The Cricut card mat is a great tool designed for the Cricut machines such as Cricut Explore and Cricut Maker and provides you with four slots. Hence, you can cut about four cards in a single go. Before the introduction of the card mat, you may have to cut the card by yourself, which is a long procedure. But with the help of a Cricut Card mat and Insert Card, it gets easy. You can use the pre-folded cards and envelopes with this tool that will help you create last-minute birthday cards, invitation cards, Christmas cards, custom cards for weddings, etc.
The double-layered mat works like magic. You have to put the pre-folded Cricut card with the back side between two layers and the front side at the top. Doing this prevents you from cutting the back of the card and helps cut the front instead. The two plastic protector sheets are available that can be removed while using the mat and can be replaced when you need to store it to prevent it from dust and dirt.
The Cricut Design Space provides a few card images to use in your card-making. There are a few ways to get the card images.
This is the first method to get the images. You just need to click Projects and select Cards from the category dropdown at the top of your Design Space. You can also narrow your search via the Search projects search at the top of the screen. Here, you will get a huge number of cards to search for. When you click a card to make it, select a dropdown for the finished size of your card, and your Design Space will customize the image in that way.
In this method, you can click Images on the left and then select Cards from the filtering options under Project Type. You can narrow your search through the search bar at the top. Otherwise, you can use the Operation Type filter on the left.
There are a few steps to use the Cricut card mat; follow them and get your card ready.
Go to the Cricut Access Library for birthday cards you like and add them to your canvas. You just need to copy the files from the Access projects and add them to a new canvas. From this, you will cut all 4 designs easily and use all of them in the four spaces of the Cricut card mat. Ensure that all four cards are of the same color. Cards of different colors will go on different cutting mats.
Once the card designs are ready, select the color you want for each design and put it on the card mat. Then, slide the back of the Cricut card into the pocket of the card mat. After that, take off the protective cover to show the sticky cutting mat and make the front of the card smooth on the sticky cutting mat. It will keep it in place when you are cutting or drawing on the top surface.
Now, when you set everything right, you can move ahead and load the Cricut machine. If you are planning to cut only cards, you only have to load your fine point blade and the card mat. But in case you have selected 4 cards with a cut & draw design, you have to load a Cricut pen into tab A and the fine point blades into tab B.
To insert the pen, open its cap and place it in tab A according to the arrow facing forward. Then, press the pen until it clicks into place, and the arrow disappears. Close tab A to lock your pen in place. Then, move forward and hit the make it button to design your cards.
The Cricut will quickly design your cards, and removing them may be a little tricky. You should use a spatula to lift the front of each card from your sticky card mat. You can say it is a "Weeding" of your card, and it will remove all the unwanted particles and debris from the card that remain on the cutting mat.
When your card design is done, move forward and remove the leftover pieces from the card and do it on the rest of the 3 cards as well.
When your cards are free from weeding, it's time to add your insert cards. You may have different colors of the insert card or maybe a single color. So, you can pick out one color and add it to your card.
So, you should open your card and insert all four corners of the insert card into the four slots on the corners of your card. When done, the color of the insert card can be seen through the cutouts you made in the front layer of your card.
Finally, you have done it. You have amazingly used the Cricut card mat to design your cards. This whole process took no more than an hour, from listing the design to getting the desirable cards.
Visit: cricut.com/setup
Source: https://cricutdesign0cut.wordpress.com/2023/01/24/how-to-use-a-cricut-card-mat-with-cricut-machines/