St. Patrick’s Day

Products Used

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!!

The project pace seems to have slowed considerably at the moment. But I couldn’t just miss St. Patrick’s Day. So I found this layered shamrock mandala in Cricut’s Design Space and ran with it. Of course like most other projects, this one was not without various problems that had to be overcome.

Project Cut Settings

I am trying to remember to include the cut setting used for each vinyl for projects now and in the future. I’m doing so, my hope of to help others successfully cut these vinyls. Please remember that since I am using a Cricut Maker, these cut settings are specific to the proprietary Cricut software.

TeckWrap Craft dark grey holo: premium vinyl setting on default pressure
TeckWrap Craft assorted vinyl pack: premium vinyl setting on default pressure
TeckWrap Craft gold chrome: premium vinyl on more pressure
Cricut green holographic crystal: holographic sparkle vinyl on default pressure

Did I Mess Up or What?

To start, this beautiful multilayered design is actually six layers. You may notice however that mine is only five. That was my fault as I focused more on multitasking rather than monitoring the machine and which mat I was loading and when.

For this project, I tried doing the cutting ‘on the go’, using the mobile version of Design Space from my phone and connecting to the machine via Bluetooth. Normally I use my laptop or desktop computer and connect through Bluetooth and have no connection issues save for one instance. I thought it’d be no problem doing it from my phone instead. I regret not paying closer attention to it.

My phone, Design Space, or a combination of the two apparently did not like when I switched Design Space to run in the background and the phone subsequently timed out the screen. One or both of those instances caused the Bluetooth connection to immediately disconnect in the middle of a cut of one of the more intricate layers.

It’s important to know that if this happens, do not unload the mat. Many times, including this time, you can reconnect the machine and it will either continue cutting where it left off (this is often unlikely) or restart the cut (this is the more likely scenario). If it restarts and you haven’t unloaded the mat, the cut will be in the exact same place as it goes back over the parts already cut. That is what happened for me and while it did add some extra time overall, it didn’t waste vinyl. That’s a win for me!

That Wasn’t the Only Thing

As mentioned earlier, this design was originally six layers, yet my finished project is only five. If you look closely enough in the process video on Instagram, you can catch a quick glimpse of the error es layer sitting to the side. Here is is for reference:

Some sharp eyes will notice that this dark green layer is similar (cough cough it’s exact) to the gold layer. Remember that machine disconnect earlier? Because I didn’t pay enough attention to what it did specifically and just kept loading mats as I normally would, I didn’t notice the mats in the app getting shuffled after the machine reconnected.

When the mats shuffled their order in Design Space, I cut a layer that had already been cut. So the gold and dark green are identical and therefore not necessary to use both in the final project. After careful color deliberation, the gold was chosen as the winner. I am super happy for this error in the end as the missing layer allows the other layers a better opportunity to shine.

Anything Else Go Wrong? Yup!

I’m telling ya…this project was a doozy of learning experiences. I really need to make sure to pay closer attention to what I’m doing when cuts are going. Guess who didn’t load the intended color for each layer? This girl right here! The only layer that is the color I intended for it is the very bottom layer.

Originally, I intended to have from bottom to top be grey, dark green, gold, green, cream, and holographic green on the top. Obviously that did not happen. However, this is one time where a happy little accident occurred, resulting in what I think is better than what I originally planned.