Charlottetown Library Makerspace

Earlier in the month, in anticipation of mounting Lisa’s exhibition at The Gallery, we went in search of a way of creating removable vinyl letters for the show’s signage. We were happy to discover that, at the Charlottetown Library Makerspace, there is a Cricut machine that’s free to use. 

You can think of a Cricut machine as a kind of computer controlled X-Acto knife; at least that’s what we were using it for: you load a blank sheet of self-adhesive vinyl, use Cricut’s software to come up with a design, send the design to the machine, and the machine cuts the design into the vinyl. It’s really quite magical.

To start the process, I created the lettering for the design in Cricut Design Space,  on my laptop at home:

We picked up a roll of removable vinyl sheet at Michael’s in Charlottetown, and headed to the library.

The software  stores the designs “in the cloud,” so we were able to go to the library and sign in under our account once we were ready to “print.” The cutting process was remarkably fast: it took about two minutes.

Once the cutting was completed, came the fiddly process of “weeding” the vinyl to remove the parts that aren’t letters. Lisa  proved very good at doing this:

Once the weeding was done, we lay a piece of transfer paper over the letters, and then used that to transfer the letters to the wall of The  Gallery:

The weeding and transferring parts were a little fiddly, but, once we got the hang of it, it all worked pretty well. We are both very happy with the results on the wall.

The Cricut system, especially for those of us used to the openness of the 3D printing world and its tools, is regrettably closed and proprietary: it feels kind of like the Sodastream of digital tools. The only way to send designs to the machine is using Cricut Design Space, and while it’s quite capable, it’s also an advertising machine for all things Cricut: supplies, clipart, fonts, etc.

Of course what Cricut lacks in openness, it benefits from in ubiquity: a lot of people know how to use Cricut machines, the machines are widely available at hobby stores, as are the materials. 

Using the Cricut was our first real introduction to the library’s makerspace, a space that holds a bunch of really useful machines and tools. There’s a 3D printer, a machine to digitize VHS videotapes, a heat press for T-shirts, a bunch of sewing machines, a laminating machine, a drawing tablet, a button maker, and soldering stations.

The makerspace is open seven days a week, from 2:00 p.m. to 5:00 p.m. Use of the tools and machines is free; you just pay for the materials. What a great resource for our city this is.