How often do you use your electronic die cutter?

I need to use mine. I've had it for a couple years now. I'm a bit intimidated by it.

My Cricuit use is sporadic but it's just a reflection of my scrapbooking time!

I use my Cricuit often and even plan some projects around it. My dd also uses it often for school, 4-H and even personal projects. Now if we just had more time to scrapbook

I have a Silhouette after previously owning the Cricut. I use the Silhouette more but used the Cricut often as well. The Silhouette sits next to where my laptop sits when it is in my craft room. On some layouts I know I'm going to cut titling with the Silhouette but others I think I'll use Thickers. If I have any trouble at all finding Thickers to do a title, I turn to the Silhouette. I also think of it when I don't have the right purchased embellishment. There are tons more things you can your die cutter for but I think if you focus on some basic things you know you need like letters and embellishments, you'll use it more.

I got mine for Christmas and haven't done a ton of scrapbooking since then, but I probably used it, mostly for titles on about 60% of the pages I've done. I have a good friend who's anxious to try it out, so I'm sure I'll do a ton of stuff with it with her. At least I hope so!

I use the same cartridges over and over again. I am near the 100 mark on cartridges. I use five all the time. I just bought a new cartridge last night to give new life to my Cricut. I haven't bought a cartridge in four years. I then realized the cartridge I picked is around the same theme of all my other favorite cartridges.

Just about every day. Even if I'm not scrapping I still manage to find uses for it a lot.

I have a Cricut Create I use with SCAL. My use is intermittent. I go through weeks without switching it on, but will then get inspired and use it for 10 projects in a row. That's why I'm hesitant to upgrade to a Cameo at the moment.

I fall into a couple of camps, lol.  I have a Cuttlebug, a Slice & a Cameo.  Oh, and that deal of the day from HSN's craft day a few months ago.  <sigh>

I just got my Cameo and am still a little afraid.  But I'm getting better.

While I do have it out all the time, my laptop is not hooked up to it permanently, so I have to unplug it, carry it (the cord & the mouse) down to my scrappy table and hook it up.  So that's an issue.

Another big 'issue' is that I already have an abundance of letter stickers & embellishments (and a few Thickers), so I feel compelled to use them up first, before buying a new font or embellishment from Silhouette.

And my last issue?      I like having Project Runway (season 4, to be exact) on in the background if I'm having a scrapping day.  I don't have a TV or DVD player w/in view, so I use my laptop.  Can't have that playing and use the Cameo, so I have to alternate.  Sad, I know. 

So, to answer your question, cannmom, I don't use any of them as often as I should.  I've probably used the Slice the most, but I've had it the longest, so there's that.  I don't die cut or emboss nearly as often as I could and I really need to make more of an effort to do that so I can feel justified in my purchase of the Cuttlebug.

I wanted the Cameo for so long that I really hope I use it more and feel that I've gotten my money's worth, because so far I really love it.

Of all the years I have been die cutting and all the die cutters I have tried using the Cricut Create with SCAL was my favorite setup. It was so simple and it worked. If I needed a quick cut of something just put in my cartridge and it was done. I was thinking about my cutters today and my biggest cutter regret was getting talked into buying an Expressions. I have never cut anything from any of my die cutters over 5 inches. Seriously! I have been die cutting for over a decade now. Small die cutters are the best.

I bet that is a lot of reason why scrapbookers and crafters don't utilize their machines because the machines are so big, take up a lot of room and it's just a hassle. Tonight I have a few Cricut projects I want to make. I had a big day of house things to do and remodeling projects. I just don't feel like running in with my computer or iPad to cut things out on my Explore. I am playing Regency Solitaire instead, lol.

TiffanyTwisted- It's not sad about your setup. I have a portable DVD player in my room so I can play movies because my computer is always doing something for crafting- using my printers, die cutting. I didn't like to alternate either. It was annoying. I have an iPad but I am usually reading on it. It's become my e-reader. I do have to take my laptop and mouse in my room too. I have a large gaming notebook. Even though my room is only a few feet away my animals think it's stampede time when they see me to go to my room so you can imagine the melee of balancing my notebook while being tripped by the critter patrol looks like, lol. I use free fonts too. I have never bought an alpha from the Silhouette store. I miss the Slice. My little portable punch machine. I was the unlucky lot that had the wonky Slice.

I was at a crop this past weekend and observed those who use their Cricut for every single element on their pages to just backgrounds or titles. I used mine more this weekend because there were several other ladies who walked me through sizing, etc. because that is what intimidates me and I hate wasting paper trying to find the right size!

Luckily I can leave mine sitting out in my scrap room but do need to use it more often!

This is why I have a hard time understanding the Thicker love. I get it that it's easy, but I can just as easily find free fonts that's similar to the styles I want, cut exactly the letters I need from exactly the right color paper (or patterned paper, should I want that) and even weld it all together into one piece if I want--and make a shadow mat too! All for the price of a piece of cardstock.   Once my computer is turned on it only takes a few minutes to do. I must just be really cheap, because the thought of spending $2-5 on one pack of letters I would only partially use when I can basically get the same thing for less than 50¢ (and still have paper left over) seems like such a waste.

Something I've seen a lot lately but haven't tried myself is using the same diecut stacked and glued 2-3 together to make it thick like chipboard. It looks like custom Thicker words.

^^ this is me, too... I finally made a space on my table for my Cameo to sit out all the time, thinking that would make it easier, but I usually have my laptop downstairs so I can surf the internet, so there's still a process of having to hook it up, design the element, choose the paper, etc.  I should really pre-cut some shapes, and use them like other pre-made embellishments, but for some reason I have this idea that I *should* custom-make every embellishment exactly for the layout as I'm working on it. (and THAT certainly hasn't worked out so far, lol)

Oddly enough, I reach for my border punches a lot more often than using my Cameo even though I have NEVER gotten the hang out of aligning the punch correctly to make a punched border perfect.  I usually mess up the punch at least once during the process of punching a 12-inch border, and one of the things I bought a LOT of for my Cameo was borders. 

My next BIG project is a Hawaii vacation album I'm going to work on at a 3-Day NSD crop.  I bought a TON of tropical and beach themed Silhouette cuts *just* for that purpose; I really should mass-produce embellishments BEFORE the 3-day crop so I can actually *scrapbook* at the crop, lol!!