Design Studio

I received my Cricut Expression as a Christmas gift and very soon after I purchased the Design Studio to use in conjunction with it.  Here it is now 4 months later and I finally got up the nerve this evening to give it a try.  Because I wasn't really sure what I could accomplish with it I viewed some tutorials over at youtube.com and came to the conclusion that other than welding letters together, I haven't seen very many creative ideas.  I must have been looking in the wrong places, so really need to explore the possibilities alot more.  If anyone out there knows where I can see this software in action, please send me your links.  I want to get my money's worth out of this product!

I did decide to venture out on a limb and see if there was something I could come up with.  Using my borrowed cartridge Accent Essentials, I came up with this card by welding a couple shapes together to form the base of the card and repositioning the inside cut on the front after it was cut out.  Cutting a duplicate of the back, I was able to fill in the back of the front of the card cut.  I added some bling and ribbon after doing a little embossing and sanding of my coredinations cardstock.  I love this brand of cardstock because it has a different color core than the top layer, so when you emboss, sand or tear the paper, a contrasting color is able to peek out.

I am not sure what I am going to do when I have to return this borrowed cartridge.  I am really enjoying it's basic shapes and flourishes.  I think it is one of the very first cartridges made for the Cricut, but it really has a lot of versatility that I am enjoying.  I hope it is still possible to buy this one.