With Christmas just around the corner, many crafters have special crafty gear on their wish lists. It can be tricky to know if some of the bigger items are worth splurging on, so today I'm sharing my real world experience with one of them to help make that shopping decision easier: the Cricut Easy Press.
I'm going to start off by saying, this is a totally independent review. I bought it with my own money. No kick backs, freebies or compensation from Cricut or anyone else to cloud or slant my feedback. I've seen only a few reviews like this when it comes to Cricut products, so I hope this helps others with buying decisions.
In case you aren't familiar with it, the Easy Press is a new-ish tool that came out a few months ago. It's specifically for heat pressing aka iron-on applications. Using heat transfer vinyl, you can press your own custom shirts, bags, pillows, wood and just about anything else. It's such a quick way to customize just about anything and so easy. Definitely a craft anyone can do!
Traditionally, if you wanted to use iron-on vinyl, the options have been either using a normal household iron or to buy a commercial heat press. Basic irons don't always adhere the vinyl very well - the iron it usually peels off after a number of washes. Regular heat presses can be big and bulky for home use and expensive. The Cricut Easy Press is about the same price as the lowest priced heat press machines, but has the convenience of a smaller, sleeker size.
It has easy push button settings for temperature and time.
It's also got a heat resistant safety base and automatic shut off after 10 minutes of inactivity.
Does it really work?
I'd been really curious about it when it came out, but had a hard time finding true reviews about it even a month or two later, so I took a gamble and bought one. Since then I've used it on multiple projects, used several kinds of vinyl and washed most of them multiple times. Here are the results...
The Pros:
- The size is ideal. It's big enough to do a large shirt design at 9"x9", but small enough to not take up a lot of room on the counter. It's square shape and holder base makes it easy to store too.
- It heats up pretty fast and evenly. It comes with a guide to tell you exactly how long and at what temperature to iron most types of HTV (from Cricut and other brands) on various fabrics. A project is done in just minutes, so it's ideal for limited work time.
- The button settings for temperature and timer are super simple and make sure you get an even fuse everywhere at the same time. I followed the directions for fusing on the front & inside out and the referenced HTV types adhered well every time.
Smooth/lite:
Glitter:
Foil:
- Even after a dozen washes (inside out and line drying), the designs still stayed put. No lifting or peeling like I'd had with my previous iron fused heat transfer projects. I even had this shirt that accidentally went in the dryer twice that has been washed a dozen times and still stayed as nice as day 1!
The Cons:
- The cord is weirdly positioned at the center of the top when it would make more sense to be at the bottom. Unless you have an outlet right in front of you, it means you have to maneuver it out of the way or hold the press upside down which is awkward when you're trying to press the buttons.
- They aren't always in stock. They have them advertised as in-store several chain places, but none ever seem to have any. I had to order mine online and it was out one day, available the morning I ordered and then out again a few hours later. They also randomly put it on sale for the first time about a week after I bought mine. Nothing like losing out on saving $20. Grrr.
- The instructions say for best results you need to use a heat resistant mat & refer to a Cricut heat mat that's not included with it and not even available to buy. They suggest using some stacked towels as an alternative, which I've done, but it seems stupid to promote a product they don't even sell or bother to tell you is "needed" anywhere in the product description before you buy it.
- There are some specialty HTV types, like flocked or glow in the dark, that Cricut doesn't make, so they have no guidance for temperature or time in their settings chart. The chart refers to their website for more settings, but it's the exact same limited list. Not exactly helpful. I've used settings I've found elsewhere, but I had to go back over my flocked stuff again with the press multiple times. Doing it for too long can cause it to melt or not adhere, so it's a bit trickier.
- Cricut brand HTV is crazy expensive. Even when on sale. And Cricut is almost always excluded from any coupon offers in stores so doing a few big designs can be pricey if using their brand materials. The amount on the rolls is pretty paltry and prices vary strangely too. Glitter & Foil have more inches on the roll, but cost less than the plain Smooth/Lite.
They also are frequently sold out of a lot of colors in stores & online and don't offer some that would seem commonly used like orange, light blue, pastel yellow or green. These two factors mean it's better to look for alternative brands to be cost effective with HTV projects.
