Cricut Imagine Machine

• With HP, the world leader in inkjet printing, combined with Provo Craft, the world leader in paper crafting, Cricut Imagine offers vivid, full-color, photographic-quality artwork that adds a new level of detail and dimension to your projects
• From beginners to experts, you?ll have fun making a wide variety of projects, including scrapbook layouts, cards, home or office décor, education materials, special event signage, and much more
• Cricut Imagine offers endless possibilities; the rest is up to you
• Now you can add full color, textures and patterns, for one-of-a kind projects that reflect your creativity and personality.

I am very disappointed with this Cricut Imagine machine. I was very excited about it at first and asked for it as a gift. I have spent literally months trying to get it to live up to what I was expecting but so far no luck. It is my first cricut.

Pet peeves:

1. It takes a while to run through the printer and cutting areas. If I just want to cut most of the time, because the printer cartridges are so very expensive, it''s a big timewaster! It''s like using dial-up when you could have high-speed internet, aggravating!!

2. The cutting mats will stick to paper a couple of cuts (or if you''re very, very lucky) maybe 10 in the machine, then you can only use really thin paper, all other paper doesn''t stick anymore, it moves around when the blade is trying to cut. (Yes I have tried washing the mats, and almost everything else suggested except the things that void the warranty)

3. When you have an image selected, it usually has to be sized, that''s fine. But there isn''t a drop down list of sizes, I have to sit there and tap the size bigger until it''s the size I want, it takes a really long time as opposed to the rolling dial on older machines. I would use the fit to page (or make the page smaller but that takes just as long to program the machine), but most of the time I don''t want it that big, when I''m doing a scrapbook I like the 5"-6" size.

4. When you''re using a regular cricut cartridge there is no zoom button to figure out which button to pick, it''s zoomed out so you can see the whole keypad. The problem is that most of the images look like little squiggles. Basically you can label your booklet (if you have an old booklet, not the newer shiny ones, it doesn''t work then), or try to memorize which ones you like to use, or guess which one it is you want, do you want squiggle 1-30? Shift or no Shift? It goes on and on... Then delete all the ones you don''t actually want, it''s very time consuming when you just want to print one little layer!!

5. You really can only use a full 12" by 12" paper when cutting, almost any scrap you use will most often move around and not actually stick to the "sticky" mat.

The WORST problem in my book is this:

6. THERE IS NO EASY WAY OF MOVING THE IMAGE!! You can''t move the image to the middle of the page, or side or anywhere but the top left. Plus since the mat isn''t terribly sticky (I''m being very generous saying that) it uses up all the stick in that area, if you could move the image around you might be able to get more use out of it. (It would be so cool if you could have a "move image" button so you could resize it right in the machine instead of having to buy a gypsy...) This kind of is a money grab on Provo crafts part. They sell a machine that does half the stuff, then say here pay $$$ so that it can do everything it''s capable of!!

My summary is this: I could live with the rest if it was easy to move the image on the screen of the Imagine, and the mats were sticky enough. But all put together????

Thanks for reading my Cricut Imagine rant; I don''t want anyone else to be this disappointed in the sub-par machine.

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My husband purchased this machine for me as a Mother''s Day gift. We had it overnighted. When the machine arrived it would not calibrate. After several attempts I called ProvoCraft only to find out that there are many of these machines on the market that are bad. You have to go to the "about" screen on the machine and if the version number ends in 201C the machine is bad and will not work. I contacted Amazon who immediately overnighted another machine only to have the EXACT same problem! I contacted Provocraft who told me it would take at least two weeks to get me another because they wanted my machine back first. I was insulted because I HAD paid for a good machine and received bad ones! They were cheating me not the other way around! Amazon stopped selling the machine for a day but then went right back to it! If it would take me two weeks to get one how did they replace an entire inventory in a day? Provocraft and their distributors are making the customers do the work for them...Rather than them finding out which machines are bad the customer gets the machine and then has to go through the process of returning it and waiting for another. A recall should have been done on these machines. How horrible to treat customers in this way! I would absolutely NOT buy this machine unless they could prove it was not the "bad" version 201C.

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I have had the cricut machines since they came out and this one takes the prize! Very EASY to use! Love the print quality! I have used the machine to create die-cuts and full 12x12 sheets of colored patterned paper. VERY COOL!

I am a bit disappointed with how this item works with the GYPSY. It will act like a NORMAL cricut ONLY! You can''t colorize your GYPSY projects :( I did find a work around. Print a full 12z12 color paper first. Then re-insert and cut what you need with the GYPSY. Again, not IDEAL, but it works and you get the color match that you needed right out of your machine.

I can''t comment on the ink cost/use. I haven''t had it for more than 1 month. The cartridges seem LARGE and they should produce lots of projects. The cost of the ink is between $32 and $36. Best value is thru Amazon.

PRO: Versatile, EASY TO USE, and you can print what you need!

CON: HEAVY machine, not portable, and not fully compatible with the GYPSY (yet)

Good luck and happy scrapbooking!

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I''ve never been able to find the same color of paper to match the images on the Cricut cartridge manuals so it does seem like a big plus not having to find paper colors that fit the color palette in the photos, however, on the other hand, having the image cut in one layer seems to take away from the home made look of the finished image. On the plus side, it seems to save on the time required to cut and assemble many little pieces, but I think you loose some satisfaction in being able to say you made it yourself. The finished look almost looks like digital scrapbooking. After looking at many reviews online on You Tube, there does seem to be a known problem with the cutting mat as well. Paper does not seem to adhere as well to the new cutting mats and unfortunately you can''t use the old mats with it. If you are planning to purchase this machine, I highly recommend that you buy it from a seller that will accept returns if you are not satisfied with it''s performance. If you own one and have figured out a good work around for the mat problem, I''m sure you could sell the colored and cut images a''la carte through Etsy to help pay for your investment!

I have had my Imagine for 3 weeks. It was fairly easy to learn how to use it but I am dismayed that Cricut would market something with so many glitches and problems. The size selection buttons are annoying and, on occasion, will NOT respond to your poke-commands.

The mat is not very sticky and because the item you are printing/cutting is always placed in the upper left corner, loses its ability to hold the paper fairly quickly.

Most annoying is the machine tends to turn itself off and back on half way through the print/cut process. I either have to scrap what has been printed and start again or cut it out myself with scissors.

It seems this machine was put on the market before it was well tested and the problems worked out.

It''s a wonderful idea. I would wait awhile to buy one and hope that Cricut makes some improvements.