My son was making a poster a few weeks ago for a school project and my daughter's friend brought over her Cricut and they cut out the letters and glued them on the posterboard. What a cool product! This one came with a carrying case so it was portable and I believe her mother told me they watched for sales and found it for around $200 about a year ago. She also mentioned the dies were pretty expensive and they own just one letter font.

I kept asking the daughter what size the letters would be (didn't want them to be too small or too big for the posterboard) and she finally said, Mrs. M. we can make them ANY size you want!

I'm seriously thinking about getting one for my girls because they are big crafters.

If you have one or know a lot about them I would like opinions and any recs on where to look for the best price. Is the portable one best? It seemed to be very convenient and I loved that it packed up nicely. Does the letter font also include shapes or are they separate dies?

Thanks.

I had the Cricut Personal Cutter which I liked a lot, but I sold it and bought the Cricut Expression.  The Cricut Personal Cutter is the compact one you can take places.  They also just came out with Cricut Create which is also compact a very portable with a few more bells and whistles!   They cut 6x12 paper (and smaller).  I wanted one that would cut 12x12 paper, so I got the Cricut Expression.  I love mine!!  The best place I found to buy them was eBay.  I bought my Expression with 3 cartridges for $280 including shipping.  I also bought some cartridges from Craiglist but it's hard to find bargains there.  People try to sell their used items for about as much as they cost at the store new, so you have to be knowledgable about prices before you try Craiglist.   I bought a lot of cartridges on sale at Michael's for $30 each (it was a special Thanksgiving sale) but they'll probably have another sale sometime.  The cartridges sell for up to $99 each retail but you can find them much cheaper at eBay.  Shop around a little and compare prices before you buy and make sure to find out how much shipping is before you buy.

Thanks for the info Barbara. The items you bought from Ebay, were they new or used?

I have the smaller cricut.  It's very portable and easy to use.  I mostly use it for scrapbooking, but have used it for school projects as well.  I bought mine through ebay, but get my cartridges through the website cricutmachines.com.  They are very reasonable and saves time from all the bidding.  You can also purchase the machines and accessories there.  (I didn't find out about this site until after my ebay purchase)

I bought my machine new and would recommend that.  It is a rather complex system so I wouldn't chance a used one.  There is a blade and different settings depending on the type of paper you use, so you would really need the instruction guide.

I have gone to different crops and have used the new cricut expressions machine.  It is bigger and bulkier, the only plus is it can cut bigger peices of paper.  For my use, I don't need huge size letterings or images.

As for the different fonts you asked about, each cartridge is different and can do many different images as well. 

You really need to play around with it and experiment with the different settings on each cartridge.

DieCutCentral.com is another website worth checking into.

Thanks Diane for confirming my thought that I needed to buy it new. I will check out those websites.

I bought my Cricut from a place called customcrops.com.  They have regular special offers -- like free shipping, your choice of initial cartridges that come with the machine, and they also have regular sales on the cartridges for $29.99.  They are quick to send out the product and I not only have used them several times, I have recommended the site to others who have also used it with success.  I own the Expression and like it alot.  Some I know who have purchased the smaller machine wish that they had purchased the larger one instead.  It's lots of fun.

Anna,  Thanks for the recommendation of customcrops.com.  I checked it out last night and ended up placing an order with them.  They're definitly worth checking out.  Prices are very reasonable, even for shipping.  Thanks again!