It’s nearly here….Introducing the Cricut Explore (swoon)!!

Hello everyone.  Today I have a post to share with you introducing an amazing new electronic die-cutting machine that I am lucky enough to have been playing with for the last couple of weeks.  Let me present…..

The Cricut Explore.

A few weeks ago, along with my pals Aimes, Stephanie and Michelle I attended the UK launch event for the Cricut Explore in a swanky loft on the banks of the River Thames.  We got to meet the CEO of Cricut, Ashish Arora (such a sweet guy) along with some other amazing, gorgeous peeps both from the UK and US. It was a fabulous day and I came away totally inspired and with a renewed love for the Cricut.  And as well as giving us a fabulous day in London, Cricut also generously gave us a Cricut Explore to review and play with at home!  I know, right?  (Still pinching myself on that one!!)

The Explore was launched in the US on the Home Shopping Network a few months ago and has sold in the hundreds of thousands!  A lot of you have heard of Cricut – and, like me, a lot of you probably own one!  But wait until you see this new machine.  It’s not like all the others, oh no!  It’s in a whole other level to any Cricut machine I’ve ever used before!!  I started out with the original Cricut many moons ago and then upgraded a few years later to the Expression.  I love it I have to say, but after playing with the Explore, I’m afraid my Expression may never see the light of day again 🙁

So what is JUST SO GOOD about it?  Well, for me the most exciting element to this machine that was never available on the older models is the ability to upload ANY DESIGN YOU WANT!  Any image you can find (sticking to copyright laws of course) or indeed design yourself, can be uploaded and cut on the Explore!  I am so excited by this!  Oh, and so are my kids!  My 13 year old daughter Olivia is very into her rock bands and when I was excitedly showing her my new toy, it occurred to her that she could find her favourite band’s logos and cut out vinyl stickers for her room.  Well, let’s just say, I never got near it for the rest of the day.  Here’s what she made….

She has a growing list (as do my 4 other children) of all the things she wants to make to decorate her room!!  I think I might need to book appointments if I want to use it myself!!!  Oh and do you see that flamingo bag in the mirror??  Made that with pink, glittery, iron-on vinyl on the Cricut Explore!!

By the way – if you think you’re not “techy” enough for all of this then don’t.  I truly didn’t believe them when they said how easy it was set up, use, design with, cut etc, etc.  But it really, really is! When you get it out of the box you just connect it to your computer (Mac or PC) and then follow a couple of very simple steps to get it up and running.  You then log in to the Cricut Design Space software (free to use) and create your design on the screen choosing from thousands of images (some of which are free to use), fonts etc or, as I said, uploading your own.  Of course, you can also use any Cricut Cartridge you already own too.   There is a dial on the top of the machine that you set for what ever material you’re cutting (card, vinyl, iron-on vinyl, paper, fabric – Yes, I said fabric – and loads more) and then you load the mat and cut.  There are so many ways you can customise existing Cricut images too – resizing, welding, reversing and so on.  There’s just too much to write about in this post!!

The Cricut will be available in the UK from 16th May (this Friday) when it launches on the Create and Craft Channel and then from other retailers including Amazon and Hobbycraft from the beginning of June.  If you want some more information about how it works and why it’s the BEST.CRICUT.EVER then check out all of these places… Cricut.com, You Tube, Pinterest, Instagram, Facebook, Cricut The Blog and Twitter.

I just wanted to add that whilst I don’t work for Cricut I was given the machine to review and work with so that I could share what I thought of it with my blog readers.  My opinions are purely my own and if I didn’t love it – I would say so!!  However, I honestly do think that it’s amazing and am so grateful to both Cricut and their PR company Ranieri Communications for their generosity and kindness.

Thanks for stopping by.