u/JackReaper333

I picked up making stickers as a hobby a few years back. I enjoyed it up until recently.

A few months back I decided to upgrade from my Cricut to the Cameo 5a and at first I was pleased with it. The honeymoon is definitely over.

The Cameo 5a has had an increasingly more difficult time registering anything. I've tried all the tricks and variations that people have suggested - official cutting mats, unofficial ones, taping over the registration marks, more light, less light, making sure things are level, making sure the registration marks are set correctly, etc. Nothing has helped and getting the machine to register is a crapshoot. Sometimes the scanner wont even scan in the right area and keeps trying to scan above the registration marks themselves.

I'm tired of wasting time and money on materials. The Cameo 5a is ruining the enjoyment this hobby once gave me and honestly I don't even know if I want to continue.

I'm curious to know how many of you all place a laminate over your stickers vs just not using a laminate.

If I print on to glossy vinyl I HAVE to use a laminate otherwise the ink smears no matter how long I let it dry.

Got into sticker making maybe a year-ish ago and it's mostly been a heck of a lot of fun.

One thing that always gave me an absolute headache though was applying laminate to my stickers. I hated it. I watched every tutorial and tried every trick but for the life of me I just could not develop the skill to smoothly apply my laminate. There would always be bubbles or wrinkles. At best I made maybe a 75-80% success rate.

I got an electric hot/cold lamination machine off Amazon for about $30 and it was absolute garbage. The rollers were buried so far back into the plastic housing that it made it almost impossible to effectively use.

I bit the bullet and bought a $60 manual cold laminator off Amazon and guys, I've gotta tell you, I wish I had got it a year ago. I was able to apply my laminate quickly, easily, and with absolutely no wrinkles or bubbles whatsoever. This thing works like a dream. If you're having difficulty applying laminate like I was, I strongly recommend picking one of those machines up.

Wanted to get some advice/input from the community.

When I first got into sticker making I purchased a Cricut Joy Xtra. At this point though I'm considering getting a Silhouette Cameo 5 alpha. I don't have major issues with the Cricut machine itself per se so much as the utterly dismal software but it seems like the features of the Cameo also outpace the Cricut.

Has anyone else made this switch? Is it worth it?