See, I love die cuts. I love the idea of having a lot of fonts available. I have the hand die cutters from several companies and they sit upon my shelf along with the dies here in the Scrapbooking.com Magazine studio. And yes, they’re used for cards and layouts. I just always wondered if there was a better, more “high tech” way of die cutting that is more “automated”.
Well, Cricut answered that question for me, with a resounding “yes”. There is an easier way and it’s quick to learn and master.
I tested just the Cricut as it comes in its starter kit. Included in the starter kit is the Cricut machine, a keypad overlay, a power adapter, a cutting mat, a font cartridge, a cartridge handbook and a user manual.
It was easy to set up the Cricut and within about 45 minutes I had my first cuts! The starter kit includes the George and Basic Shapes font. It’s a fun font that is designed by Wordsworth. The font includes a Key Pad Overlay that shows you where the letters, shapes and numbers are. For ease, the letters are placed in the same way they would be on a keyboard. This made it easy to figure out where I had to go for individual letters. Using the shift and other commands to the left of the keyboard, I was able to easily navigate between shapes and letters.
One of the interesting things about the Cricut system is that the cutting surface is tacky to hold the paper in place during the cuts. Once you enter the size of the paper, the machine automatically calculates whether your words, letters or shapes will fit on that paper as you have requested. If it doesn’t fit, you can remove some of the letters and shapes or use the dial on the right to adjust the size. This makes it easy to move from cards to titles and monograms in literally the flip of a knob!
With letters, shadows, shadow blackout, charm and silhouette features, the possibilities for one cartridge alone are quite expansive. Additional cartridges are less than $50, making this a wise investment for your scrapbooking room.
