Designing with a Cricut

My hubby, in cahoots with his parents, got me a Cricut for Christmas!  And by for Christmas, I mean they let me go get it on Black Friday when it was $100 off at Joann's.

On sale AND ready to use before Christmas?!  Yes please!

So here are a couple of misconceptions and truths I've discovered in my week or so of ownership.

*Cartridges are NOT required anymore.
         I have zero cartridges and have plenty of things that I've uploaded or things I've searched in the Cricut library.  Don't let the thought of buying cartridges turn you away.

*Fonts are not cloud based.
         While the Cricut Design Space is cloud based (meaning you access through the internet rather than just on your computer) your fonts do NOT save in the Design Space between your sessions.  You have to be sure you have that exact font on each computer you use DS on in order to have your words/spaces stay the same.  (Some recommend saving a design as a pic, but it's a lot harder to have the exact transparency that way.  I just moved all my fonts to all the computers I use.)  :)

*You can turn images transparent.
           Ideally, you'll want to save images with transparent backgrounds so you can quickly upload and cut designs.  HOWEVER- if you have something you love that isn't transparent, the DS has a magic wand button (literally) that takes out whole sections of color (ie: white background).

This was transparent, but I needed it to not print as one giant circle. So this image has 3 colors and I wanted them all cut out of different vinyl.  I was able to delete each of the layers with the DS tools in order to upload it as 3 images- one for the red rings, one for the white star and white ring, and one for the blue whatever you wanna call that space.

This one was also not transparent.  Even if it had been, I still would have had to work on it because the snowflake in the center wouldn't have cut out when I used the Cricut.  The magic wand and a few clicks later, the image was a perfect outline of what I'm going to cut.  (Ps- It's going on a frost colored shirt and I'm using white glitter heat transfer vinyl, HTV, for it.  It's going to look uh-mazing.)

Overall, it was totally worth the $179 price tag, even if I wasn't the one per say spending the money.  I have found it really easy to use for HTV cutting.  I definitely find the HTV roll material way easier to use than the HTV sample that came in the box (it didn't have transfer tape or anything).  

Here are a few of the designs I've made so far.  I'm having a blast!  Please check out my FB page!  https://www.facebook.com/TooCreativeDesigns/