My younger sister is staying with me during her summer off from college. She is a creative soul and enjoys writing letters and mailing them to friends in parts of the world were they don't use email. (Hard to believe, but it's true.) On occasion, I like browsing through recipe and travel magazines. Kid sister enjoys browsing through these same magazines as well...and cutting her favorite words and phrases out of them to paste into her letters! This makes trying out a cool recipe impossible at times because the key ingredients happened to be located on the same part of the paper where she decided to clip a catchy word or phrase that "caught her eye". The absence of these words and phrases "catches my eye" as well, especially when the mutilated subscription is the Bon Appetit August 2008! "At least let me read the magazine first before you ship the best portions of it to some foreign land!" I said.

It occurred to me that this dilemma may be my fault to a certain degree. I had never informed her that she does not have to go rummaging through publications to find fabulous and interesting fonts to use in her letters when she has an entire collections of Cricut cartridges and a Cricut machine of her choice available for her use 24 hours a day. She had assumed that I wouldn't want her playing with my toys. Problem solved. Little sister now knows that she can use my Cricut products at any time to produce any catchy word or phrase in any font, size, or color she pleases. Moral of the story: Share your toys and play nice. Everyone is happy. Now I will be able to cook up some fun dishes with all the right ingredients.

A: Basic guidelines are that the material (paper or otherwise) needs to be stiff and firm enough for the Cricut blade to drag through it. So a more stretchy fabric would probably not work, unless it had Wonder-Under or something to keep it in place.

This week I got a hold of a couple of new cartridges. I was so excited to explore them that as soon as I got home I pulled out my Cricut and started to see what I could cut. I first explored Graphically Speaking, because I was curious as to what it was all about. This cartridge is full of phrases and other words. This cartridge is a wonderful addition to the Cricut cartridge family. The creative features that come with this cartridge are: Phrases, Word, Jumbled, Type, Icon, and Icon Blackout.

The two creative features that I am going to write about this week are Jumbled and the original shapes. I love how the letters are all jumbled together, but form a word. This will look great on a scrapbook page or school project. Some examples of the words that come on this cartridge are: Nature, Together, Water, Memories, Imagine, Experience, Comfy, Innocent, Genuine, Boy, Girl, Freedom, Friend, Precious, Journey, Content, Journal, Delicious, Fragile, Travel, Fabulous, Play, and all the numbers from zero to nine. The numbers will look wonderful on a birthday page or a wedding anniversary scrapbook page. Any of these words would make fun accents to a girls or boys scrapbook page you could also use these examples in a party invitation or trip scrapbook pages. These Jumbled words can be used for any type of situation (see picture).

The other feature that I wanted to shout from the roof tops regarding this cartridge is all the shapes and images that are included. Some of the images that are included are Tree, and title "The Great Outdoors" which is perfect for family trips or holiday vacations. This treat would even make a great accent to pictures that are taken in the park or on a picnic. "You & ME" is another one of my favorite because this would make a great Valentine's Day card or on your scrapbook page. "Memory Ln." that is in the shape of a street sign would look great on scrapbook page or make the sign really big with Vinyl then place it on the wall next to a bunch of family photos that show all the fun times you have done tings together as a family. The words "Dream Big" and "Think Big", "24/7" and "It's about time" in a circle. Additional words are: "School Zone" with a big rectangle that could be used as picture frame or a journal tag, "SG" and "Sweet Girl" (see picture), "Serendipity" with a sunflower, "made in USA" next to a star, "Unique" placed in a circle that is made out of dots, "Got Kids?" placed on a green circle, "Life is Good", and "Handle with Care" placed on a box.

This cartridge has a varity of shapes, from rectangles, circles, hearts, boxes, arrows, the "=40" sign, divider card, and all the numbers have their won border created out of that number (see picture) besides a different type of school notebook, there is even some squares that have a design on them and a few squares that have a lace type border. They would make a great accent to any photos on a scrapbook page.

There is so much in this cartridge that I have barely touched the surface. Check out next week as I explore the rest of the creative features and share what else is in the incredible cartridge. Happy Cricuting!!

Crafty Kimber

A: There are two things you can do. First you can go the message board and under Circut suggestions you can make a post of what you want the cartridge to do or be. Or second you can call us at 1-877-727-4288 Monday through Friday 7am to 6pm (MST) and we can write down your suggestions.