Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter - Which One Matches Your Requirements?

The range of Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter machines is designed to automate some of the more fiddly crafting tasks. If this is the first time you've read about them, you'll find useful information here on how to take your home crafting up a notch. It could be that you know all about them, but just need some pointers to help pick the correct model to suit your requirements. In the following paragraphs I'm aiming to help you to make your decision as to which Cricut cutter you require. After reading this, you'll understand what points you should take into account, and how each machine compares for each of these points.

The four models we’ll be looking at are the standard Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter, the Cricut Create, the Cricut Expression and the Cricut Cake.

To start with, I'll talk about the Cricut Cake machine. It is different to the others, because it is designed with one purpose in mind. Whereas the other models are for paper crafts and similar, this model is solely for decorating cakes. Decorations are cut from sheets of edible material like cookie dough or gum paste. The machine itself could be likened to a food version of the Cricut Expression - the operation and versatility is similar, it is just that this one has alterations to allow food to be safely put through. That means parts that need to be cleaned can be easily removed. For cutting edible materials rather than paper based materials, you have to get this machine. This model retails from around $270.

Besides the Cricut Cake, all of the remaining Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter devices are for paper based cutting and similar. In each of these three devices, your choice of cutting material includes vellum, card, paper and vinyl. You'll base your final decision about the one that suits you on your personal cutting requirements, and how much you are going to spend on it.

Budget

1. Working from low to high, you can get the standard Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter new for as little as $100.
2. Next up is the Cricut Create, coming in at $160 and upwards.
3. Finally Cricut Expression, that costs in the region of $230.

Requirements

It is important to note that all Cricut Cartridges are suitable for use in every model in the range. As such, with any of the machines, your choice of design is only limited by the cartidges you've bought. You only really have to think about two factors when making your selection. The first is how big (both in terms of the machine itself, and the output designs) and the second is the cut functions.

- If portability is what you're after, your choice is between the Cricut Create and the basic Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter. Both models can produce designs up to about 11-1/2 inches in size. The Cricut Create has a much wider range of cutting functions.

- If portability isn't a factor, Cricut Expression is the best model, but is large enough to really need to be kept in the same place. It has the largest array of cut options, and outputs designs as big as 23 1/2 inches.

If you use these criteria when making you decision, you can't so wrong in finding the best Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter for your needs.

Now you know which Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter model is right. I recommend more reading on the original Cricut Personal Electronic Cutter, Cricut Expression, Cricut Create, and Cricut Cake so you know how to use them before you buy one.