Cricut Design Studio Software: Reviews and Resources

The Cricut Design Studio software was created by Provo Craft to increase the versatility of the Cricut machines. It allows you to connect your Cricut to a computer and browse through the thousands of images in the cartridge library, using a simple and quick keyword search.

You can design with all of the cartridges, but you can only cut with the ones you have. Cricut Design Studio has every available cartridge loaded into the program. You can create all kinds of cutting files with any cartridge they offer. While that is fun for experimenting, just remember that when you go to cut the Cricut will ask you to load the specific cartridge used, but it gives you a fantastic opportunity to browse all the content of other cartridges and even make designs using them.

Cricut Design Studio Main Features

• Preview your design before you start cutting. You see exactly what you’re cutting on a grid.
• Pre-plan your cuts, saving paper and time.
• Move, reorganize, rotate, resize and skew shapes
• Welding (link letters together to make words)
• Select which part of the design you want to cut
• Save and share your files with other users and re-use your designs whenever you want
• Compatible with both Windows XP SP2 or Windows Vista

The Cricut Design Studio basically makes your Cricut almost as versatile as the Wishblade or the Pazzles. The good thing is it allows you to weld, twist, combine, resize and reshape your designs, with a much smaller learning curve than that of the bigger systems.

One of the most popular feature is the welding option, which allows you to link letters together to make professional titles. No more scraping off and glueing individual little letters each time you want to create titles !

Useful Tips When Working With Cricut Design Studio

Install the program onto a laptop to make it portable,  so you can take it with you on scrapbooking retreats and craft fairs.

With the Cricut Design Studio you have the ability to lay multiple papers on the mat and run it through just once (by using the grid as you set up your project), so you no longer have to run the mat through multiple times for a layered project.

What You Should Know Before You Buy

There’s one thing that’s been causing confusion among users: with the Cricut Design Studio you can explore and preview all the cartridges in Provo Craft libraries, and even make designs using them. But you can only cut characters from the cartridges you own. So you still have to buy the cartridges before you can cut.

Unlock the full potential of your Cricut

The Design Studio is pretty straightforward and a lot easier to use than those other software based cutters. Of course it’s not perfect and you find bugs at times, but updates and and ‘fix’ downloads are released frequently.

From my experience, I know it helped my Cricut change from being an occasionally used system to something that I use on most of my cards and on a great number of layouts. All things considered, I think this should be the second thing you buy, right after the Cricut!

Where To Buy

The Cricut Design Studio is available for discounted prices on several online stores. You can find it from $89.99 $76.49 on Scrapbook.com