Quickutz Silhouette Digital Craft Cutter

The Quickutz Silhouette Digital Craft Cutter is an awesome addition to a scrapbooker's collection of tools. The size of a printer, the Silhouette sits next to your computer and connects through a USB outlet. For use, it must be set out from the wall, but when not in use, can be pushed back. The Silhouette uses dowloaded fonts and designs along with the computer to digital transfer it to the machine and cut them out. Basically, you open a program, select the design or font you want, edit it on screen and the Silhouette cuts it out.

The Silhouette comes with software, cables, blades, and a cutting sheet. 50 design dowloads are also already included. Downloads from the company directly are about $10. They are purchased through your software and an internet connection. Prepaid dowload cards are available from Quickutz dealers making downloads a fraction of the cost. For example, with a pre-paid card, 5 downloads is $30, compared to the $50 you would pay by paying as you go. The Silhouette also uses fonts already on your computer. You can use any font as long as it is a "true-type" font, meaning it will end in ".ttf" in your documents and dowloads. You can also dowload many true type fonts for free on the internet. A quick search of my computer before I bought the Silhouette told me I had 233 true type fonts already on my computer. You can also cut the downloads that are pre-loaded, ones you purchase, ones you create, and clip-art that is not copyrighted. .GSD files , .GST files, and DXF loaded images can also be cut.

Although expensive, the Silhouette is easy to use. It can also cut out and entire word at once, compared to traditional cheaper die cutters where you had to change dies with every letter. It comes with a blade and three colored ends to attach to the blade to make the depth of the blade different. This gives a variety in the papers it can use. The blades can cut paper, cardstock, vellum, vinyl film, specialty paper, sticker or adhesive-backed paper, iron-on transfer paper, and magnetic paper, making it incredibly versatile.

Although the Silhouette doesn't require you to be technically savvy to use the product, and you can get a lot of use out of it without a lot of technical knowledge, the more you learn about the capabilities of the machine, the more you can do. The Quickutz website has a lot of help, as well as their customer service line. It is not hard to use, but for someone like me, who doesn't understand a lot of technical terms, it can be useful to check these options out.

To use the Silhouette, you will need a USB port, an internet connection (for downloading images), a CD drive for installing software and enough memory on your computer to support it. It is not compatible with Mac computers, and not currently compatible with Windows Vista, though the company says they would like for it to be by July. It requires at least Windows 2000, and is also compatible with Windows XP. It can be used with Mac computers without the Silhouette software, and use CorelDraw or Adobe Illustrator. A plug in must be downloaded. However, without the Silhouette software, designs from the website cannot be purchased.

The cutting mats and blades DO have to be replaced. Mats run about $25 for 2, and the blade runs close to $45. Blades should last about 6 months, using it often, and cutting mats should last for roughly 100 8.5 x 11 full cut sheets of paper. The system uses 8.5 x 11 paper or smaller, although anything smaller than a 4x6 is not recommended.

With downloads being released on the 1st and 15th of every month, the Silhouette should have just as many, if not more, designs than the original Quickutz hand tool in no time. There is also little to no effort to the use of the Silhouette, making it better for people with arthritis. It is quicker to use, for those with little patience. The only downside to the machine is the price. It is $370, making it a very expensive tool. In the long run, it will well be worth the price. The designs, using the correct blade caps, are somewhat flawless, and sizeable. They can be made from 1/4 inch to 8 inches, making the versatility enormous.

If you can afford to put that much out for a digital cutter, I definately recommend the Silhouette. With no cartridges to buy and downloads pretty inexpensive, I think it will quickly become a scrapper's favorite.