New cricut product that works great with Disney Carts About This Page:

[GATechGal]

Last week I ordered a new product that you can use with your cricut - cricut gelly pens. What really sold me on them was a layout that the creator had on her blog (you can see it at Scrappy-go-Lucky about half way down). It was of Tinkerbell sitting down and is (of course) off the Tinkerbell cart. Now I had just spent an entire day trying to get all the layers cut out in a 4.5" size and this one was WAY nicer than mine. What she suggest that you do is use the black gelly pen to draw the background image (the one that puts in all the cuts so you know where to put the other layers in) on white paper. Then hit the load paper button again (without taking the paper out to get back to the beginning) or just make sure that you notice on your E machine where the starting location of your pen is, switch back to the blade housing, and use the blackout layer to cut the outline of the figure. Then you take your image and chalk or marker in the skin tones and eyes and lips. Finally layer on the hair and clothes as normal. What makes this really wonderful is that all that wonderful face detail is drawn in and looks wonderful. And I really liked my chalked skin color better than just regular paper - I can get it just the right shade for that princess.

The instrustions do mention that you can have some skipping with the gel pen, but that using the multi-cut feature on your cricut and slowing down the speed should over come that. Also, they mention that using Design Studio or SCAL will result in a more jagged drawing (because these programs use more datapoints than just the carts). I also found this to be true. I did examples with both DS and right off the cart.

Now I did run into a few glitches. I only have a baby bug. And it would seem that on this cut (and maybe others I haven't tried them yet) that hitting the load paper button doesn't get the blade exactly back to the same spot (although it looks like it) and when I cut with the blackout it was off by just a bit (like a quarter of an inch) on the right side. But the drawings on the face were very lovely just using the cart. I did experience some skipping, and that was unfortunate as the baby bug doesn't have a multi-cut button. So I ended up using DS which DOES have a multi-cut feature in it, and I could exactly place my blackout cut so that it cut just perfectly. The down side of DS is that it totally ignores the pressure and speed settings on your machine and just uses some internal settings. And the drawing was a bit more jagged. But not awfully so.

So all in all I was very pleased with this product and really look forward to using it when I'm able to get an Expression machine. I've got pictures where I show the same Tinkerbell all layered and one that was drawn so you can compare them. I'll try and post them later.

[LilMarcieMouse]

Thats a great idea. thanks for shareing it and the link with us. I'll have to look into the pens.

[GATechGal]

Here are my photos:

On the left:
Comparison of Layered vs Drawn (the chalking looke better in person)

On the right:
Here's the problem of cutting Tink just with the cart on a baby bug:

[Carousel96]

THanks. Are these a new product? Or are these the fat marker/pens they've been selling? I never did figure out what they were for -- maybe now I know!

[GATechGal]

This is from a separate company. They are small skinny gel pens that fit into a housing sort of like the one that the blade fits into only it's magnetic and the pens have metal (or another magnet I'm not sure which) at thier tops so that's how they are held in. The housing and 12 colored gel pens come in the set. And they also sell the gell pens separatly so if you use one up you don't have to replace the whole set. I'm probably going to be ordering more black soonish.

[maggieworkman]

Originally Posted by GATechGal

Here are my photos:

On the left:
Comparison of Layered vs Drawn (the chalking looke better in person)

On the right:
Here's the problem of cutting Tink just with the cart on a baby bug:

I see the difference that you are talking about. However, I'm impressed with both of them!!! The one with the pen does look more realistic though.

Maggie

[GATechGal]

I really felt like in the layered one (on the left) poor Tink looked cross-eyed. And to took several trys to get the face cut out since the features are so small and tend to tear the paper. I think that the new pens are really going to help me use my princess carts more. And you can really match the skin tone to what you want - so I can go lighter on Snow White and darker on Jasmine.

[Carousel96]

my Christmas wish list is getting longer!

[maggieworkman]

How can they do 1/4 inch lettering if the smallest size on the Cricut is 1"?

Maggie

[GATechGal]

Smallest on the baby bug is 1", but on the Expression is 1/4 inch.

[maggieworkman]

So is the Baby Bug the old version that only does 8 or 9 inch wide things?

I didn't know that was the name of what I had!!


Maggie

[GATechGal]

The baby is the older one that only has the 6 X 12" mats. I though that was all I would need, but I didn't realize the extra features on the E. They're coming down in price, so I think I may be able to get one if the yard sale goes well.