Having planned to be more efficient with my blogging last year you may have noticed it didn’t quite happen. I have a lot of catching up to do.
Here’s one of my latest creations. For Christmas I was lucky enough to receive an electronic cutting machine and have been having a play with it and some software I purchased to go with it.
Friends of Tim’s had a baby girl on New Year’s Day so it gave me the perfect opportunity to do a bit of designing and creating.
Anyhow, I was really pleased with it and hope to get some more projects up here soon.
Bonitocrafts 
Sep 26, 2009 @ 22:31:05
Hi Claire,
This is great, do you have the Robo?
Sep 26, 2009 @ 22:53:50
No, I have the Cricut Expression with a piece of software called Sure Cuts a Lot to use it with the computer. You can create cutting files from any svg file that can be creating in a graphics package. You can also cut from the cartridges that you can get for it. Having said that, since buying the software I don’t use the carts very much.
Using the software you can create cutting files using any truetype font that you have on your computer and you can merge/weld letters as you can see in my card.
Hopefully when my youngest sister Liza gets married in 2011 I will be able to use it for some of the crafting I will be doing for her.
Sep 26, 2009 @ 23:27:27
That’s interesting, I have the robo and like you say can do all these things, but having used the Cricut like the way this works better. The Cricut was not around when I got my Robo, but been thinking of changing so was very interested to read this. The robo often needs to cut several times to be effective, a problem I have not had with the Cricut I have used.
Sep 27, 2009 @ 08:58:59
It took me a long time to decide which one to have I can tell you, but I am really glad I went with the cricut in the end. If you are feeling uninspired or that you are not able to create something specific then there is usually a cartridge available with it on. Also, although the cartridges are pricey, when you compare the amount on them to buying an individual cutting die for a sizzix etc, plus the fact you are not restricted to size, the cost is much more acceptable.
Having said that, I do still use my cuttlebug and sizzix sidekick and wouldn’t want to be without either of them. I went for the expression for the cutting area as you can cut up to 12 by 24 on it. Again I wondered if I would need that size but soon discovered that very little I have used it for would have been doable on the 6 x 12 cutting area that the create gives you.
Nov 11, 2009 @ 17:25:20
I don’t have the design studio as they still haven’t made it Mac compatible. The great thing about the Sure cuts a lot is you can cut any truetype font and link them and merge them and there are tons of fonts out there that you can install free, some of which are images and dingbats and even things like bag and box templates.
It also has it’s own sets of shapes so you can easily cut out mats and layers. Good to have a good play and find out what it can do. There is also a forum with lots of helpful tips on it and downloads etc.
Have fun.