Russell Holly
Russell Holly is a Managing Editor on the Commerce team at CNET. He works with all of CNET to assemble top recommendations as well as helping everyone find the best way to buy anything at the best price. When not writing for CNET you can find him riding a bike, running around in Jedi robes, or contributing to WOSU public radio’s Tech Tuesday segment.
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Make designs on clothes that much nicer
T-shirt alignment guide (Update: Currently unavailable)
When most people pick up a new Cricut machine, they may think they have everything needed to immediately start creating their next masterpiece. While Cricuts are fantastic crafting machines, they can’t do the job alone. Many different types of Cricut accessories are out there to help make your crafting more efficient. I’ve put together this handy list of all the great little tools I use every day with my Cricut to make my crafting easier.
What is the best Cricut accessory?
While there is no “one” best product for helping you with the Cricut, the Cricut basic toolset is the best place to start building your accessory collection. Each tool will be used by you every time you make a project, so it’s well worth the price.
If you’re hunting for the right things to add to your craft table, these Cricut accessories are where I recommend you start. We’ve even included some more advanced accessories for when you are further along.
Best Cricut accessories
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Starter tool kits are plentiful for Cricut users, and Cricut makes some of the best for the price. A weeding pick helps you lift up things you’ve already cut, a spatula gets bigger projects off the mat without tearing, tweezers help with cleanup and precise placement and scissors help you get to the right part of the cut easily. When the right piece is lifted off the cutter, you can use the scraper to either clean your cutting mat or more easily apply the thing you’ve cut.
More tools are available to advanced users, but this kit is everything you need to get started and offers what every Cricut user should have starting off.
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Cricut makes great big rolls of Transfer Sheets to help you get vinyl from the adhesive sheet to wherever you want to put your creation, but that doesn’t mean it’s always the best tool for the job. Whether it’s because of convenience or price or just the right amount of adhesive, if I’m working on multiple projects at once I prefer to use lint roller sheets instead. The convenient little roll on a nice handle makes it easy to get adhesive over the project and lift it off the paper, and the tearaway nature of the lint roller sheet makes it super easy to separate from the roll and get onto whatever the destination is for your creation.
It couldn’t be easier for small projects, and it’s way cheaper than using the official Transfer Sheets most of the time.
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I prefer a precision cut whenever I can get it, especially when it comes to rescuing something I’ve cut on my Cricut from the rest of the sheet. I’m not the most accurate with a pair of scissors, which is why I always recommend a good trimmer. The Weenkler trimmer is the correct width for all sheets of vinyl, and the extender allows you to cut larger pieces with the same level of accuracy.
It doesn’t get much easier than this as tools go, and it makes all of your leftover scraps more uniform for the next project.
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Your Cricut machine came with the same StandardGrip Mat everyone has, but that is not always the best mat for the job. Cricut actually makes three other kinds of mats for different materials and situations. The LightGrip Mat is great for paper projects where you need to be more careful, while the StrongGrip Mat is ideal for thicker vinyl and other more rigid materials. It even has a FabricGrip Mat, just in case you need to cut some fabric. It’s not always easy to find each of these at your local craft store, which is why I recommend starting out with one of each, just in case. This set of four straight from Cricut is the best way to do it.
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Having a place for your small scraps of weeding is essential. I have ruined several projects by accidentally fusing a scrap of Infusible Ink onto a t-shirt, so I find this little cup extremely helpful. The top flaps help keep your scraps from falling out and it helps pull them off of the weeding hook.
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One of the more common things Cricut users tend to make if they decide to do things with clothing is a set of family T-shirts. Whether it’s for a family vacation or someone’s great idea for standing out at a big outdoor event, making an iron-on design for a T-shirt can be a quick process. Applying that design to a shirt so it looks just right is not always so easy, especially if you’re applying a design to multiple shirt sizes. That’s why it’s a good idea to have an alignment ruler guide tool, so you can make sure you’re getting the right placement with each shirt size.
This four-pack of shirt guides will help you place graphics on just about every kind of shirt without complications, and they can be used over and over again.
While this exact brand is temporarily sold out, you can find similar styles on Amazon.
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The tumbler press from HTVRont is the perfect accessory for making cool drinking things. The heating area is large enough for a 24-ounce tumbler or a couple of standard coffee mugs so you can use your infusible ink designs from Cricut to make homemade holiday gifts for everyone on your list.
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It’s fairly common for Cricut users to cut a whole bunch of things all at once and then spend an evening weeding those things so you have a nice pile of projects to work with. The one thing every Cricut project has in common is that more light always makes it easier. When you’re at home, you have a lot of control over how much light you have to work with, and the BrightPad Go is a big way to help with light when you’re anywhere else. This rechargeable tablet lets you control how bright the backlight is, and it’s thin enough to take with you anywhere. It’s perfect for working on a project for a few hours when you aren’t at home, so you’re always able to keep being creative.
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The HTVront heat press is an automatic system that takes the guesswork out of pressing vinyl onto materials. When using a handheld heat press you can run into problems where you press too long or unevenly, causing your design to not be as good as you might want. The auto press is consistent every time across the material so your prints look great.
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