FriedGeek
New Member
My wife is a scrap booker and saw that the Cricut paper cutting machines were on sale at one of the crafting chains.
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat2005&PRODID=xprd634365
My wife actually got the smaller version that has a 12x5 cutting area for $199. These little gizmos are generally used to cut paper letters and designs out based on these crazy over priced font cartridges.
However, and this is where it gets interesting, there is a USB port on the back of this gizmo. Some research showed that Cricut sells an overpriced bit of software that really just lets you cut all of the same stuff as the cartridges but without having to buy the individual cartridges. Not real exciting for me but after more research I found a software called Sure Cuts Alot. $75
http://www.craftedge.com/index.html
This is similar to the Cricut software but with one huge improvement. Sure Cuts Alot is for both Mac and PC and it lets you cut any True Type font or even SVG (vector based) shapes or designs. Since the Cricut can cut vinyl as well as thin plastics like acetate...
So for about $275 I got a tool that I can use to cut custom decals, templates, stencils, stickers, labels, placards... all kinds of stuff. Oh, and my wife got a cool scrapbook tool.
I'll get some images of some of what I've used this for soon.
http://www.joann.com/joann/catalog.jsp?CATID=cat2005&PRODID=xprd634365
My wife actually got the smaller version that has a 12x5 cutting area for $199. These little gizmos are generally used to cut paper letters and designs out based on these crazy over priced font cartridges.
However, and this is where it gets interesting, there is a USB port on the back of this gizmo. Some research showed that Cricut sells an overpriced bit of software that really just lets you cut all of the same stuff as the cartridges but without having to buy the individual cartridges. Not real exciting for me but after more research I found a software called Sure Cuts Alot. $75
http://www.craftedge.com/index.html
This is similar to the Cricut software but with one huge improvement. Sure Cuts Alot is for both Mac and PC and it lets you cut any True Type font or even SVG (vector based) shapes or designs. Since the Cricut can cut vinyl as well as thin plastics like acetate...
So for about $275 I got a tool that I can use to cut custom decals, templates, stencils, stickers, labels, placards... all kinds of stuff. Oh, and my wife got a cool scrapbook tool.
I'll get some images of some of what I've used this for soon.
