NIX editorial illustration of a Cricut Explore 3-style cutting machine and The NIX Making Machine headline

NIX STORIES / THE WORKSHOP / 25 OCTOBER 2026

My Cricut Explore 3.
Big ideas. Real things.

I can design something on my MacBook in the morning and, with my Cricut Explore 3, have it cut in vinyl before I've finished wondering where I put the transfer tape.

I'm NIX. I like technology, but I like it even more when technology actually makes something. Drones put cameras in the air. My campervan Vanilla gets me out on the road. The Cricut brings a very different sort of freedom to the desk: the power to take a design and turn it into a sticker, a decal, a shirt or a proper physical piece of branding.

And with NIX DRONES getting a new identity, this little cutting machine has suddenly found itself with a rather important job.

01 / A workshop hiding on a desk

The Explore 3 doesn't look particularly industrial. It's an elegant, fairly quiet-looking device, with a lid, rollers and a cutting carriage. But feed in the right material and it follows a design with a precision I couldn't hope to achieve with scissors and a steady hand.

That is its appeal. I'm not buying a factory. I'm giving myself a way to make one-offs, prototypes and small runs without ordering a hundred of something just to discover the dimensions are wrong.

A proper NIX project should go beyond the screen. I want to be able to hold it, stick it on something or wear it.

Illustrated Cricut Explore 3 capability cards — NIX infographic · Figures based on Cricut's published Explore 3 specifications.

02 / What the Explore 3 actually does

It cuts 100-plus compatible materials, including adhesive vinyl, iron-on material and cardstock. It can draw and write with compatible Cricut pens too. The clever part is the combination of the physical cutter and Cricut Design Space software, which prepares the artwork and guides the cut.

100+compatible materials

12 ftmaximum Smart Vinyl cut length

2×up to twice the cutting speed of Explore Air 2

With compatible Cricut Smart Materials, it can cut without a mat. For ordinary vinyl from other brands, a suitable cutting mat is generally the safer and recommended route. It supports 12 × 12-inch and 12 × 24-inch mats, and it has Bluetooth as well as USB connectivity.

One important distinction: the Explore 3 is a cutter, not a printer. A full-colour printed sticker needs the Print Then Cut workflow with a separate printer. A layered vinyl logo, on the other hand, can be cut colour by colour and assembled.

03 / The new NIX DRONES logo — now for real

My latest NIX DRONES rebrand has been about getting the artwork absolutely right. The spacing matters. The colour separation matters. And I certainly don't want to spend an evening weeding a logo only to find out that the original vector had bad joins and tiny pieces that shouldn't exist.

The Cricut gives that digital work a physical test. If a shape works beautifully on screen but falls apart at sticker size, something needs adjusting. Good vectors aren't merely pretty — they're practical.

NIX illustrated guide showing the cut, weed, transfer and apply stages — Cut → weed → transfer → apply. A simple workflow, provided the artwork is clean.

For a two-colour design, each colour needs its own correctly aligned cut layer. My rule is to get the master artwork right first, then make a small test cut before committing any expensive vinyl. No old logo, no approximations, and definitely no mystery replacement drone symbols.

04 / What I want to make

I've already had a great deal of fun imagining the NIX identity on everything from shirts to campervan bits. With the Explore 3, quite a few of those ideas can become real workshop projects rather than just mockups.

NIX illustrated concepts for a black shirt, Vanilla vinyl decals and product stickers — Concept artwork, not photographs of completed products. The potential projects are very real.

NIX DRONES merchandise

Small chest logos for black T-shirts, discreet shoulder branding, decals for cases, and a few quality stickers. I'd rather make something understated and sharp than cover every surface with an enormous emblem.

Vanilla, my campervan

Custom labels, interior organisation, possibly some carefully chosen exterior vinyl. Vanilla already has that distinctive grey-and-orange look, so matching details appeal to me far more than random graphics.

NIX Chutneys

Prototype labels and packaging mockups for my artisan chutney ideas. These are design and presentation experiments — any labels for food actually sold will need to meet the relevant UK requirements.

Gifts and little experiments

Personalised cards, names on useful objects, seasonal projects and those ridiculous little custom pieces that make people ask, “Where did you buy that?”

05 / Vinyl is where the fun starts

Permanent adhesive vinyl is a strong candidate for suitable hard surfaces. Removable vinyl is useful when you may change your mind. Iron-on / heat-transfer vinyl is for fabric projects, but requires appropriate heat, pressure and application instructions. They are different products and shouldn't be treated as interchangeable.

The process is satisfying in a peculiar way: prepare the SVG, check the scale, make the cut, and then weed away the parts you don't want. The result looks simple, which is usually a sign you've done the difficult bit properly.

For fine detail, a test cut is a must. Fonts with hair-thin strokes, tiny dots and overly intricate shapes can be a nightmare. If a design is going on a shirt or decal, I want it to survive actual use, not just look magnificent in a preview window.

06 / My sensible little production line

I can see the MacBook Air becoming design headquarters. The basic workflow is refreshingly straightforward:

1. Start with the approved design master, ideally a clean SVG with properly separated colours.

2. Decide the physical size and material. A shirt badge and a campervan decal have very different demands.

3. Check the design in Cricut Design Space and make a small test cut.

4. Cut, weed, align and apply with patience. Rushing the last five minutes is a fantastic way to ruin the previous hour.

5. Save the successful settings and dimensions for the next run.

07 / What it won't do

It's worth being clear about the limits. This isn't a laser cutter, a UV printer or a machine for cutting metal signs. Thick, rigid or unsuitable materials are outside its remit, and artwork with tiny detail isn't always suited to vinyl. The Explore 3 is strongest when you give it work it was designed to do.

Nor does the machine magically make a complicated logo production-ready. That's the job of careful design, clean files, sensible sizing and a little experience. The cutting is the final act, not the whole performance.

08 / Why I like it

There is a common thread in most of my projects. The drones, NIX DRONES, Vanilla, even the gadgets I seem to accumulate: I enjoy the point where technology stops being a novelty and starts being useful.

That's why the Cricut makes sense to me. My branding no longer has to live entirely as pixels. I can experiment, make mistakes cheaply, refine an idea and have something genuinely finished at the end.

The Cricut Explore 3 may be the smallest production department NIX DRONES will ever have. But it's mine — and that's rather the point.

Next on the cutting mat? Small, perfectly spaced NIX DRONES vinyl logos. If I can get those looking superb, the T-shirts and other bits can follow. The only remaining mystery is how a little sticker project can somehow take up an entire afternoon.

NIX // MADE, NOT JUST DESIGNED

Technical sources: Cricut Explore 3 Quick Start Guide and Cricut Smart Materials guide. Illustrations are original editorial graphics, not photos of my machine or completed merchandise.