Quarantine Quickies: Oh Joy… Let’s Cricut

Hey Beautiful people, welcome back to the Jalloh family blog. Today, I tell you all about my mother’s day (Oz) gift and how much joy it is bringing me at the moment. If you enjoyed our family blog, don’t forget to leave a comment and follow us for more Jalloh family content.

We spend so much time at home, it is important for your home to be a place that you love, feel safe and joy. My home for me is all of those things and I know how lucky I am to feel this way.

Having said that, I am also the type of person (Aries) that is always on the go, always on the look out for something new to do and being at home more due to the viral situation around the world has led me to search for a new ‘project’ to do each day. You can read more about the Jalloh Family Quarantine Quickies here. The project can be something small; raking the 1000s of autumn leaves from the deciduous trees that surround the house; sorting through old clothes ready for donation; a new type of art we want to try out, or simply having a good deep clean of the whole house. Equally, it can be a large and costly project. So, what has got me on the go this time?

As the monotony of lock down set in, I went online for inspiration and there it was. In all its beautiful glory. A Cricut Joy. With it came thousands of home projects, simple and advanced. Watching the videos of some of my favourite YouTube channel, I could see it was easy enough to use and I could see myself creating and cutting with no problem. I was sold! And so, the journey began to find a store that stocked the Cricut Joy at a reasonable price. I searched for months and couldn’t find anywhere in Canberra that stocked it. Also all the shops had restricted opening hours, so it meant by the time I finished work, which is later and later, especially working from home, the shops were already closed. We went to JB Hi-Fi, Big W, K Mart and Office Works, but “no Joy”. I tried to describe the machine and it’s function but is seemed NOBODY, knew what I was talking about. They kept sending me to the printer section. I was beginning to loose hope when I decided to go online one last time. Found it! I found that at ‘Spotlight’, but it was the next state over, Queanbeyan, which was a 40 minute drive from where we were.

I considered this a long awaited birthday present and an early mother’s day present. We had noticed that since the quarantine, we have been left with a lot more of our spending money, which in normal circumstances, would be gone before payday roles around again. We don’t really know what we spend it on usually, but it was always gone. After finding a machine, I spent a week questioning whether I should get it or not, even though I had spent the last 3 months looking for the machine. I told Ahmed my dilemma and he he made a good case for why I should treat myself. He could see that I would eventually talk myself out of it, so he told me we’re going to Spotlight that evening.

When I finished work, we headed straight for Spotlight but unfortunately when I got there, they had sold out. There goes my Joy! But wait, what was this sleek sleek looking thing? The friendly store clerk told me it was the Cricut Explore Air 2. I had gone back an forth with Ahmed on whether I get the small Cricut Joy or one of the larger machines. Needless to say, Ahmed voted for the bigger machine, which has more features and knew I would eventually want it but I decided to go for the small Joy instead. However, we’re now in the store and they had sold out. I took it as a sign because I wasn’t going home without some Joy. When I saw the Cricut Explore Air 2, I absolutely loved it. Like many of you, we are #stayinghome and finding our own entertainment and this machine is going to keep me entertained this weekend and for many to come, for sure.

Here are a few pictures of my earliest creations.

It really was so much fun. The following week we went back to spot light and bought some more accessories because I couldn’t wait for Amazon to deliver. My next project is going to be fabrics… or maybe when I’m more confident!

I would love to hear your thoughts on these creations and also we would love to know what you and your family are doing to stay busy.