What Are Cricut Mats? [Types, Uses, and Features]
The Cricut mats are one of the most important accessories in your entire Cricut package. They are flexible, elastic reusable mats used for cutting your projects and it is always used with the Cricut machine. Cricut mats have an adhesive area on one side that holds your material in place during cutting. Post the completion of your cut, the removal of excess cut material is very easy, in fact, you can save it for your next project.
The Cricut mats allow the material to be loaded properly into the Cricut machine. These mats are used to keep the material in place during cutting. You can use your Cricut mats at least 40 to 50 times before it even starts to wear off. That is why it is said to be a reusable mat. In fact, with the help of proper cleaning, the stickiness of the adhesive part of Cricut Mat can return if worn out.
In this blog, we are going to explore important details about Cricut Mats and its various types and features.
Types And Uses of Cricut Mats
There are four different types of Cricut Mats they all are available in four different grip strengths. Each type of Cricut Mats is differentiable as all four are designated different colors. To work perfectly with various categories of materials each of the four Cricut mats have a different amount of grip designed on them. The four types of Cricut Mats are:
1. LightGrip Cricut Mat –
The LightGrip Cricut Mat is blue in color. The blue LightGrip Cricut Mat is designed with light adhesive to work well with lightweight materials. You can use the light grip Cricut Mat for various lightweight materials like standard paper, scrapbook paper, light cardstock, Vellum, light Vinyl, Sticker paper, or any craft paper.
After cutting any material or even paper it is very easy to release the material or paper after project completion.
2. StandardGrip Mat –
The StandardGrip Mat is green in color. The green StandardGrip Cricut Mat is designed with medium-strength adhesive to work well with medium-weight materials and heavy cardstock. You can use the standard grip Cricut Mat for various medium to heavy weight materials like Heavy Cardstock, adhesive vinyl, iron-on vinyl (HTV), and stencil Vinyl.
You can also use this green standard grip Cricut mat to cut bonded fabric, faux leather, and suede leather. The green standard grip Cricut mats are the cheapest among all the Cricut mat types and it also comes with a long-lasting adhesive.
3. StrongGrip Mat-
The StrongGrip Mat is purple in color. The purple StrongGrip Cricut Mat is designed with strong strength adhesive to work well with heavyweight materials. You can use the Strong grip Cricut Mat on various heavyweight materials like chipboard, poster board, cardstock, magnet sheets, balsa woods, glitter cardstock, and leather.
You will mostly end up using the purple strong grip Cricut mat while you have your knife blade installed on your Cricut machine for cutting thick materials. The adhesive on the purple strong grip mat is really strong and it is made especially for materials that tend to shift a lot while cutting.
4. FabricGrip Mat-
The FabricGrip Mat is pink in color. The pink FabricGrip Cricut Mat is designed with a special adhesive specially to work with fabrics. You will mostly end up using the purple strong grip Cricut mat while you have your knife blade installed on your Cricut machine for cutting thick materials.
The adhesive on the purple strong grip mat is really strong and it is made especially for materials that tend to shift a lot while cutting. They are the newest addition to Cricut mats.
*Special Mats-
I have written this mat separately and not merely classified it into any type because these are very unique to Cricut Joy Model. Hence sometimes it is also called Cricut Joy Card Mat. You will mostly end up using Cricut Joy Card Mat for cutting the front of folded greeting cards.
Cricut Mats Sizes and Their Prices
The Cricut mat, while is mostly used for the convenience of cutting any material that is being used in the projects, comes in four different colors and types. They all come in various sizes to fit different Cricut Machine Models. Let’s take a look into the same:
The Cricut Explore Series and the Cricut Maker Series machines are compatible with only two dimensions or sizes of Cricut mats. The dimensions are 12” x 12” mat and 12”x24” mat.
The Cricut Joy machine is compatible with only two dimensions or sizes of Cricut mats. The dimensions are 4.5”x6.5” mat and 4.5”x12” mat.
The prices of various Cricut Mats are listed below for your convenience:
Price of the LightGrip Cricut Mat is $49.26.
Price of the StandardGrip Cricut Mat is $22.60.
Cost of the StrongGrip Cricut Mat is $19.03.
Price of the FabricGrip Cricut Mat is $11.49.
Price of the Cricut Joy Card Mat is $18.18.
Features Of Cricut Mats
The features of various Cricut Mats are given below:
The blue LightGrip Cricut Mats feature light adhesion hence they are compatible with a variety of lightweight materials like printer paper, construction paper, vellum, etc. You can use them with your Cricut Maker, Cricut Explore, and Cricut Joy Machines.
The green StandardGrip Mats feature medium adhesion hence they are compatible with a variety of medium-weight materials like Medium Cardstock, Heavy Cardstock, Embossed or Textured Cardstock, Iron-on Vinyl, Adhesive Vinyl, etc. You can use them with your Cricut Maker, Cricut Explore, and Cricut Joy Machines.
The purple Strong Grip Mats feature strong adhesion hence they are compatible with a variety of thick or heavyweight materials like Glitter cardstock, Magnet Sheets, Chipboard, Posterboard, Stiffened fabric, Leather, etc. You can use them with your Cricut Maker and Cricut Explore Series Machines.
The pink FabricGrip Mats feature fabric-friendly adhesion hence they are compatible with fabric materials. You can use them with your Cricut Maker and Cricut Explore Series Machines. Along with that, you can easily function these mats with your Rotary Blade or Bonded-Fabric Blade.
Visit: cricut.com/setup
Source: https://cricut-new.com/what-are-cricut-mats-types-uses-and-features/