Yes, You CAN Use Cricut Mats With Silhouette Cameo!

One of the challenges with the Cameo is that not all craft stores sell Silhouette products, and sometimes you need a blade or mat or whatever NOW.  Not in however many business days plus shipping and handling... RIGHT NOW!  This is where I found myself while making 200+ invitations and needing a new mat.  I do believe my local Michaels sells Silhouette products, but I was at Hobby Lobby getting cardstock (I had already bought up everything in the color I needed at JoAnn and Michaels!) and Hobby Lobby only had Cricut supplies, so you see my dilemma.  I bought a 2-pack of 12x12 Cricut mats on sale for $9.99.  They also had one light grip or one super grip for $10-14, so the 2-pack was the obvious choice for me.

When I got home, I lined up the Cricut mat with my Silhouette mat to see the difference.

In this next photo, you can see the black line where the top of the paper would go on the Silhouette mat is a little higher than on the Cricut mat.  The Cricut mat has a small shaded border around the white lined grid...

So I lined up the paper along the top of the shading , but left the shading on the side exposed.

You can see it is still centered on the mat.

Here is how it loads into the Cameo, the edge of the mat lines up with the edge of the roller, and paper lines up with the thick part of the roller... 

Look at the other smart thing I thought to do, since the protective cover for the Cricut mat is clear...

I thought I might have to adjust the blade settings since the Cricut mat is a little thicker but I didn't.

Since the Cricut mats might not all be the same, you can use your Silhouette mat as a reference like I did to find the correct placement, you could even draw lines with a Sharpie so you don't forget.  

If you have anything to share about using other brands with your Silhouette, by all means, leave a comment please!

And if you are smart enough to plan ahead, I'd love it if you used my affiliate links to get yours mats on Amazon!