I Love My Cricut

I've had my Cricut now for about a year, but I feel like I'm just now really beginning to make use of it. I have used it a lot for scrapbooking, but it can do so many other things. I'm going through a pack of mats at least once a month because I'm using it so much. So even if you aren't a scrapbooker, I think you'll find many uses for one.

One of the Cricut products you can buy is vinyl sheets in black, white and brown. It can be used for a lot of things, but one of its main uses is cutting letters and designs to put on your wall. It is removable and very easy to work with.

I've been wanting to put something on my laundry room wall forever, but didn't know what I wanted. When I decided to do some lettering, this idea came to me. I think it turned out great and since it's also the entry from our garage doore I get to see it a lot. I will probably change the pictures as the boys grow, but for now I like it the way it is. The top cartridge is Doodletype and the bottom is Jasmine.

Then I moved on to my front door. I've always hated how plain and simple our front door is. I always keep some kind of wreth on it, but then I saw this idea on Bless Our Nest's blog and thought it looked really nice. I even thought about painting the front door black, but with all the white trim on the windows and white sidding on the eves, I thought it wouldn't go, so I kept it white and did the lettering in black. The cartridge is Jasmine.

Then I began thinking of ideas that I could put something behind our bed. While all of the other walls have something, I've never put anything above our bed and it bugs me. So I thought of using plates and a plate holder with the words "Happily Ever After." The words are actually one of the phrases available on the Storybook Cartridge. But after I found the exact colored plates I wanted at a flee market, iron horizontal plate holder at Hobby Lobby and finished the lettering on the plate, Kevin said no way. He has a thing about anything with any weight at all being above your head while you sleep, so he nixed my idea. So I returned the horizontal one to Hobby Lobby and bought the same one in vertical and hung it between my closet and bathroom doors. So above my bed is still empty, but I like the way it looks. You can see in the picture why I chose the color plates I did.

One afternoon I saw this tutorial for banners on a blog and thought it was so cute. She didn't use a Cricut, but I knew it would be super easy to do using the Cricut. You can see her banners here. I'm sure I'll be doing a lot more of these for holidays and such in the future.

Lastly, I came across some ideas for cute appreciation gifts for teachers. Again I knew it would be simple to make this with my Cricut, so I made this one night for Samuel's teacher. I figure she deserved some caffeine and chocolate!

If you haven't seen the infomercials for the Cricut, here's their website. You can buy them at Wal-Mart and Hobby Lobby. I've also been using it to cut fabric to make appiques for shirts for the boys. If you missed it, look here to see the shirts I made them for Easter: Eggs - Bunny.