Cricut Cartridges: Everything You Need To Know

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This is the ultimate guide to Cricut cartridges.

We’ve pooled together all of our knowledge — as well as that of our fellow crafters — to bring you this complete overview of everything you need to know about these craft cutting accessories.

We’ll cover exactly what cartridges are used for and how they’re used, where to find the best Cricut cartridges clearance sale, and a full Cricut cartridges list of every single product.

Phew!

We hope you’re ready: let’s dive in.

What Are Cricut Cartridges?

If you’re new to the world of craft cutting, one of the first things you’re probably wondering is what on earth are these Cricut cartridges that all the forums are buzzing about?

As you probably know, Cricut produce a line of vinyl cutting machines. Here are a few of their most popular models:

Alongside the cutting machines themselves, Cricut also produce a huge selection of cartridges to be used with the machines.

These cartridges — which can be inserted into the machines — contain sets of images, fonts and other graphics. Each cartridge is themed — so for instance, you can buy winter, baseball, Hello Kitty and elephant themed cartridges if you so desire.

The idea is that you use the images on the cartridges to create the design that you want your Cricut machine to cut for you. While there are only a small number of images on each cartridge, there are a number of features which allow you to create hundreds of different designs from just one cartridge.

Before the Explore series came out, you could only create designs using the Cricut cartridges.

cricut cartridge list

This was pretty annoying as it restricted what you could create with your Cricut cutter and proved to be expensive buying cartridges for new designs all the time.

Now, however, you’re able to import and create your own images using the Cricut Design Space software with the latest machines. They will also work with all Cricut cartridges if you prefer to use them as well.

Yay for choice!

 While it may sound restrictive on your creativity to use the Cricut cartridges, they’re a great option for crafters daunted at the thought of designing their own cuts. 

 

Plus, you can use the Design Space software to combine and merge images from all the different cartridges you own, really opening up the creative potential of these accessories.

So now you know what these bad boy accessories are, you’re probably wondering how to use Cricut cartridges.

Don’t worry: they’re easy to get a hold of.

All cartridges will plug directly into your machine, usually in a small slot on the top.

Here’s what a cartridge looks like plugged into the Explore machine, for instance:

cricut cartridges for sale
The cartridge is the gray triangular shaped thing!

With the Explore, Explore Air and Explore Air 2 machines, you’ll need to link your Cricut cartridges to Design Space in order to work with them in the software.

This video explains how to do this:

  • When you’re ready to create a new design, you’ll need to open a new project in Design Space.
  • Click on the ‘insert images’ tab, and then select the ‘Cartridges’ option from the menu across the top of your project.
  • Once your cartridges have been linked to the machine, following the steps in the above video, you’ll be able to view all of your cartridges from this tab and can select the one you want to use.
  • You’ll be able to access your cartridges automatically via Design Space once they’re linked up, so there’s no need to carry the cartridges round with you nor plug them into the machine every time you want to use them.
  • With the older machines, such as the Expression 2, you’ll need to find your Cricut cartridges in the Craft Room software. Craft Room is the predecessor to Design Space.
  • This is just as easy with the Explore machines. You’ll need to plug them into the machine again, and link them to your craft room account.
  • When you start a new project in Craft Room, a small menu should pop up in the bottom left corner of your machine. The first tab here is ‘Images/Cartridges’ and here you can select the cartridge you want to work with.
  • The cartridges that are in bold font are the ones that have been successfully linked to your account. Any cartridges not in bold will require you to plug them into the machine or are simply ones that you haven’t purchased yet.

Easy peasy.

Cricut Cartridges: Pros

There are plenty of advantages to buying and using Cricut cartridges. Here’s a few of our favorite things about them:

Huge Potential for Creativity
There are over 350 cartridges available to use with the Cricut machines.

Considering that each cartridge allows for over a hundred different designs and images, you’ve literally got tens of thousands of opportunities to create unique and individual designs.

Once you’ve linked up the Cricut cartridges to your Design Space account, you’ll be able to mix and match, and manipulate images across your library of cartridges.

cricut cartridges fonts

Great for Newbie Designers
Some people — us included — love the freedom that comes with making your own designs.

Dreaming up something from scratch, converting it into a cuttable image and then having your Cricut cut it for you is immensely rewarding and fun.

But when we first started getting into craft cutting, we weren’t nearly as comfortable designing as we are now. The thought of staring at nothing but a black new project in Adobe Illustrator was enough to ramp up the anxiety quotient.

So cartridges were great.

