Cricut Expression Electronic Cutting Machine

Living in Australia I was shocked at the prices of Cricut Expression Machines, currently around $600.00 AUD, with a couple of online shops selling on special for around $400.00AUD but the postage is horrendous. I bought my Cricut from Amazon for $166.00AUD + $56.00AUD postage and I even received it at my door in 8 days!! I was amazed at the cheap price and especially the fast cheap postage to Australia. Cartridges here in Australia can be up to $96.00AUD but there are a couple of online craft shops that have good specials. All in all I am extremely pleased with my purchase of machine and cartridges - I bought about 9 and will continue to purchase from Amazon - the postage is brilliant.I have only had my Cricut for 3 days but I love how easy it is to use and I love the variety of the cartridges. I am an avid scrapbooker and card maker and I am amazed how all my cut outs turn out with clean cuts, and the layering function is magic it makes them all come alive.I would recommend it to anyone who wants ease of use, variety and beautiful, unique, handmade cards and scrapbook pages.Thank you Cricut & Amazon.

I've lusted after the Expression since they first came out. However, because my original Cricut (which I bought when they first came out to replace the temperamental Wishblade) not only did everything I needed it to, it never gave me a problem and the smaller original's also very portable, so I couldn't seen any reason I really, really needed it. (Want and Need are such a razor's edge apart, lol.) But then I started making blank inside greeting cards through Operation Write Home for deployed troops so send back home, and suddenly, the ability to adjust my sizes to smaller intervals than those original Cricut 1/2" margins became really important. When you're talking about an A2 card, having 1/2" margins around a double matted stamped 3" circle takes up too much room. So, I ordered it from Amazon, because I trust their return policy if it didn't work, and it was perfect right out of the box. I also chose it over the upgraded version that uses a touchpad because I have a full time job writing, so I don't have the time nor inclination to deal with a learning curve. The keypad on this is exactly what I'm used to, so I was able to make card embellishments right away. As for the price of the cartridges, there are always sales online. If you sign up for various sites' newsletters, you'll get updates when things go on sale. I hardly ever pay more than $14.99 for a cartridge and can't remember when I paid more than $20. Considering all the options on each cartridge, I consider it well worth the price to have such a no-problem, do-exactly-what-I-need-it-to-do cutter.

I was excited to find an older model of the Cricut. The price was right, too! Appreciated how it was packaged and what was included. The only disappointment was, the pressure button didn’t work and there was a crack on the machine, directly under the button.

I bought my cricut a few years ago and was very happy with it at first. While it is true that the blades and pads need to be replaced fairly often I think this is true of most personal cutters. The Cricut cuts well. I cut chipboard, foam, and have even cut thick magnet with my machine without any problems. It is easy to use. It does not require any computer skills or an internet connection to get images. I make banners and all sorts of fun crafty items, including vinyl lettering. I was happy with it for a long time. However, after seeing my friends Silhouette machine and it's capabilities, I have buyers remorse. With the Cricut you are pretty much cartridge bound. Often I will buy a cartridge but I only want one or two images off the cartridge. I would much prefer to purchase single images that I actually want rather than an entire cartridge that I only use a few images from. Although the cost of the Cricut is less to begin with I think I spend way more money on images than my friends with other personal cutters. Even with their new software you can only cut images from cartridges that you purchased. I would like to be able to use images that I created and cut them on the cricut. . If you are considering buying a personal cutter and have rudimentary computer skills buy the Silhouette. Personally, I can't imagine why anyone would buy a cricut now that there are so many other options out there and Cricut is not changing how you can purchase images. I can't imagine they will stay in business very long if they continue on with their current trend.

I received my Cricut last week and I love, love, love it! On advice of others I also bought the SCAL program (not by Provo but by Sure Cuts A Lot) which allows me to use non cartridge images and since then I have cut out so many images that I don't really know what to do with them all yet. There are so many possiblilities and the Cricut is so cool that I turn it off only to turn it back on again to try something else. I've cut out Halloween images, made halloween coffin boxes, made gift bags, and just cut out images for the fun of seeing how beautiful they come out. There are also free SVG images (used with SCAL) and that's how I got my Halloween images. The one downside is that I can't stop playing with it so work and kids are getting neglected. Also, I can see my mat will lose the sticky soon with so much use but there is a youtube video out there showing how to make your mat sticky again - so when the time comes I'll give that a try. Yes it's kind of expensive but I used my credit card points to get Amazon gift certificates and I used those. I would definitely buy this again with or without gift certificates.