As a child I was a major fan of Saturday morning cartoons. My siblings and I woke each other up at 5:45 a.m. so we could be sure to catch the beginning of 6:00 a.m. programming. We ate cold cereal in front of the television and watched approximately 10 minutes of what we called the "off-air color stripe test" before the anxiously awaited cartoon programs began. I was particularly fond of the The Justice League and all the super heroes on that show, and secretly wished that Superman was my boyfriend. My sister had already "called" Superman so my "boyfriend" was Batman. During commercials we pretended to fly around with our super friends and save the world, aka: the front room. Although Saturday morning cartoons are no longer part of my Saturday morning ritual, it is amusing to see that my nephews and nieces enjoy playing the same games I played in yesteryear. Thanks to several Cartoon Channels, they can view cartoons any day they please.

The thrill of learning about new cartridge releases is always fun. Guess what? Several new cartridges are scheduled for release soon. Among these are the Superman Activity cartridge and Batman Activity cartridge! Holy smoke Batman! Wow, how fun is that!? "To the Batmobile Robin! No! To the Cricut machine!"

I shall be sure to create super crafts and several of Clark Kent's glasses to go along with the super capes my sister has sewed for her kids. We'll think of a clever way to construct a telephone booth for those little heroes to use. "Up, up, and away!"


Happy Cricuting :-)

Many of you have been wondering about if the new cartridges are on DesignStudio yet. We have provided an Update!

Here are the Cartridges included in this update:

Pink Journey, Gypsy Wanderings, Gypsy Font, A Child's Year, Everyday Paper Dolls, From My Kitchen, Picturesque, Serenade, Sweethearts, Winter Woodland, Disney's Hannah Montana, Jubilee, Life is a Beach, Lyrical Letters, Simply Sweet, Nickelodeon's SpongeBob Squarepants, Stamping, Stand and Salute, and Daisy Chain.

If you are missing any of those cartridges in your DesignStudio then you will need this update.

Please click on this link: http://www.cricut.com/cds/Update.aspx

You will need to create an account on the website if you haven't already done so, they are free.

Then you will need to click on the second green download button. It is under the DesignStudio Font packs.

Also please make sure that you save it, instead of running it. For some reason there is an error that happens when you try to run it and it won't work. However, if you save it to your desktop or where ever you can and then open it up from there, the error won't come up.

I never knew how many young girls loved Hannah Montana until I went to a birthday party and she was the whole theme. The cake was decorated with a paper image of Hannah Montana and that's then I hit upon a new idea for Cricut die cuts. You probably have already thought of this idea, it never entered my mind util just the other day. Why not cut multiple Hannah Montana images and layer them on a cake to make a 3-D image? Hummmm that's something I am going to have to try. To finish up this new cartridge that has been added to the Cricut family: you receive a full upper and lower case alphabet, also numbers and some images. The creative features are: Pop Princess, Daddy's Girl, Music, Rock Star, Shadow, and Daddy's Girl Shadow.

The Shadow feature will complete this cartridge's regular font. Likewise, the Daddy's Girl Shadow feature complements the Daddy's Girl font. Now you have two ways to layer two of the fonts on this cartridge. The Rock Star font comes with a star on each of the letters, and when you press the shift button the star on the letter is solid. So you can have the Rock Star font in two different ways. The Daddy's Girl font has nice simple straight lines; they are thin lines which are completely different from the regular font. I love all the fonts that come on this cartridge and think they complement each other very well.

A few of the images that I really like that come on this cartridge are: the brackets symbol with the Music feature is the ends of a musical score. You have a Hannah Montana in a variety of poses, dancing, upper body shot, and singing on stage. I love the princess crown under the Rock Star feature the phrase "Ready 2 Rock". You receive a microphone under the Rock Star feature, three different styles of stars, a heart in a star charm, and I love the hearts on the music score. For all the music lovers out there in Cricut crafting land, this cartridge comes with a ton of different types of music notes, they would be perfect for use in music notes, scrapbook pages, concert announcements, party invitations, etc. Another favorite frame that I love is the crown frame you can find with Pop Princess feature. I also enjoy the butterfly in different styles: there is a butterfly on a guitar, music bar, and a butterfly that has tons of swirls.

Here is an example from the message board of what you can create using this cartridge. CraftyLorna created a wonderful name using the music score as a background and then the letters of a special name. Check out the pic (above) and her thread on the website.

You can check out other ideas of what you can create with this cartridge on the message board. Check back next week to see what I explore next.

Crafty Kimber

A. Possible Solution 1 - Does the power button itself glow green? And, if so, are there just squares displayed in the LCD? The Cricut machine will need to be serviced. Contact Cricut Customer Service toll free at 1-877-727-4288 or e-mail them at support@cricut.com.

Possible Solution 2 - Make sure the power switch has been firmly pressed.

Possible Solution 3 - Make sure the power adapter is plugged into a live outlet, both parts of the adapter are plugged together, and the adapter end is completely plugged into Cricut machine.

Possible Solution 4 - Check the power adapter is plugged in. There should be a green light glowing on the face. If not, it may be defective and needs to be replaced. You can find a releacement here.