? No sweat. These cards fold around the specialty card mat, get cut in the machine and then have a contrasting insert page that “peeks” through the cuts to show an intricate celebratory message. There are tons of ready-to-go card designs that incorporate cutting and/or writing abilities on Cricut Joy.
Making Banners with Cricut Joy
I'm truly astounded by the ability to create loooong designs and print up to 20 feet (!!!) with such a little machine. For my first design, I decided to create a little alphabet banner spanning two 20-inch long shoe boxes. I simply typed letters A-M on one line and N-Z beneath it in Cricut Design Space, making sure both lines were 20 inches long and within the 5.5″ width requirement. Then I loaded my vinyl (without a mat!), watched the machine cut it, weeded it, applied transfer paper and transferred it onto the kids little shoe boxes.
BOOM. Cricut Joy banner, achieved. That was the most ridiculously easy thing ever. Now, I kind of want to create a huge 20-foot banner stretching all the way around their room. But we live in an RV so that would be a bit much. Here's a peek at our little shoe banner in action, right across from their homeschool table so they can easily reference what a “T” looks like and stop asking me to draw one for them every five seconds.
I swear, I'm a fairly patient human but this whole living in an RV thing is a bit much and I'm ready to have our home built STAT.
In the meantime, I'll just craft my stress away with Cricut Joy.
Cricut Joy Tote
Oh, and Cricut Joy has an optional tote that can hold Cricut Joy, its charging cord, and some pens. It even has a pocket on the side for mats, so you can create complete projects on the go! I love that it has an adjustable shoulder strap, to provide cross-body stability for those of us who are crafting on-the-go.
Which, as it turns out, is a surprising number of us. Go team!
Are you eager to try out Cricut Joy? Hop on over to Cricut's website for even more details!