The Cricut in action

Tracy suggested that I do a step-by-step post on a Cricut project to show what the Cricut is and what it does. I thought it was a good idea. I spent the majority of my birthday afternoon playing with the Cricut and this is one of the projects I created.

The first project I did for this tutorial was to make a birthday card for my friend Beth.

So, obviously, the first step is to get out the Cricut and set her up. (Isn't she lovely? I think so)

The next step in this particular project is to choose your cardstock for your card. I chose this nice orange. It's actually a little brighter than the picture shows. (I couldn't regulate the lighting for these pictures. Sorry)

Then you select your contrasting paper to use for the designs. And you position your paper on the cutting mat. The cutting mat has a slightly sticky surface so the paper sticks to it and does not slide around during the cutting process.

Next, you load the mat into the Cricut, select the design you want to cut and select how large or small you want the design. You can also adjust the pressure of the cutting blade depending on the type of material you are cutting. Then you press "cut" and let her do her thing.

Once the cutting is completed, you press the "unload paper" button and it ejects itself. Then you peel away your paper.......

...... and reveal your design. Ta-da!

I then repeated the steps above with different paper to cut out these butterflies

and the words "Happy Birthday."

Then I assembled the card by glueing the designs and the letters to my cardstock for the final product:

I hand wrote her a sweet little note inside and attached it to her gift. Overall, I was pleased with this project and the ease of it.

The possibilities with this little machine are endless. Now that I have one I've been doing other research and I keep finding more ideas and projects to use it for. It really does seem to be limitless at this point.

I've done a few other little projects but I hesitate to post those yet because some of them are turning into Christmas presents and I don't want to spoil the surprises. So, you'll just have to wait to see them later...........