The Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter - Handicrafting For Everyone   by Janice Thompson

The Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter is a must-have machine for anyone who considers themselves a serious home handicrafter. Using manual tools is a thing of the past for those tricky jobs, as the Cricut machines make cutting to any shape and size a breeze - plus the machines are specifically made to be lightweight enough to go with you wherever you want them. These are truly revolutionary devices, with all of the technology packed on-board, meaning that there's no need to attach them to a computer in order to realise your designs. If you're interested in taking your home crafts to the next level of sophistication and professionalism, I'll be elaborating on the functionality of the whole Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter range and what you actually get for your money.

The primary thing to note is that the machines essentially operate using the same basic principle. Since there is no PC involved on which to store information about the cutting shapes and designs, the Cricut cutting machines use special Cricut cartridges, each of which houses a set of such designs. To find the design you're looing for, you simply purchase the appropriate Cricut cartridge from the range - for example there are cartridges with an animal kingdom theme, or a winter woodland theme, or a Toy Story theme, or a soccer theme, to name but a tiny fraction of them. Now there are probably going on five hundred themed cartridges for any occasion you care to think of. When you buy a Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter, you will get a couple of cartridges as standard. You will find some places offer to sell you bundles of cheap cartridges when you purchase one of the electronic cutters from them. Thereafter, you need to buy additional cartridges as and when you need them. The cartridges aren't cheap - so it's a good idea to experiment with the ones you have for as long as possible before being tempted to buy more.

Once you've plugged in the cartridge and decided on a shape, there are a couple more decisions to be made. Number one - you need to decide what substance you are cutting the shape from. With any of the Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter machines, you can cut paper, card, vellum or vinyl on the replaceable cutting mat. The second one is - how big (or indeed small) do you want your final cut-out to be? The range of sizes you can cut to varies from cutter to cutter with the Cricut Expression having the largest range - the smallest size available in the range is 1/4 inch and the largest size available is 23 1/2 inches. Program in your options, hit a button, and marvel at the results. The final product is a perfect cut-out to your specifications, produces quickly and effortlessly with minimum fuss and mess.