I have the both the baby Cricut and the Cricut Expression, which does more than the baby one. I use it mostly to make cards and I like it. If you go on the Cricut website to the message board you can get lots of ideas on how to use it. I also read on there that on BF Walmart may be having it for 199.00 instead of the original price of like 250.00 or so.

Yachter, you could buy a board at Lowe's and have them cut it into "blocks" for her if that's what she wanted to make. However, I would imagine she would be more interested in creating banners for her room, signs on cardboard for her door at home like "no boys allowed" or like Jeanne suggested she could make cards for friends or scrapbooks for her pictures. There are tons of ideas out there, I've seen those $1 wooden frames from Michael's decorated with scrapbook paper and then some words. I just did three square glass bowls for Halloween, I'll have to get a picture taken of them to show you. Another fun thing is to personalize water bottles, book bags, and note books. These are not inexpensive however because you have to buy the cartridges for the letters and shapes and those usually run around $30 on sale. Once in awhile you can find some for less. Luvs

Sharon, using my Cricut has been one thing I have been trying to perfect. A few things that I have learned: Cut at a slow speed with a deep blade. Pressure should be set at about 5 and your blade should be at 6. I tried cutting the fabric with just my stabilizer pressed the back of the fabric and ran into problems. Recently took a lecture on using the cricut for applique and learned that if you press a shet of freezer paper to the right side of the fabric and have your stablizer on the back of the fabric it works much better. Went home and tried it and it worked PERFECT!

I started with the smaller Cricut when they first came out. I upgraded to the Cricut Expression when that came out (got it for a steal on black Friday at Walmart). Since then they have released the Cricut Make Machine. It does what the Expression does (larger cuts) only in the size of the orignal Cricut. I would highly suggest that one. It is MUCH more portable. I use it all the time to make bulletin boards and posters at work. I have done custom sign work of both business and homeowners. They have come down in price quite a bit. I really like the site ohmycrafts.com they are always having sales and coupons. Also eBay is a good source. If you can wait until Black Friday there are always good deals if that is something you like to do. My sisters are crazy for deals so they love to take my list and run on that day. As far as mats and needles. I can't tell you how long the mats last but it's a long time. Maybe 6-8 months (depending on the deep cuts) as long as you keep them clean you can re-sticky them with spray adhesive. The needles I have replaced maybe twice. I use my machine at least once a week if not everyday some weeks. There are some many tips and tricks out there on YouTube don't think that you can just do a certain few cuts on one cart there are hundreds on every cart. It may not be for everyone but I would think it would be a teachers dream! Any questions please feel free to ask!