Silhouette CAMEO "kit" question (present for wife)

Hi all,
Firstly, please excuse my ignorance on the topic,
I am but a lowly husband seeking information to guide me to a nice birthday present for my wife ;-)

I am looking at getting her a Silhouette CAMEO (as opposed to a cartridge based setup like a Cricut, etc).

I was hoping those of you with experience could guide me to the options, kits, additional items that would be best to package along with it and so forth.

Particularly - Should I buy a base unit and a specific list of add-ons - or is there a good "kit"

Secondly, is the software that comes with it sufficient - or should I look for additional, upgraded other software, etc.

The primary use would be scrap-booking, with images from clipart. (we have tons and tons of clipart, image editing programs)

Thank you so much in advance for any help and suggestions !

The Cameo machine should come with a $10. gift card to purchase designs which I would think would be good to start with.
You might want to look into a subscription to purchase more designs as it works out cheaper that way.
As far as additional "kits". That depends on what she wants to do with it....is it mostly for cutting designs for scrapbooking or is she going to use it to say, make tshirts or draw designs...
There are crystal kits for doing tshirts, flocking for tshirts, vinyl for making wall art etc....
Personally, I use it for scrapbooking and don't have a big desire to do the other stuff (although, I might purchase some vinyl as my hubby wants to make a business sign for his truck).
I did recently get the sketch pens and they are a lot of fun to draw designs with the Cameo....
It's a good idea to get an extra cutting mat and an extra blade to have for standby.
As far as the software, you can upgrade to the designer software but you might want to wait until she gets the machine and plays with it for awhile to see if she really needs it.
There is a link to see what the differences are...
http://www.silhouetteamerica.com/media/docs/silhouette-studio-version-comparison.pdf

Good Luck!
Your wife is very lucky to have a thoughtful husband like you!
Alison

...yup...what Allison said.

Extra mat and blade are very handy to have because they usually cannot be found locally (Archivers carries Silhouette supplies, but stores like Michaels/Hobby Lobby/Joanns do not.)

I would hold off on the Designer Edition of the software for now--it really helps to just learn the basic software first. However if you have a lot of SVG files you want to import into the software then you will need the upgrade.

If she goes to scrapbooking crops then the tote is pretty nice to have for travelling. It carries the machine, a laptop, and has extra space for a few more supplies. Other bags can be used, but this is made for the machine and keeps it nice and safe.

thank you both for your help and insight !