I live under a rock- Cricut-help me decide

[canwegosoon]

Ok hard to believe....I just found out about this TODAY ....To be totally honest I have not had much time to scrapbook this past year, I want to change that in 2008.

I would describe myself as a moderatly skilled scrapper, I maintain(not this year ) 2 albums for my children, 2 school albums, a portrait album, and one day I will get to my personal album. I do not give albums as gifts, but I make my own cards for most holidays(st. Pat's not so much). I am not into highly decorated, fancy albums(I have 9yo boys-no girls). By nature I am a very traditional/sometimes old fashioned-contemporary.

I read in some other posts, walmart or joanns/acmoore seems the way to go, and saw the offer for buy 2 get 1 free by the 31st. SO I have 3 questions
1) I am totally in awe of this product-is it as good as the informercial says?
2) Do you think I should get this?
3)(since I am almost assuming people will say yes) What are the must haves?(I need a check list)....I would be scrapping on my desk/with a table....so I do have access to a computer(windows XP) if that makes a difference.

Thank you for bringing me out of the dark ages!!!!!

 

[Kim1964]

First off, don't buy it from the infomercial. From what I've read, the deals at ACMoore, Michael's, and Walmart are much better prices. A friend of mine bought hers from customcrops.com and got a good price, too.

Must haves in my world:

-The spatula for removing stuff from mats
-The tool kit
-Extra mats and blades so I never run out
-Cartridges I like a lot are: Mickey and Friends, Mickey Font, Jasmine, Opposites Attract, and Base Camp

It's a pretty cool machine. I will celebrate my 1st year as a scrapper on January 1, and I've had the baby bug since May and the big bug for a few weeks. I am not a fancy scrapper, either, but I love all the stuff I can make myself.

 

[TiggerFamily]

I own both Cricuts and LOVE them. If you go to Cricut.com you can see a demo. I'm on the Cricut message board all the time, the people there are so wonderful and very helpful with any questions. ACM always has a sale on them.

 

[canwegosoon]

Thank you- which model do you both prefer- I see one in the 130ish range on sale and a 300+ one...is the 300+ much better in some way? I am going to check out the demo.

 

[Kim1964]

If you can afford the Expression, then I'd go right for that. Besides being able to cut much larger pieces (and smaller ones for that matter), there are other cool functions that the small version lacks. You can set the big one to cut a certain quantity of something instead of having to stand there pressing the button over and over again. You can also "auto fill" a page and it will repeat the cut as many times as will fit on that piece of paper. "Fit to page" allows you to cut something as large as it will fit on the page without having to play with the sizes yourself.

There are other functions as well, but those are the ones I've actually used since I got mine a couple of weeks ago. I like both machines but I really love the flexibility of the Expression.

 

[bigbabyblues]

I got a Cricut for Christmas, but DH couldn't wait, so I opened it last night, and I love it!!!

I got the bundle from WM on Black Friday, it was the smaller one (don't know it's name, sorry!) and it came with two cartridges for $119. It's regular price at WM is $184 or something like that. The Expression is just out of our budget right now, but I'm thrilled with the one I got.

I do want to get the Mickey & Friends cart....

 

[AlexWyattMommy]

If you buy TWO carts before December 31, you can send in a form and $14.95 for shipping and get a free cart.