I decided to spend my extra free time on shopping for scrapbook stuff. This week I bought the Cricut Expression and 4 new cartridges. The Expression came with 4 cartridges so I actually got 8 new cartridges. Michaels is having a cartridge sale the week of April 6th so I am hoping to pick up a few more. I found a store called Frugalities and I bought 4 of the 6 pks of American Crafts Seasons ribbons, several accordian books, cd tin albums, concertina books and one baby girl 8 X 8 album. I got a few pens, a ph tester, 2 new ink pads, a snap setter and a Mema Designs Megan Purse album. I stocked up on DCWV stacks and I bought the new glitter ones as well. Over at Creative Express I bought a half dozen Rob and Bob Girly Girl Albums and some wall pegs. Tomorrow I am going to AC Moore to use my 40% off coupon! ;o)

Labels: Paper Scrap

Labels: Jericho

First up from Raspberry Road is the beautiful Lucky Me Challenge Kit. The challenge runs until March 16th and everyone who enters will receive a 10 page brag book by Tracy Anderson. Check the site to download and read up on the rules. Next is the Lucky Charm Kit by Marialynn (ferg). The kit features a nice chipboard alphabet and some metallic elements. Janniscrap has a Top of the Mornin'! Sampler on her blog. Members can download the whole kit. Membership is a bargain at $6 for 3 months and she puts out some really cute kits. Last but not least is my favorite, Yardbunny's St. Patricks Day Freebie Kit. The colors are pleasant and the elements are excellent. I used the kit to make my new blog banner. Make sure you grab the frame that was left out of the kit.

Labels: Designer Freebie Links

I purchased a Cricut the first week they appeared at Michaels. I was thrilled with it and over the next few months bought a few more cartridges. I lost the scraper in the tool kit (I think my son threw it away) and it was impossible to buy just the scrapper without buying the entire tool kit again. Of course they had just the scraper on the Provocraft site but it said out of stock and they never did get them back in stock. I bought some Pampered Chef scrapers and once again all was well. I guess after I purchased my 10th cartridge it dawned on me that I could have purchased a Wishblade for about half of what I had already invested in the Cricut. If I had a Wishblade I wouldn't need to buy a cartridge everytime I wanted a new font, I could chose from thousands of fonts by installing whatever I wanted on my pc. I was still optimistic though, I had spoken to someone at Provocraft before I bought the Cricut and inquired about the usb port on the cutter and what it would be used for. I point blank asked if it meant that later down the road we would be able to hook it to the pc and use any font and I was assured that they planned on developing software but she didn't know exactly what the software would do. Right there I should have hesitated and went for the Wishblade but I liked the creative options and figured they would allow you to cut any font on your pc in the near future.

Well I couldn't have been more wrong. Oh they came out with software alright but the software merely allows you to weld letters and is horribly overpriced for what little it does. It was at that moment I realized that Provocraft is a greedy company. One Cricut and 3 cartridges cost more than the Wishblade and yet they are still sucking Cricut owners dry with their cartridge only cutter. I can't bring myself to purchase anything with the Provocraft name on it as a result and even though I want the Disney cartridges I decided that I will only buy them used from ebay rather than put one more penny into Provocraft's drawer.

A couple of weeks ago I read about a new program called Sure Cuts A Lot (SCAL) by Craft Edge. This program works with the Cricut and allows you to cut any font/dingbat on your pc! Yeaaaaaaaaa! As an added bonus you can create your own diecuts with a freeware program called Inkscape and you can import .svg files to cut from other users. On top of that the Inkscape program allows you to weld (no need for the Cricut software) and you can trace a graphic and make a svg file out of it. The program was confusing to me but I found this tutorial and I finally understood what it can do.

If you have a Cricut already I suggest you check out the Sure Cuts A Lot website. If you don't already own a Cricut I would suggest you chose a different cutter as the cost of the cricut and a few cartridges is about the same as other cutters and you don't have to buy additional software to do what Provocraft should have built in with their new software. The funny thing about it all is I would have continued to buy cartridges even if I could have cut my own fonts, at least the Disney Cartridges. I don't care for any of the new cartridges but had they produced cartridges that I liked then I would have gladly bought them. Now I say screw L'Greedo, I mean..Provocraft.

Labels: Die Cuts