What are the Differences in Cricut Cartridges?

Provcraft has given scrapbook lovers great diversity in the selection of Cricut cartridges that it offers. This gives the crafter the ability to pick from a wide variety of images, colors, shapes and fonts in order to meet their individual needs and be creative. These cartridges are also versatile in their ability to be used with the different machines that are offered by the company, such as the Cricut Expression, Cricut Cake and Cricut Gypsy.

The solutions series has within it ones that focus either on a particular font or a group of shapes within a particular theme. They have 50 characters and 2 special features; typically shadow and blackout. They are less expensive then the other cartridges which makes them a nice compromise.

The font cartridges have the complete alphabet, numbers and other symbols along with 6 creative features. Shape cartridges tend to have around 100 shapes and 6 creative features. One neat thing I just realized is that font cartridges come in pink packages and shapes cartridges come in blue packages.

Seasonal cartridges have a theme woven around a holiday or time of the year, such as spring, Easter, summer, Christmas, or Valentine’s Day. These cartridges do not have any creative features, but do have some special additions to them. There will often be a selection of three-dimensional shapes that can be printed and constructed, such as a mailbox or a basket. This makes for easy gift wrapping or gift for the recipient. Phrases and images are presented in bright colors that match well together, giving the scrapbooker plenty of tools to work with. They are only offered for a limited time though, and tend to be in the $20 range which available.

The Cricut Cake cartridges are designed to be used the Cake Machine, and have wonderful phrases, fonts, images and accents that are printed out on gum paste. These can then be transferred right onto the cake. They current release is the Cricut Cake Basics Cartridge that is packaged and sold only with the machine in a bundle. This cartridge has a total of six creative features and up to 600 images.

Some of the Cricut cartridges featured previously licensed character themes such as Batman, Spongebob, Disney characters and many other popular ones. These feature the standard six creative features along with three-dimensional items, cards, and images related to the particular theme. Some of the creative features found are blackout, shadow, font shadow, and layering. Phrases from the characters are also packed in, such as “Happy Birthday.”

Finally, there are the classmates line of cartridge which have an educational theme. These are meant to be used in the classroom or with childcare to teach such concepts and state names and sentence structure. There have not been too many released, especially recently, so let’s hope that Cricut didn’t unofficially kill this line.

Many of the cartridges overlap in regards to use and creative features. They can also be used with a variety of machines, making each of them a versatile tool. Several cartridges also have the three-dimensional items that can be printed and constructed. With this diversity, Cricut cartridges are worth the investment, and will pay back the scrapbooker double over the lifetime of their use.