The investment of a Cricut™ Personal Electronic Cutter is essential to paper crafting. I love mine and I am looking forward to upgrading to the latest model. There are currently 3 versions of the machine and each cuts a variety of materials without a computer. Oodles of cartridges offer an endless assortment of shapes, letters, and phrases; there’s something for every occasion. The ever advancing accessories alone could sell this thing but in today’s unpredictable economic climate, dropping a couple of hundred dollars on a hobby machine may seem completely out of the question. This blog post will help you see that this is one investment that will actually have you seeing green in no time; both in your wallet and on all of your Cricut merchandise. 

 LEFT: The Cricut™ Create is the new kid on the block. This compact
cutter combines the best features of the first 2 generations of the Cricut™ machine: portability and the ability to cut size .25″ up to 11.5″ on a 6″ x 12″ cutting mat. New functionality is also introduced. Read about it in #10.

1. Never buy cut chip board again, make your own - These cutting machines are beasts! They cut through many types of material, including chip board so you can create your own chip board in the size you want.

2. Create your own personalized stamps cheaper than you can buy them - Personalized stamps are costly and can take weeks to receive. If you already have acylic blocks, you can purchase the stamp creating refill sheets for approximately $8. Other wise a starter kit is available for $20. Either avenue is cheaper than ordering personalized stamps.

3. Favors made easy - Showers, weddings, parties, class room treats, whatever you need a favor for, you’ll be thanking the Provo Craft gods for how easy the Cricut cutters make creating favors. The Bags Tags and more cartridge offers endless favor possibilities and options available in many other cartridges, like box available in this one, allow you to create boxes and bags in any color or size to suite your theme or purpose.

4. Beautiful scrap book layouts for pennies! - I don’t care what anybody says, Scrapbooking is pricey! The cost of Stickers and embellishments adds up fast and you get little product for your hard earned dollars. Why purchase embellishments and sticker sets when you can make your own? With oodles of cartridges on the market and an easy to use software suite, you can create one of a kind scrapbooking layouts with ease. With your Cricut machine at your finger tips you will always have access to embellishments and the ability to to create lettering an phrases.

5. Look out Hallmark - The last time I purchased a card from Hallmark, it cost $5! I love to give cards but with a special occasion nearly every week, $5 quickly turns into hundreds of dollars. Yea “budget” cards are available but why waste the money when you can create your very own beautiful, sentimental, hand made, personalized card for a fraction of what it costs to buy one? Today I bought 50 sheets of card stock for $3.99. After a couple of passes through my Cricut machine, I will have dozens of beautiful looking cards that I made my self. There are cartridges with the ability to create the card form and envelopes. The savings here alone are endless.

6. Trendy Home decor made easy, cheaply and personalized! - Vinyl wall decals are all the rage right now. Favorite phases, cute graphics and holiday images are just a few of the decals being used in home decorating right now. Provo Craft offers vinyl and transfer tape so that you can create your own decals right from your personal cutter.  Store bought decals range from $10 to $50 and aren’t personalized.

7. Expensive punches aren’t necessary - Why are paper punches so darn expensive? It seems like the more useful the punch the more expensive it is. Since purchasing my cutter, I haven’t had to drop cash for any paper punches. The ability to cut in many sizes a shapes helps eliminate the need for those pricey punches.

8.  Custom make stencils - The Cricut Stencil Material allows you to create your own custom stencils to use ion home decorating or crafting projects.

Bottom line: you can purchase a Cricut cutter for $199 to $399 depending on sales and the model but if you are a frequent crafter, this is one investment you cant afford to not make.