Oh my - I love my Cricut Mini!

Yeah yeah, I know... I've only had it 48 hours... but I'm seriously starting to find what I can do with it - I have a loooong way to go but I'm really pleased with what I have managed to do so far.

Spent Thursday morning pacing around my flat waiting for Parcelforce to arrive, which it finally did at about 12.30pm... ripped the box open to find this cute little machine, instructions etc - but no UK power lead... so a quick phonecall to Angela at Craft at Home and she said she'd put one in the post to me.

However, that was going to take a few days to get to me, and I was itching to get started... and by now my friend Tim had arrived and was laughing at me... then pointed out that the US power cord merely plugged into a standard transformer using a universal 'D' connector - just like the one that I use on the radio in my kitchen... so as a temporary measure I swiped the radio power lead, plugged it in and off we went...

Didn't take too long to get everything installed and up and running, even managed to successfully redeem the code for the free Cricut content for the craft room software - you get Cricut Font and Basic Shapes which is 3 alphabets and loads of brilliant shapes to use - and then I sat down to play.

And play. And play some more. And watch the tutorial video's again whilst playing - copying what they were doing to teach myself what to do. Luckily, as I have spent several years using DTP and graphics drawing software, I found the craft room quite easy to use, but can see how someone who is not used to that type of program could get easily bogged down.

The hours passed... Tim left me to it 'cos he could see he wasn't going to get any sensible conversation out of me... my fella even briefly popped in, took one look at me giggling at the machine and wisely beat a retreat to the kitchen to make me a cup of tea... and after a while even he went home for his tea and left me alone... and I'm still having a whale of a time - linking the cartridges I own, cutting images out of each one to see how they worked... looking for more video's on Youtube to see what else I could do and generally having a great time.

Eventually my stomach decided to let me know it was supper time - blimey it was 9pm... wondered why it was getting dark and cold in the lounge... so I quickly nuked something and then it was back to my Cricut and more videos and more cutting... it's a good thing Angela popped a lovely pack of 12x12 paper into the box with the Cricut 'cos I can see me going thru loads whilst I experiment - having said that, the paper is too nice to 'waste' on trials but luckily I have a load of plain cheap cardstock I can use instead. The Cricut Mini mat is 8.5 inches by 12 inches, so A4 paper/card works a treat - I can see me investing in a few generic pads of that size in the sales!

Time flies when you're having fun, so they say - at 1.15am I found myself posting on UKScrappers about something and being horrified at the time - good thing I had Friday booked off work... I eventually got to bed around 3am (and no I didn't take it to bed with me lol... altho the thought did cross my mind...)

So here she is - in all her glory - with her cutting mat (already showing major signs of wear in the top left corner!)... she's about half the height of my Cricut Personal (the original/first machine that came out) and certainly a heck of a lot lighter. She's connected via USB to my laptop and all designing is done via the online craft room (god help me when I lose internet access which happens from time to time...). This does mean that I won't personally be able to take it to my scrapbook crops as I have no way of connecting my laptop to the web when I'm out and about which is a shame (yeah I know I could get a dongle but that costs money which I don't have...)

So, Friday was spent playing some more and reading up loads of blogs and finding out more about the Cricut Mini - I hadn't realised just how new a beast it is, cos it was apparently only released in November 2011. I've never had anything craftwise that is so brand new! I even turned down the option of going down t'pub on Friday nite, preferring to stay in with my Mini and carry on faffing around with her (mind you, the deadly state of the pavements around here that are still caked in ice, and the sub-zero temperature may have had something to do with it too!)

So - to sum up - I am one very happy bunny - and I'm determined to make the most of this machine and get it to cut loads of stuff that I've designed myself - and my next post will show off something I've done today... but I'm in dire need of a cuppa so you'll have to wait a few minutes... :-)