My Cricut, My Friend

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Reported by Michelle Laycock

Since receiving my Cricut I have been in love. The Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter by ProvoCraft is everything I expected and more. This little machine is portable, easy to use, and well worth its cost.


Cricut is a diecut machine that is designed to cut cardstock or vellum into shapes, letters and images. One of the major selling points for me was the option to change the size of the diecut images to fit the project I’m designing. In the past, I’ve used diecut machines that simply cut the image in one size. If you need an image in a smaller size for a greeting card or a larger size for a 12 by 12 scrapbook page, you must make do with the size of the diecut as it is. With my little Cricut, I can change the machine settings to cut a 2 inch flower for a greeting card or the same image as a 5 inch flower for a scrapbook page.

Cricut cartridges are available in many styles. Each cartridge is jam-packed with diecut options which are all illustrated in user guides that come with each cartridge package. In this article we will be using the “George and Basic Shapes” cartridge:

Here are a few pages of the “George and Basic Shapes” cartridge:




Allow me to walk you through the procedure to make a flower.

I will make a cutout of “Flower1” and I’d like this flower to be a silhouette flower. On this page in the guide, “Flower1” is the 7-petal flower. Notice the squares next to it. There are ways to customize this flower. I’m choosing the option in the lower left corner.


Put your paper onto the adhesive mat.


The LCD Screen walks you through the steps.


Line your cutting mat into the machine and press “Load Paper”. You will also press the flower key.


There is a silhouette key on the left that will change your flower setting to silhouette.


Adjust the size knob to the size you’d like. In this case I wanted my flower to be 2 inches.


I am using Stampin’ Up! Cameo Coral paper for my flowers, so I increased the blade pressure to “5” which is appropriate for Stampin’ Up! Papers. You can see in the photo that the lower knob is for adjusting pressure. The top knob is for adjusting speed, which I left at “4”. Press the “Cut” Button.


Here is the result:


The cuts are crisp, accurate and perfect. After using my Cricut for 3 months, I have yet to be disappointed in this fabulous machine.

Thanks Cricut, for being a girl’s best friend!




Additional Cricut Resources:

Cricut product website with excellent resources

Cricut Demo At Scrapbook101.com

Family Crafts Product Review

Scrapbooking.com Review

Families.com Review