It has arrived!

My Cricut Explore arrived on Wednesday! I have been eagerly awaiting it's arrival since I pre-ordered it on March 12. I think (ok I KNOW) I was driving my hubby nuts talking about it and all the things it is supposed to be able to do. lol

First thing I noticed is that it weighs a ton! I have an Expression and the Explore weighs more than that one! I have been ordered not to lift or move it due to my back issues. Good thing I had already set up a new home for it! haha

And it is so...hmm, for lack of a better word....sleek looking.  :-)  If you haven't seen them and you like Cricut, you should head over to Cricut.com and take a look.

I belong to the Let's Learn Cricut Explore facebook group and they are having a challenge to decorate your new machine. So, what was my very first project? Yep, I cut vinyl for the first time ever!

Cricut machines have always been able to cut vinyl but you had to manually set everything and hope that you were right because if not you just ruined a sheet of vinyl....not something I wanted to do so I steered clear. But people in the group kept saying with the Explore there is no guess-work. Boy were they right!

Here is my decorated Explore.

The cats are from the Meow cartridge. The one on the right looks like Minnie when she does her 'pet me pet me" dance lol
The light pink butterfly is from the Pink Journey cartridge, the dark pink is from Florals Embellished, I think. And the vines are from Picturesque.

I was blown away at how easy it was! Now I want to put vinyl on EVERYTHING!!! lol

See!!!!! lol  The vines are from October 31st, the rooster is from Wall Décor and more. :-)

But, of course, the primary thing I am used to cutting is cardstock. Now don't get me wrong, I love my Expression....obviously since I have been posting only things cut with it for the past several months. But, as noted in my prior post with the panda and rice bowl, it does not do great at tiny cuts. I plan on doing a comparison of the rice bowl cut this weekend. I will show you the results.....I'm thinking the Explore is going to win based on the following tag.

I made this as the gift tag for hubby's anniversary gift. (we spent our honeymoon in SF and I found out that Cricut has an SF image set. Who knew???)

The cable car and Fisherman's Wharf wheel with crab are both from the San Francisco set. The ticket, sorry, I don't remember. But on the Design Space you can search for any image and I was searching for a ticket and it has dozens and I just chose one. :-)

Oh yeah, the Explore also writes! It wrote the words on the tag. How cool is that?!

See how precise that crab is? He is just under an inch and all those little legs and claws are cut perfectly! I was truly impressed!

So, now I need to design an anniversary card and some Easter cards. The wind is blowing and it is spitting rain. Definitely a good day to stay in and play.  :-)