Love it: Cuttlebug Die Cutting Machine

At the beginning of January I made a sneaky purchase with some of my Christmas money and bought a Cricut Cuttlebug machine. I already have a Silhouette Cameo (which I use a-lot) and have had a Sizzex bigshot in the past but I donated it to H's work as I used to find it was a little cumbersome and therefore didn't really use it.  I love my Cameo but I wanted to do some work with foam and felt and due to the way that the silhouette cuts, you can't really use it well with felt.

I had heard great things about the Cuttlebug and loved the look of the compact design, what I also loved was that they brought out a limited edition one in stylish vintage green! It always helps to have pretty craft tools right.

I had some dies left over from when I had my Bigshot, I was a little annoyed to find that I needed to buy an extra 'C' plate in order to use them in the cuttle bug as it only comes with an 'A' and two 'B' plates. However some of my existing dies worked just fine and it came in the post super fast, then I was able to use all of them.

I had heard things about plates slipping and curving after time, but so far I haven't had any problems with either of those things.

If your not sure what the dickens I am talking about or what a die cutting machine does, it's basically a mangle with two rollers that uses metal dies to cut through paper, card, foam and fabrics.  You insert your material and a metal die in between the plates and the rollers push down with even pressure to cut and emboss the shape of your die in to the material.

As I said I particularly wanted to use it for cutting foam and felt, both of which it does beautifully. The only downside for me is that I am limited to the dies that I can buy ie. those that others design in fixed sizes. I think I have been spoilt with the freedom that comes with the Silhouette design studio software of being able to cut any design in any size. Having said that there are hundreds of dies out there and lots come with multiple size options.

The Kirsty Allsopp model does come with a few dies and an embossing plate but I did buy a few new dies as well of course, I think my favourite has to be this two part bow one from dimensions, this triple butterfly and the roll up rose.

As you can see I have been going a little crazy with the bow one!

This heart one will be really useful for Valentines and beyond and how beautiful are these feather ones. I bought my cuttlebug and all these dies from Crafts U Love which is one of my favourite places to buy craft supplies online.

All in all I would highly recommend this model if you are thinking of investing in a die-cutting system and can't commit to an electronic one. I love that you can use almost all of the other systems dies with it and for me the compact design means I am far more likely to keep it on hand and actually use it on a regular basis now. I am looking forward to trying out using it for some faux letterpress projects too as I have seen a few kits that you can use with these machines. Keep your eyes peeled for when I share my experiments.

I hope that helped if you are on the fence about getting one of these. Have you ever had a go with a die-cutting machine? Ever been fascinated to try one? Do you have one that's your favourite? Let me know your recommendations for places to buy dies from too please, I am a little addicted! I am looking for some good alphabet ones next.

Sammy xxx


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