Cricut, Slice and Silhouette Oh My

Hey Crafters,

I was just wondering if any of you have the above die cut machines. I want to know which is the most popular, or which one is the best. I'm not trying to start a crafting brawl I'm just curious. Which is your weapon of choice: Cricut (Experssion or Personal Cutter), Making Memories Slice or Quickutz Silhouette. Why did you choose the one you chose?

I don't have any of them, but maybe some day.

Thanks for your input

Well I have the cricut personal cutter and now I want the expression, for the different range in sizes that it can do. My husband is getting me the slice for a present next month (he already told me) and I wanted that because the cartridges for it are cheaper and I can use it for fonts and embossing.

I have a Slice. I bought it because of cost. It is cheaper than the others. I love all that it has to offer... so much new things being released. But, each does something that the other doesn't. So, I would say it is all a personal choice as to what you would use the most and budget constraints.

I have the cricut expression and I just love it! I can't imagine scrapping w/o it!

I use the bosskut gazelle. It is like the Silhouette, but it cuts up to 12x12. I LOVE it.

I love my Personal Cricut I have had it since it was the one and only and so far have had no reason to upgrade. Although I will when this one croaks.
My other Love is the Big Shot Electronic. It is so awesome and easy to use and uses every companies dies. JMO

I've wanted to get a digital cutter for a long time. I had decided on the Gazelle for several reasons, and hubby was going to get it for my birthday next month.

However, now I see another company is getting ready to release a new craft cutter that uses no cutting mats and can cut super wide. It should be out by the holidays, I think they are called ecraft Personal Cutting System, but it is hard to find information.

I suppose now I will postpone buying the Gazelle until I see if this new cutter is all it is cracked up to be. But it is supposed to be quite a bit cheaper than the Gazelle, and around the price of the Cricut.

I have the slice. I bought it because I have used quickutz for 5 years and I love it (the squeeze and revolution) however the dies are very pricy and I wanted something good for letters. The slice is great. The cartridges are inexpensive and they have a lot to choose from already. The only draw back is that it only does 4x4 I don't see a need for cutting anything bigger at this point.

I love my silhouette, there is a bit of a learning curve but it cuts all TTF fonts and you can get thousands of free files on the internet, they even have some here.

I have the Silhouette and I love it. I wanted a machine that could cut any font on my computer, with no need to buy any cartridges or additional software. I've found it fairly easy to use and I use it often.

So Ive come to the conclussion I love my QuicKutz Silhouette more than my Cricut machine. The cricut has been great to me, dont get me wrong, but I can hook the silhouette up to my computer and do so much more cause on their website I can download pretty much anything. So far there hasnt been something Ive come up with they didnt have. Aside from all that cause I can hook it up and download from the website I dont have to spend so much money on the cartridges anymore so Im spending almost 1/3 what I was. If your thinking about expanding your scrapbooking supplies you should check it out. Also if your going to buy one I would recommend this seller ** Edited per board rules

I am in love with my silhouette SD. I had an old blue wishblade that I liked, but hated that I couldn't use it without my computer. The SD fixed that problem. There are SO many free files available on the web for it, and I got an unlimited subscription to the silhouette digital store for only $14.99 a month, a bargain (for me anyway) since they come out with so many new designs every week. I just love that I never have to buy any cartridges, can resize everything to exactly what I want, and have thousands of fonts to choose from. Just my 2 cents. : )

I love your subject line....I posted the exact same one in the Beginner section :).

I recently purchased the Silhouette and LOVE LOVE LOVE it! I haven't had time to really get down to the nitty gritty of everything but I adore this machine so far!

I was really curious about this, too, so thanks for posting it.

I'm waiting for the day-after-Thanksgiving sales here to go cutting for a system. We'll see what the best deal is. What, precisely, is the difference between a basic Cricut and an Expression?

• JayMKay Said:

The basic Cricut has a 6 x 12 cutting mat and the expression has a 12 x 12 and a 12 x 24 cutting mat so you can cut bigger letters/images. There are a few features that are not available on the original bug but are available on the Create (which is the 6 x 12 mat with the expression features). Features include being able to flip an image, fit to page (will automatically cut as big as your paper allows), fill page (cuts as many as will fit on your paper).
I started with the original but now have the expression and really love being able to cut things to fit on my 12 x 12 pages! It is great for cutting scalloped circles and such. I use mine for all my letters and many embellishments.

I would totally go with a Cricut!!!! As soon as you get it, get yourself http://www.craftedge.com/purchase/purchase.php?rfid=6424888&ref=08e9717dfe7f21bb6485b5b0ef3e785f and the world is your oyster. I haven't bought one single cartridge yet and I most likely won't.

Here is part of an email that I sent to a friend for more info to consider, also check out my blog too, I have SCAL freebies posted(which can be cut by your cricut if you have the SCAL software.

"Now you have to check out all the free font sites, find any wingdings, webdings and fonts and the SCAL will cut it. If you are comfortable with Photoshop or Illustrator, you could then design your own cuts and convert them to the appropriate file type using a free program called Inkscape, just google. This is what I do.

You can also search online for free svg files, which are the file type that SCAL recognizes (it stands for scalable vector graphics), as well as .scut files which are SCAL project files. If you are going to use other people's stuff, you would have to check the terms of use and see what you are allowed to use it for(my stuff isn`t allowed for commercial use for instance, but is allowed for personal). This is why it is extremely beneficial to design your own stuff because then there is no possibilty of copyright infringement.

Check out dailyfont.com, awesome fonts!!! ENJOY."

Hope this helps make a more informed decision.

I fully agree with "Tricia". I love my Cricut Expression and own only 1 cartridge (the one that came with it.)

I use SCAL & SCAL2 and download practically anything I want to cut. (You have to have 1 Cricut cartridge for SCAL to work). I have even made and cut out silouhettes of my husband in his karate stance. You don't waste paper using it either. You can see what you are printing and can place the design anywhere on the mat. You can even cut 6x6 squares of 4 different colors and cut it all at 1 time.

I use Inkscape with SCAL and now with the SCAL2 (upgrade) it has it built in. There are plenty of sites to download any fonts, wingdings, dingbats for free. Also plenty of sites to download (SVG or SCUT)files to use and most of them offer a free one (sometimes daily) and there are plenty to purchase at a very low price. You see, you can order just what you want without having to get a cartridge where you may not have but a couple of favorites on it.

The only way I'll buy a cartridge is if it's $10 or less. The SCAL only cost 1 price and I have downloaded humdreds of FREE files and have used so many in my LOs.

You can download a trial...check it out !!!

I have the Silhouette and love it. It is super easy to install and use! I love it. Mine came with a $200 gift card to buy images from the website (got it from qvc). My vote is for the silhouette!

I have the Cricut Expression.
I did a little bit of research, reading up on blogs, etc. regarding the different machines out there.

I think Cricut was best for me. It is easy to use. I LOVE how it can use 12x12 paper. So far I've used it on most of my cards and LOs I've made since I got it. I find at the end of the day you do save money not buying alphas, etc.