Not only did they provide the bare bones images for our projects, but they provided inspiration and the ability to experiment with images and fonts in order to achieve the results we wanted. Once we had had plenty of cartridge experience, we were ready to start designing our own creations.

Cost Effective
One of the most common complaints we hear against the Cricut cartridges is that they’re expensive — especially when you buy a lot of them. At around $20 each — unless you get lucky in a Cricut cartridges clearance sale! — they’re certainly not cheap, but we think they’re great value for money regardless.

While each cartridge has a set number of graphics installed, the variety of creative features at your disposal allow you to create hundreds of different images and designs from each one. Some of our cartridges can create over 700 different designs from just the one cartridge!

If you’re finding yourself buying lots of Cricut cartridges on the regular and are feeling the financial pinch, reign in the spending and start experimenting more with the cartridges you already own.

cricut cartridges

Makes Cutting Quick and Easy
Our favorite advantage to using Cricut cartridges is how quick and easy they make the whole craft cutting process.

If you’re making lots of cuts or are on a deadline and don’t have time to mess around with your own designs, they are the quick and easy solution you’ve been looking for.

Not only do they take away the pressure of designing, but they’re so easy to link to your machine and get started with that you can be cutting in a matter of minutes. It’s hard to argue with that kind of efficiency.

Cartridges are Themed
Another amazing thing about Cricut cartridges is the fact that they’re sold thematically. This means that you can create a whole host of different cuts for parties, events and holidays.

For instance you can buy Christmas, Thanksgiving and Halloween cartridges, wedding and birthday cartridges, and even ones devoted to particular styles of fonts and lettering.

Cricut Cartridges: Cons

Despite all the many advantages of using Cricut cartridges, some people simply don’t get on with them.

Here are a few of the complaints we hear about these accessories:

They Don't Allow Complete Creative Freedom
Before the Explore series of machines came out and Cricut forced you to use the cartridges to create all your cutting designs, a lot of crafters were annoyed that you were restricted in your designs by what was on the cartridges.

Not only did this dampen creativity, but it also seemed like a greedy move from Cricut. Essentially, after buying an expensive machine, you were then forced to buy cartridges in order to use it. Annoying.

Thankfully, with the newer machines, we’re able to both create and import our own images for our cutting designs — allowing much wider scope for creativity — while still being able to use all the cartridges that we have in our collection. We love that Cricut have given us the choice to craft as we please.

disney cricut cartridges

You Can't Recycle Them
Once your cartridges have been linked to a Design Space or Craft Room account, they can only ever be linked to that account.

That means you can’t distribute them around your crafting friendship circle or sell them on eBay once you’re finished with them. Once you’ve got them, you’ve got them for life.

Cricut Cartridges Clearance

If you love Cricut cartridges but don’t want to be paying top dollar for them, you’re probably going to be interested where you can find the best Cricut cartridges clearance sales.

Like we’ve mentioned above, as you can’t recycle these cartridges between users, there’s no easy way to find them cheaply.

Having said that, Cricut routinely have amazing sales if you buy direct from their website, and you can often find some cracking deals if you look on Amazon too.

These deals change all the time, so we suggest heading straight to their selection of Cricut cartridges to see what’s on offer.

Search Cricut Cartridges on Amazon Shop Cartridges on Cricut
Cricut Cartridges: Disney

Cricut have managed to score some amazing licensing deals with certain companies that allow them to make cartridges themed on certain films and characters.

For instance, Sesame Street, Hello Kitty and even DC Comics.

Some of their bestselling cartridges, however, are from Disney. These amazing cartridges will allow you to create cuts for the Frozen party of your dreams, or even a Winnie The Pooh picnic!

Here are a few of our favorites from the Cricut cartridges Disney selection.

Disney Frozen™ Cartridge – $29.99Bring to life the beloved characters from the box office hit Disney Frozen. Delight all your favorite Disney® fans with fearless Anna, regal Elsa, goofy Olaf, brave Kristoff, and more.
Disney® Classics Digital Set – $29.99Relive the childhood magic of your favorite movies with the Disney Classics cartridge. This lovingly detailed cartridge features layered images and icons from four beloved Disney movies: “Alice in Wonderland,” “Peter Pan,” “Pinocchio,” and “Bambi.” You will love creating with Alice, the Queen of Hearts, Captain Hook, Jiminy Cricket, and other characters.
Disney® Dreams Come True Cartridge – $29.99Disney Princesses Ariel, Belle, Jasmine and Pocahontas are joining the Cricut team. Cutting these favorite characters and their friends and accessories is sure to bring hours of fun.
Disney® Pooh and Friends Cartridge – $29.99Have a blast in the Hundred Acre Woods with Winnie the Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, Eeyore, and friends.
Disney® Pixar Toy Story Cartridge – $29.99Now you can create with your favorite Toy Story characters! The Toy Story cartridge is filled with exquisitely detailed images of Woody, Buzz, Jessie, Bullseye, Rex, and other favorite characters from all three movies. You will also love the stylized icons and 3D objects included on the cartridge.
Disney® Best of Pixar Cartridge – $29.99Finding Nemo, A Bug’s Life, Monsters, Inc., The Incredibles, and WALL-E. You will love creating with Nemo, the Tank Gang, Boo, the Parr family, WALL-E, and EVE.
Cricut Cartridges: Fonts
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Also super popular are the Cricut cartridges fonts selection.

