Last year for Christmas my mom got me a cricut machine because she wanted to see “what I’d do with it.” I’d played with hers and cut hundreds of leaves, trees and shapes while I was caring for her. I truly expected my interest in the machine to be fleeting, cut a few hundred things, use them up and then move onto the next great thing. That is until I discovered the world of Makes the Cut and Sure Cuts A Lot.

These 2 programs really unlock the power of the cricut machine. Using them you can create your own designs and not rely upon the preloaded cartridges that cost an arm and a leg. Using MTC I can scan an object, refine it in gimp and them load it into MTC for a pixel trace and then cut a mask, stencil or cut for use in my art.

MTC also has a large gallery of pre-made shapes created by other crafters, these are ripe for the adapting into new projects and adapted shapes.

I guess the theme of today is as follows: If you can’t buy a decent mask make your own, either by hacking your cricut or getting an exacto knife.