Friday, September 16, 2011

Hello Thursday cartridges...and some Christmas fun


Yesterday was "Hello Thursday" and two new Cricut cartridges were announced.  One is a seasonal cartridge called "Scandinavian Christmas Cards"  and the other is an Imagine Art cartridge called "Hey Diddle Diddle."  To see the "look books" for these cartridges click HERE and then click on each of the cartridge boxes at the top left of the screen.  You can also see the cartridge images and some projects on the official Cricut Blog HERE.  There are more projects on the "Hello Thursday" blogs - just click the names to see their posts - Joy, Melanie, Tammy and Mixology.

You can find the Scandinavian Christmas Cards cartridge in the shopping section of the Cricut.com site HERE.  It was showing as "out of stock" when I wrote this post.

There are only 50 image keys on the seasonal cartridges and the Scandinavian Christmas Cards cartridge has ten layered images, six single layer word art titles and two cards with two envelopes.  The images are not particularly Scandinavian - I would have expected more geometric borders and trims (similar to Jan Brett's book illustrations).  The people are in the "pointy toe" style that I find a bit odd.  The seasonal cartridges are less expensive (list price $24.99) and, if you don't already have a selection of Christmas cartridges and you like the images, this could be useful for card making.   I don't think it is a "must have."  If you can find the discontinued "Christmas" Solutions Cartridge, or one of the other full Christmas cartridges on sale, you would have a lot more cuts to work with for a similar cost.

The Hey Diddle Diddle Imagine Art cartridge is on the Cricut.com site HERE.  The list price is $55.99.  This is another Cosmo Cricket cartridge.  I do like most Cosmo Cricket designs but the images in the look book are almost too "cute" for me.  I think the designs will appeal to a lot of people - they just aren't my style.  There have been quite a few baby cartridges released this year so you have a lot of choices.  The papers are nice and, for the most part, they would be good for all sorts of projects since only a few are definitely "childlike" in style.  There are several patterns that are repeated in various colorways and, once again, I wish that we could adjust the colors on the Imagine as you do in a digital scrapping program so more basic designs could be included.  There are six shades of the crosshatch design and four of the gingham pattern and if we could alter the colors, many more designs could have been included.

I'd be curious to hear what you all think of these cartridges - and also would be interested to hear your thoughts on what types of images and styles are missing from your collection.

The image at the top of this post is some word art I put together using the sentiments in the Creative Memories Primary Christmas Digital Kit.  I selected various parts of each word group and copied them to create separate groups to fill with a variety of Christmas papers.


This is a fun thing to do and you can vary the look tremendously by choosing different papers.  I created this at a 12 x 12 size but I will probably print some much smaller versions to use for cards.

I am still trying to catch up from the wedding and my trip to Pennsylvania - I am hoping to tackle my overfull email inbox tomorrow.  If you are waiting for a reply to a message you sent in the past two weeks please don't be shy about resending your note - I do try to answer everything but when I am away there can be a backlog that takes a while to sort through!

Have a great weekend!

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12 comments:

  1. I don't care for either of the new carts. I haven't liked any from the last few Hello Thursdays..... It's like they are in a design slump.
    Crystal

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  2. I also do not find them interesting. I do not think the Scandinavian looks Scandinavian and I do not have an imagine so I don't even bother to look at them. I am glad to see that I am not the only person that is not impressed. BY the way I love your just about everything you make here.

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  3. Your word art is great! I like the Imagine cartridge. I have been asked to make invitations and such for baby showers so for me any new baby cartridge is great.

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  4. thanks for the info, I am not at all happy with the Christmas cart. to pricy for that few of cuts,
    Carol<><

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  5. I have to agree with your assessment of these two, Diane -- but I love seeing what people are able to do with them. There are a couple of cute projects that I might CASE the next time I go to retreat and can use someone's cart for a single cut or set of pages.

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  6. I agree, not very Scandinavian. Oh, well. Great word art...I've enjoyed using the Primary Halloween digital kit. Will have to check out the Christmas one. Thanks!

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  7. I'm another one who doesn't think the designs are very Scandinavian. Where is Santa Lucia? My son, who is an avid Norseman, (good thing I named him Eric) and also an artist, would boo hiss at this collection. I find that far too many of the cartridges are cutesy or repetitive. Just my opinion.

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  8. I also am disappointed in the two new carts. While I did like some of the paper designs available on the baby cart, I just don't feel that is enough justification for me to purchase it. I have to agree with Crystal, who said that she thinks they might be in a "design slump". On a brighter note, I really like the Christmas word art that you created. There has been very little in the past 3+ years that you have done that didn't appeal to me. Keep up the great work, for you truly do inspire us.
    KarenV

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  9. I think Provo Craft is coming out with wayyy toooo many cartridges!! It is overwhelming!! With all of the cartridges that they have out - I think Provo Craft should allow Hobby Lobby, JoAnns and Michaels to let their customers use the 40% coupons on. I hardly study the new cartridges any more. I just glance over them.

    SharonV

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  10. I think Provo Craft is coming out with wayyy toooo many cartridges!! It is overwhelming!! With all of the cartridges that they have out - I think Provo Craft should allow Hobby Lobby, JoAnns and Michaels to let their customers use the 40% coupons on. I hardly study the new cartridges any more. I just glance over them.

    SharonV

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  11. both of these carts are a thumbs down for me...I agree most of the new carts are repeats....is it b/c of the retirement of the old carts???

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  12. I would love to see a cartridge with some realistic looking horses and riding gear (my daughter rides English) maybe it could be a British themed cartridge with lots of landmarks and icons of British culture or a European one like destinations but more buttons per European country???
    I thought enough had been said about how nobody likes the new carts since you also asked about what's missing in my "library"...Thanks for asking and for all that you share! I enjoy reading your blog very much!

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