Many crafting enthusiasts have fallen in love with their personal electronic die-cut machine, the Cricut. A new addition to the already popular product is the development of a software program created just for Cricut users.

Cricut Design Studio is a computer software program created by Provocraft, the designers of the Cricut machine. While the machine itself allows the user to cut various shapes and fonts in a rage of sizes, the Cricut Design Studio takes it to a whole new level. Simply connect the Cricut to the computer via a USB port, install the software, and unleash a whole new dimension of crafting.

The main benefit of the Cricut Design Studio is the ability for users to weld, or connect letters together to form a single cutting. Gone are the days of gluing each letter one at a time. Now letters, phrases, and shapes can be welded together before cutting making it faster and easier than ever to add cuttings to projects.

Another benefit of the Cricut Design Studio is that the shapes and letters can be manipulated extensively before cutting. Users are no longer limited to only adjusting the size, but can now change the shape properties to better support their overall design. Each image can be stretched, slanted and flipped to get the exact look the crafter is needing.

While the Cricut Design Studio has benefit after benefit, my personal favorite is the ability to incorporate images from various cartridges into one design. The user can now design with all the cartridge options at once instead of being limited to cutting with one cartridge at a time.

Advanced and ultra-creative users have created awe inspiring projects by combining several different cartridges into one incredible cutting.

The Cricut Design Studio is, in my opinion, a necessity for every Cricut owner. While there is a learning curve to it, once it is understood the creative options are absolutely unlimited. The Cricut and the Design Studio have become a must-have resource for every scrapbooker and card maker today.

You finally purchased the Cricut Design Studio software. Most likely your next question is, “Now what do I do?” Here are seven things you need to know to jump start your learning of the program.

You can design with all of the cartridges, but you can only cut with the ones you have. Cricut Design Studio has every available cartridge loaded into the program. You can create all kinds of cutting files with any cartridge they offer. While that is fun for experimenting, just remember that when you go to cut the Cricut will ask you to load the specific cartridge used.

You can use more than one cartridge in a cutting. The options are endless. Bring letters and images from any cartridge into the cutting you are designing. When you are ready to cut, the Cricut will ask you to load each cartridge you used.

Connecting letters together to form one cutting is referred to as welding. In order to weld letters together it is important to remember to check the welding box for each individual letter or image. Another interesting tidbit about welding is that it removes any scorelines on the image.

You can use cut files from other Design Studio users. If you are low on creativity or time, your best solution is to use a file designed by someone else. There are Cricut Design Studio users that freely share their designs and ideas. The best starting point would be the message boards at the Cricut website. There you will find links you can follow to cut files all over the web. Simply download the file to your computer and the open it in the Design Studio.

You need to get updates to the Cricut Design Studio at the Cricut website. The updates not only fix any bugs in the program, they also add the latest cartridge releases for you to design with.

When previewing a cut, if it is welded together, the cutting lines will be in a bold line. If an image previews as a solid color then it is not welded. It is easy to miss checking the welding box on a letter as you are creating, and this is a sure-fire way to make sure that none of them are missing.

You can use several layers when creating a design. For example, If you are creating a shadow for an image you need to open a new layer just for the shadow. Otherwise, when you go to cut it will cut the image and the shadow at the same time using the same paper. When previewing, the user has the option as to whether or not other layers show through to the one they are working on.