Whether you want fancy embellished lettering or monogram motif fonts, Cricut have got you covered.

For us, the font packages are some of the most valuable cartridges on offer and we use them for basically every design that we want to insert lettering into.

There are a huge number of Cricut font cartridges, but here are a few of our favorites.

Anna’s Decorative Monograms Cartridge – $29.99Create beautiful monograms with this Cricut® cartridge from Anna Griffin featuring both delicate script and a classic font as well as coordinating frames.
Extreme Fonts Cartridge – $29.99We’ve gone to extremes with the Extreme Fonts cartridge! Two of the five fonts on the cartridge can be cut up to 23″ high—great for home decorating projects, especially vinyl for walls. On the other extreme, three of the fonts can be cut as tiny as ½” for your littlest projects and gifts.
Alphalicious Cartridge – $29.99This fun, everyday font is perfect for so many projects – let your creativity take over! This font has several different treatments like a tag, a crest or card, and a fun matchbook style card. Great phrases like I Miss You, You’re Invited, and You’re the Best illustrate the diversity of this great cartridge.
Disney® Mickey Font Cartridge – $29.99Create scrapbooks, cards, home décor, and much more with your favorite Disney characters! This cartridge includes images of Mickey, Minnie, Daisy, Donald, Pluto, Goofy, Chip, and Dale with layers and shadows. This cartridge also contains fifty classic icons with layers, shadows, and borders.
Cursive 101 Cartridge – $29.99As part of the Word Builders series, this cartridge presents the foundations of reading in fun, easy-to-understand ways. Fish, surfboards, clouds, and sand castles really bring things to life. Teachers love this for the classroom.
Storybook Cartridge – $29.99Recapture the imagination and art of nursery rhymes, fairy tales, and fables. With the Storybook cartridge, it is easy to create flourishes that can be layered onto each letter and add that extra childhood magic to any project. The uppercase alphabet on this cartridge is an elegant addition to almost any project.
Disney® Pooh Font Set Cartridge – $29.99This font complements all your Winnie the Pooh projects and so much more. You can change the look so that the letters resemble marker scrawl or wood plank letters, or you can stick your letters inside honey pots. It also features Baby Pooh, Tigger, Piglet, and Eeyore. The cartridge includes: Marker, Wood, Marker Shadow, Wood Shadow, Shadow, and Honey Pot creative features.
Disney® Hannah Montana® Cartridge – $14.99It’s time to put on a show! With fun creative features like Pop Princess, Daddy’s Girl, Music, and Rock Star, you’ll be able to jazz up any project, whether it be scrapbooks, home décor, or cards. The font cartridge also features a wide variety of icons, including guitars, diamonds, music notes, and Hannah Montana herself.
Cricut Cartridges List

And now, the main event: a huge Cricut cartridges list.

That’s right: we’ve compiled all the hundreds of Cricut cartridges that you can buy either direct from the Cricut website or from Amazon.

We’ve organised them by category so you can check what you’ve got, and which ones you want.

Here goes…

Holidays & Seasons
Everyday
Licensed Designs

Phew — now that’s one huuuuuge Cricut cartridges list!

By now, you should know everything you need to know about Cricut cartridges. Any questions? Let us know in the comments!

Looking to get inspired for your next craft project? Check out our Inspiration board packed full of freebies, cut files and craft deals for every occasion!

7 thoughts on “Cricut Cartridges: Everything You Need To Know”

  1. Are there any places that I can go to just use the machine so as to avoid buying one? (Ex. FedEx, Michael’s, Joanne’s, etc.?)

    Reply
  2. I bought the paper lace cartridge but I am not sure how to get to the fonts in the cartridge. Are they in my font pull down menu?

    Reply
  3. How do I get the Disney cartridges I bought and have used that don’t show up in my categories as bought? For example the Disney princess ones and Sesame Street.

    Reply

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