Is it worth buying?
Personally, I think it's worth getting if you like to do quick projects and have a cutting machine already. I've got a Cricut Explore that's 3 yrs old and still works great so I can cut out a design in a few minutes and have it heat pressed just as fast.
I've been really short on craft time lately, but still made nearly a dozen projects so far. All have been quick and turned out well so the satisfaction level with the results has been high.
In an upcoming post I'll share my favorite source for excellent (and inexpensive) HTV, how I make original designs the fast way and other handy tips.
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Despite all the wonderful projects you can make, there are some that just make you want to give up. Or set them on fire. Or curse the moment you thought they were a good idea. My latest experience was all of the above and it was mainly because of a horrible product: glitter vinyl.
I've used glitter cardstock, glitter heat transfer material & glitter adhesive paper in the past and they've all been fine, so it never occurred to me I'd literally be wrestling with the vinyl version. If I can help someone else avoid experiencing the same nightmare with this post, then I've done my job!
Backstory: I've been doing a lot of cutting projects lately. My husband is doing his first craft show this weekend, a geek crafts/comic con kind of deal called Oddmall. We're trying to keep show expenses down so it seemed obvious for me to just make his signage stuff myself. A heat transfer of his logo turned out great on a t-shirt, so I moved onto his booth sign.
I thought doing it in glitter black vinyl instead of plain black would make it more interesting, so I grabbed a couple rolls of the new Cricut Glitter Vinyl and a new roll of transfer tape and a foam core board. It looks so simple to do, right?
Cutting it out was a breeze. My Cricut Explore machine is the original version from a few years back. I buy my craft gear (I don't get free one from the company to rave about every time a new one comes out), hence the "keepin' it real" post on products here. I used my big 12x24 mat to make it big enough for our sign & to easily lift it in two sections. Weeding was pretty simple too. It took minutes. So far, so good.
Then I applied the transfer tape. It wouldn't stick. At all. It didn't matter what I did - the vinyl practically repelled it. I tried some stronger paper transfer tape I had in my stash and the vinyl laughed at that too. Its sandy surface refused to stick.
The backside of the paper insert of the vinyl roll mentioned using Strong Grip Transfer Tape. That was totally unhelpful to find out after I'd already gotten home from the store and opened everything. Why that key detail isn't mentioned on the outside of the glitter vinyl package is beyond me. It wouldn't have mattered though, since the store I bought it from didn't even have any Strong Grip rolls available. Inside the vinyl roll there was a small 12x12 piece of Strong Grip Transfer Tape, but since I was using the entire 4ft vinyl roll, it wasn't going to work on my lettering, just the character smaller shape.
I had to wait until the next morning when another store opened at 10am to try to buy a roll of the Strong Grip. I applied it and sure enough, it was deja vu - the vinyl wouldn't stick. I rubbed it on really hard and then bits of it stuck, but for every letter that did, the next wouldn't. I had to pry them off by hand and stick them onto the tape. It was madness. Several times they started to stick only to begin ripping the vinyl as I pulled the backing away. A 30 second job took 30 minutes in reality.
And once I finally got everything onto the tape and was close enough to line it up on my surface it static stuck on fast and firm so there was no way to straighten or reposition it like I normally do.
Pulling the tape off took some serious muscle and once off the tape was all distorted and stretched out. No way to reuse it for the next line like I'd done time & time again with my usual paper backed transfer tape. Kind of pricey for such brief use.
Eventually I got the sign done. The tears aren't super noticeable and my husband is happy he's got a sign, but I can safely say I'd rather cut my entire lawn with a pair of nail scissors than work with glitter vinyl again.
Maybe not all glitter vinyl is this evil. I'm sure any kind that is smooth and plastic-y on the surface is probably great, but this stuff and it's textured, hard to grab surface....ugh. I'm not alone, as I went online for guidance and found countless forums and comments where others bemoaned having the same issue and begging for a solution that actually worked. Apart from not using glitter vinyl, there wasn't any.
Moral of the story? If you want to do any easy vinyl project, AVOID the glitter variety. And if you're in the Toledo area this weekend, you can stop by our booth at the free Oddmall event and see the project that nearly bested me in person;)
