Provo Craft manufacture the Cricut personal cutter and it is great for scrapbooking. There are a couple of machines; the original and Expressions. Both have cartridges that slot into them to create the various cutout shapes and lettering. When you buy the machine you get a cartridge with it, the original comes with George and Basic Shapes which is a basic cartridge with shapes and the George capital alphabet font.
When you get a cartridge there is also sometimes an instruction book and a keypad overlay. This way you can start using the machine straight away for simple projects without having to also purchase a cartridge straight away. When you are ready there are many other cartridges you can buy with many different themes and styles from various alphabets to garden themes, Disney themes and sport ones to name just a few.
There are six creative features on the Cricut cartridge George and Basic Shapes, Silhouette, Sign, Charm, Slotted, Shadow and Shadow Blackout. These cartridges are made for a cricut personal cutter and can be used at home.
Sign - looks like a picket sign outline with a letter on it. Slotted - Gives you an oval shape with a slot at the top cut out where thread or ribbon can be passed through. Charm - Your cutout of a shape or letter will have a circle at the top so you can attach. Silhouette - Gives you a nice outline to your cutout which saves money if you wanted to create that affect as you don’t have to make another cutout slightly larger. Shadow - The size of the cutouts are a little larger so you can then stick them behind the normal cutout as a shadow effect. This makes them look 3D. Shadow Blackout - just shadows in block with no cutouts in the middle of the shapes or letters i.e the 0 would not have the center cut out. The last two features are on all cartridges.
Look at the different features you get on each cartridge before you make a purchase and make sure you know whether you want a shape cartridge, a font one or whether you are looking for a basic that has both. One cartridge in particular I would highly recommend is the Christmas Cheer cartridge as it has some fantasize detailed shapes on it. It does not have an alphabet though, it is just a shape cartridge.
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