When it comes to the Cricut there are so many amazing projects you can make… materials you can cut! There’s a multitude of blades to choose from and special accessories you can buy to work with the whole Cricut system (Cricut Easy Press anyone?).

At the end of the day there are plenty of bits and bobs you can buy to make your crafting easier but you absolutely HAVE to have the Essential Tool Set. It’s basics y’all, essentials.

The starter pack.

It’s 7 tools to make your life easier: a paper trimmer, scraper, weeder, spatula, scoring stylus, scissors and reverse tweezers. I (of course) picked the rose version to match my machine but you can also get this baby in blue, mint and gold. I just love how they’re coming out with so many fun pieces that actually match! I want my entire craft room to be rose!

Every Cricut comes with a different bundle or includes different tools… so if your machine does not come with the basic tool set drop what you’re doing and order one now. Seriously… I’ll wait.

Got it? Great… let’s get started with the big questions:

What kinds of tools do I need for my Cricut machine and how do I use them?

The Cricut Weeder Tool

Alright y’all let’s start with the basics. This little weeder tool is your new best friend… it’s basically a dentist tool for vinyl and yes you need it. A lot!

It will help you take all the little negative bits and bobs out of your vinyl designs so that they’re ready to use. Lifting all those tiny pieces (like the middle of an o or the top of an e) without the weeder tool is basically impossible and would definitely result in ruined vinyl.

The little weeder makes lifting out those pieces extra easy… especially with trickier materials like glitter vinyl. I use mine for poster board and cardstock as well… although it’s not always necessary with stiffer materials.

The Cricut Scraper Tool

This little scraper tool is tiny but mighty. You use it to smooth vinyl onto your mat, apply transfer tape to your weeded vinyl (is that a term? I’m thinking it should be!), smooth the vinyl onto your finished piece and then clean your mats afterwards.

It’s basically a little one stop shop kind of tool… I also use it as a bone knife when working with those fun score lines. The new scoring wheel makes the score lines super simple but it’s still nice to enforce those edges.

The Cricut Spatula Tool

Ready for the spatula? This little baby is perfect for picking up all those little pieces off your cutting mat. Especially if you’re working with paper!

Cricut cutting mats have an adhesive layer that holds your material in place and even the light grip cutting mat holds your paper in place. (Duh) That means trying to take a piece of paper off often results in curled or ripped paper… which is no good.

The spatula is SO thin so it slips easily under paper projects, allowing you to carefully ease them off the mat. For some reason this is also my one tool that gets super sticky… I’m always having to use a bit of goo be gone to remove the extra adhesive that sticks to the spatula!

The Cricut Reverse Tweezers

Reverse tweezers are basically the best part of my life. I don’t know about y’all but I’ve spent hours using normal tweezers and after a while your hand gets cramped.

Which kind of stinks.

These babies are the opposite from regular tweezers: so you press down to open them and then release the pressure so that they snap shut. This means they’ll hold little embellishments, stickers or paper pieces while you’re piecing together a scrapbook layout or adding rhinestones to a project.

Basically they’re amazing!

Plus I absolutely love that they’re entirely rose. I think they’re just so pretty!

The Cricut Scissors

Okay y’all you know how scissors work! I absolutely love these because they’re small, they’re super super sharp, they have a built in cap so you won’t poke yourself AND the cap has a space to hang them up so they can hangout on your pegboard.

Yup. They’re basically the rock-star of scissor land.

(Do you think the scissors run in scissor land? Is that ok? If scissors run on their own?).

Either way I’ve come to love these and have bought four or five pairs so that I can place them all over my house. My mom even stole a pair for her sewing box which is huge.

The Cricut Scoring Tool

This is the OG scoring tool from Cricut! It works with the Cricut Explore Air 2 and the Cricut Maker although the Cricut Maker does work with the new, fancy, schmancy scoring wheel if you’re going to be scoring all. the. things.

For simple scoring projects or if you’re only scoring occasionally this little guy is perfect. It fits into the A slot on your machine so you don’t have to pause and reload your machine in the middle of a project (like with the scoring wheel).

This little guy is perfect for adding score lines to fold cards in half, make 3D boxes or even pretty rosettes for paper crafting.

I hope you enjoyed this look into the basic Cricut tool set… now get ready to make something!

Don’t forget to pin for later!

The Cricut Paper Trimmer

Rounding out the set is the paper trimmer… honestly if you’re working with anything 12 x 12 or smaller this little guy is great to have. I’m sure if you’ve been crafting for a while you already have a paper trimmer (or 12) but if you’re like me it’s always nice to have a bright, shiny, new one. With a new sharp blade!

Yes, I know you can replace the blades. No, I never do.

This one actually comes with a replacement blade though so as long as you can keep track of it you’ll be set. Having a paper trimmer on hand when cricuting (is that a verb?) is always helpful to cut down materials before loading your cutting mat.