Cricuts are wonderful machines used for cutting many different kinds of materials for crafts. You can cut anything from paper to sticker sheets, vinyl and even thin wood or leather.
There are several Cricut options to choose from, and each of them has their own specific functions. For example, the most useful Cricut might be the Cricut Maker. What not many people know is that you can also use your Cricuts to write.
You can either use the original Cricut pens or your own, but for this, you’ll need to buy non-official adapters, that will leave your warranty ineffective.
So, to avoid that, stay tuned to see the pens that work with Cricut maker without adapter.
Pens that work with Cricut maker without adapter
The pen clamp contains a Cricut adapter. This adapter can be used with original Cricut pens, which are specifically made for this purpose. The great part is that there are many different options to choose from, to achieve a variety of finishes. Cricut joy pen adapter works with the following Cricut pens:
How is a Cricut made?
Cricut’s internal structure is very similar to a printer’s. It contains a mechanism to run along the cutting surface. This “cartridge” contains two sections, one for blades and another one for pens.
These two sections are clamps, and they are called “A” and “B”. Clamp B contains the blade. This blade comes inside a so-called “housing”, which is a little round piece that keeps the blade in place.
If you want to cut different materials, you might need to change the blade. However, not all blades fit the default housing. That’s why, depending on the blade you want to use, you have to make sure what kind of housing it needs.
The second clamp is meant for pens. This second function is not the most popular, but it’s very useful! With it, you can create graphic designs with your own pens.
It works similarly to any other printer, but the results are even nicer, as you can also count on the different effects each pen provides, instead of the ordinary printer ink.
The same as with blades, you also need to keep in mind which pens work with the original adapter, and which don’t. The only difference is that pen adapters are non-official.
That’s why many people don’t want to use them, as they believe it might damage their Cricut machines. Go ahead to see which are the official pens you can use.
- Opaque gel pens (1.0)
- Glitter gel pens (0.8)
- Gel pens (1.0)
- Metallic markers (1.0)
- Fine point pens (0.4)
- Extra fine point pens (0.3)
- Permanent markers (1.0)
- Watercolor markers (1.0)
- Infusible ink fine point pens (0.4)
- Infusible ink markers (1.0)
Cricut maker pen adapter
The Cricut maker pen adapter works with all the previous varieties and also with Watercolor markers (1.0). Be careful to buy the right marker for each Cricut.
Although there are, for instance, gel pens that work with Maker and Joy, you need to buy a specific one for each machine.
Each of the pens provides specific textures and effects, and you can use them for different projects.
As you can see, their points have different sizes, and because they have different types of ink, you should check the specifications to find out which are suitable for the materials you want to write on.
For example, you cannot use a glitter gel pen on Smart Label Writable vinyl, also made by Cricut
How to use non-official pens with your Cricut
In case you want to use a type of pen that is not included among the Cricut options, you can use your own.
As we said before, we recommend trying this after your warranty is over, as you will need to use accessories that are not an official Cricut pen adapter. There are some Cricut explore pen hacks to use your own pens.
To use these pens you will need to buy your own adapters from other providers. The most popular Cricut pen adapters are sold from Craverland.
They sell a box with many adapters you can combine with different pens. They come with a guide of the most popular pens you can use so that you don’t need to try and experiment with them.
To use them, you need to open the “A” clamp on your Cricut cartridge, as it’s the one containing the Cricut pen adapter. Carefully, press the tiny buttons it has below and gently pull the adapter up.
Choose the adapter you need to use according to the pens you want and close the clamp. Insert the pen and let’s get writing!
If you want to make a design with multiple pens, you can program your Cricut to do so. You need to create a text box for each of the different sections you want to make and choose different colors for them.
This way, the software will detect that you want to make them with another pen and will stop writing in between to let you change the pens and the adapters.
Once you’re finished with each adapter, make sure to put them back in the same place they were inside the container box.
They are numbered and come in different colors for proper identification, so it’s good to keep them in the correct place so that you can easily follow the guide instructions every time.
We hope you’ve found the answers and this list of pens that work with Cricut maker without adapter was useful to make sure your Cricut gives you the best writing results!
We also invite you to take a look at this article about How to print and cut on Cricut.