Product Description

Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter (29-0001) The Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter is a portable machine that cuts letters, shapes, and phrases at the touch of a button. Without the need for a computer, the Cricut machine can cut characters from 1" up to 5.5" tall and 11.5" wide from a variety of materials, including vellum, paper, cardstock, and vinyl. The original Cricut machine is a cartridge-based system-it uses small, lightweight cartridges to cut complete font or shape sets. Cartridge content can be customized in up to six different ways, offering thousands of variations on each cartridge. The machine is also easy to use. Simply attach your paper to the cutting mat (it has a slightly tacky surface to hold the material in place), load it into the machine, insert your cartridge, and make your cutting selection, and press cut. Users can even control the size and the style of the cut with the machine's simple controls. The machine will quickly and electronically cut out the desired letter, shape, or phrase in seconds! This portable cutter weighs only 9 pounds and has a handle for convenient transportation. Designer carrying totes designed just for the Cricut machine further help users take the machine with them when they're on the go. The Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter comes bundled with the George and Basic Shapes™ cartridge, one 6" x 12" cutting mat, one power adapter, and user manuals

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #489 in Kitchen & Housewares
• Color: Silver
• Brand: Cricut
• Model: 29-0001
• Dimensions: 12.90" h x 9.70" w x 17.80" l, 16.06 pounds

Features

• Portable electronic cutting machine for greeting cards, scrapbooks, and other paper crafts
• Choose from 250+ designs in 12 different sizes--from 1 to 5-1/2 inches tall
• Cut letters, shapes, or phrases; works with vellum, paper, cardstock, and vinyl
• Cartridge-based system; no computer required; George and Simple Shapes cartridge included
• Measures 17-4/5 by 9-2/3 by 12-8/9 inches; 1-year limited warranty

Amazon.com Product Description
Craft enthusiasts will love the portability and convenience of this electronic cutting machine. Weighing just 7 pounds and equipped with a generous handle, the unit can be taken along when traveling or to scrapbooking parties with friends. Stylish totes, sold separately, also make it easy to bring the cutter anywhere. Ideal for greeting cards, scrapbooks, and other paper crafts, the machine uses a cartridge-based system (no computer required) for cutting thousands of beautiful letters, shapes, or phrases in a variety of sizes and styles with just the touch of a button. Simply attach the material to be cut to the included self-adhesive cutting mat, load it into the machine, insert the cartridge, make a cutting selection, and press cut. The machine will quickly and electronically cut out the desired letter, shape, or phrase in seconds. It can cut characters from 1 inch tall up to 5-1/2 inches tall and 11-1/2 inches wide from a variety of materials, including vellum, paper, cardstock, and vinyl. Customize the cartridge content in up to six different ways for thousands of variations. Accessories include a Quick Start guide, user manual, blade assembly, 6-by-12-inch cutting mat, power adapter, and a George and Basic Shapes cartridge binder, which contains a cartridge, keypad overlay, and handbook. The cutting machine measures 17-4/5 by 9-2/3 by 12-8/9 inches and carries a one-year limited warranty.

Customer Reviews

Beats the compitition hands down
This product is fantastic! If you're looking for a personal die cut system I wouldn't bother with anything else on the market right now. It is compact when closed, so it won't take up unnecessary table space. It is also very light and has a comfortable handle for travelling.

Yes, it is a bit of an investment, but it is honestly a better deal than many of the cheaper systems out there. It can cut each shape in 11 sizes from 1 inch to 5.5 inches. Most cartridges are around $90; compare that to quickutz & sizzix alphabets which retail for $150, can only cut one size, and take up a lot more storage space.

Blades are easy to replace and the cutting mats seem to last longer than cricut suggests. You'll get more life out of them by rotating the mat each time you cut and also storing it with the plastic sheet to keep dust from accumulating on the sticky surface.

I've heard of people having difficulty cutting thicker cardstock with this machine, but we have been able to cut bazzil easily by setting the blade depth to 6 and the speed & pressure to their max settings.

I've used both the Cricut and Xyron Personal Cutting System extensively and would recommend the Cricut.

Cricut is a little over rated I think
I bought this product after seeing it on tv and reading alot of reviews, everyone seemed to just love this thing. So I bought one, and I played with it and it does cut nice shapes but most everything on the George cartridge is Fonts. When I watched the tv commercial they go to great detail on how this has up to 4500 different images, fonts etc. However, if you just buy the machine which comes with the George cartridge, you have about fourty shapes, all aimed at scrap books or cards primarily, the rest is different fonts, or shaded image or black out image or out lined image of the same shape or font. I feel for the price of this thing I was key on the 4500 different images. But alas you can have more if you buy more cartridges at 39.00 on sale(if you can find them) to 90.00 regular price. Which in my estimation for another 6 cartridges would tally up to at least two or three hundred dollars. So if you buy this machine it is neat, but be prepared to fork over at least another 200.00 for cartridges. And new mats, the mat looses its sticky pretty fast. It also takes quite alot of tinkering to get the cut depth right, I used regular construction paper it worked pretty easily, although when I went to textured cardstock, it didn't cut deep enough, took alot of trial an error. Some claim to use thin sheets of compostion board in this machine, from what I used it I'am highly skeptical. I'am an avid hobbist I work with alot of mediums from paper crafting, upholstry, painting and wood work. Overall I'am not nearly as impressed as everyone else.

Cricut Is Fantastic
I was a little skeptical when I first saw the Cricut at Michael's in the display case. I debated whether or not this machine was going to have a return on the investment. I have manual die cutters (Sizzix, Quickutz, ZAZ, etc.) and many dies that I have invested in to build my collection.

I looked at several personal electronic cutters, some that required connecting to a PC. I thought Wow, I could connect to my PC and print out on my printer, then run through the cutter. After much debate, I decided to go with the Cricut for several reasons. It doesn't require a PC and is portable and lightweight, the cartridges contain so many objects and designs to cut that I could not possibly purchase nor store this many dies, creating titles is a breeze because you don't need to cut one letter at a time...it does the whole word/words in whatever size you want from 1 to 5.5 inches, it's easy to use and while it's cutting you can be doing other things, it also saves on paper. It cuts vellum to Bazzill by adjusting the pressure/depth. The only thing I would change about it is the paper size maximum which is 6 x 12 inches. It would be really fantastic to have 12 x 12, especially with the Bags, Boxes, and More cartridge.

Overall, I'm glad I purchased the Cricut and my whole family is enjoying it. I'm looking forward to future new cartridges. Thanks, what a joy!