Creating Memories Using the Cricut Imagine

So you finally bought it! After months of debating and asking yourself, "Should I or Shouldn't I?" You are the proud new owner of a Cricut Imagine! Please be honest. Did you have buyer's remorse after you took the plunge? Granted this piece of equipment is pretty pricey, but if you are a die-hard "scrapbooker", then this is probably one of your "must-haves". My mother has been wanting one of these for so long, and she finally purchased one from the Cricut web site a few months ago. I must say, she hasn't used it yet! I used it a couple of times just to get the feel of it and it is pretty cool. I set it up for her because I really didn't want her to mess it up; it would be different if she had some familiarity with the previous versions that Cricut came out with in the past, but this is her first Cricut machine EVER!

So What Type of Goodies Are In the Box?

• Included is one black and one color HP Vivera print cartridge
• Also includes a starter cartridge called Imagine More
• Includes (1) 12"x12" cutting mat
• Includes (1) adhesive-backed printable vinyl sheet (12"x12")
• Cutter blade assembly
• USB cord and power cord
• Imagine Instructional DVD, Instruction Manual
• And of course, your Cricut Imagine machine with (2) stylus pens

What a great deal for only $299! My mother was lucky to get her Imagine for such a great price. I believe Provocraft was running a promotion at the time that we purchased it, so we had to get it before the price went back up again.

Just the Facts

The Cricut Imagine is a machine that combines the capabilities of a printer and the Cricut Expression. It weighs approximately 28 pounds and is just over 2 foot wide. It's a pretty good size machine, bigger than I thought it would be.

One thing that I like about the Cricut Imagine is the fact that you can use your other cartridges from machines such as Expression, Baby Bug, Create and Cake machines as it has two cartridge slots, one on each side of the touch screen display. You just cant use your old Expression mats in the Imagine. The Imagine reads the newer mats by way of the black border guidelines. Pretty smart huh? The Imagine has some preset shapes built in already, such as a circle, square, rectangle, heart, some basic scallop shapes and a few others.

The Imagine is Gypsy compatible but you cannot use the Design Studio software, but maybe Provocraft will come up with a newer firmware update where we can actually utilize it. One can only hope!

It has the same functionality as the Expression such as fit to page, autofill, flip, etc. However, the screen shows where the image is located on the mat and therefore you don't have to worry so much about the fit to length or portrait settings.

Another cool option is the color picker, or the RGB values where you can set it to print a specific color or you can use the pre-loaded colors, shapes, and patterns on the cartridge itself. It's really fun just to play around with it and practice on 12 x 12 card stock, just don't use your quality card stock to play with. You will also want to adjust your blade's depth settings. You don't want a setting that is set to cut vinyl, when you are cutting card stock.

There are so many projects you can create with your Imagine-ation! You can create your own greeting cards or just the many different scrapbook pages with certain themes. You could be creating a scrapbook to pass down to your children when they get older, or maybe you have some wedding photos you would like to make an album for. Whatever your reason, I'm sure you will love your new Imagine machine. Have fun with it and share a project if you like! I would love to read about it.