Newbie question - making svgs for Cricut guidance

Once you're familiar with Illustrator's tool set and effects it would be relatively easy to "reverse engineer" how those graphics were made. I'd recommend experimenting with the tools and watching how-to videos (there are many of them out there).

When creating your own graphics you can do it from scratch within Illustrator or take other approaches. Some people like sketching ideas on paper before getting in front of a computer. They might even refine the sketch, scan it and use the drawing as a guide. Lock it on a layer and build clean vector art on top of it. The same thing can be done using an iPad and Apple Pencil or a Wacom Cintiq setup (some of that stuff gets expensive though). The point is different methods are there to do the same job; you just have to experiment and have fun finding out what process works best for you.

THose are mostly rather simple shapes to build them. Then some text.

You need to know how to outline what and how to use the Pathfinder panel or Shapebuilder tool.

You could also check out clip art elements, such as for the single houses or paws or other elements. And then combine them.