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Silhouette vs Cricut

Kat

Kat

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I did a search and the thread on this subject was fairly old. I am hoping to buy one of these but I know very little and am not sure which would be best.

My sister wants a cricut to make things maybe using vinyl or for t-shirts, pillows, wall sayings, etc. I would love to do this as well but not as often. I would like the ability to be able to print my digital items and have them cut easier and neater. (@Becca Bonneville sent me a pocket page that had used a silhouette to cut out elements and I thought it looked so great!) Technically I won't do either task on a regular basis so I really don't want to break the bank buying supplies but want the options.

Can you guys tell me about your experiences with either or both and which one you like and why? My husband is out of town so if I am going to get one, this is the week to do it. lol.
 
I have a silhouette portrait (it's the smaller one) and have loved using it for the things you said exactly. I don't use it super often anymore- maybe just a busy life, but it's super fun! I got it a few years ago- but it was around $150 for the package that included a bunch of vinyl & extra doo-dads. The thing I like about silhouette is that you can use any fonts you have on your computer- where at the time I purchased mine, you had to have cartridges for the cricut. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but it was a deal breaker for me- as I have a jillion fonts from scrapbooking! ;)
 
I have a Silhouette Cameo and I chose it over the Cricut for a similar reason to what Amie said... it works with more file types than the Cricut, or at least that used to be the case. I've had mine for awhile so I'm not sure anymore.

I cut a lot of vinyl. For some reason, when my family discovered I could cut things, they had me making tons of vinyl decals for their cars and walls LOL. And that's one other reason I'm glad I have the Cameo, it will cut to 10ft long where the Cricut will only cut to 24", I think. I made a decal for a friend of my husband the other day that was 50" long and it worked beautifully.

It seems like I did read somewhere that the Cricut is better for thicker material.
 
I have the Silhouette Portrait too and just adore it! It's the right size for me and what I am doing with it. It does a beautiful job cutting and is super easy to use. I have not had any experience with Cricut so I cannot really compare.
 
Becca Bonneville said:
I have the Silhouette Portrait too and just adore it! It's the right size for me and what I am doing with it. It does a beautiful job cutting and is super easy to use. I have not had any experience with Cricut so I cannot really compare.
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Thanks for weighing in too Becca! I was so impressed with how neat the cuts on your pocket page. I've been toying with the idea for a while but never took the plunge.
 
IntenseMagic said:
I have a Silhouette Cameo and I chose it over the Cricut for a similar reason to what Amie said... it works with more file types than the Cricut, or at least that used to be the case. I've had mine for awhile so I'm not sure anymore.

I cut a lot of vinyl. For some reason, when my family discovered I could cut things, they had me making tons of vinyl decals for their cars and walls LOL. And that's one other reason I'm glad I have the Cameo, it will cut to 10ft long where the Cricut will only cut to 24", I think. I made a decal for a friend of my husband the other day that was 50" long and it worked beautifully.

It seems like I did read somewhere that the Cricut is better for thicker material.
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You know we have a person who does jeep vinyl cutouts for the jeep club... It never dawned on me that might be how they are doing it. I would love to do my own for our jeep. Didn't even think of that as an option. I did think about doing custom logo photography shirts for some of my specialized clients and I really want to make some custom pillows for our furniture using vinyl. But in reality, I'll be lucky if I get any of that done. If I can just cut out my awesome pocket page elements, that alone is worth it. :)

I was reading too that the Silhouette has a deep cut attachment for thicker material. Not sure what kinds though.
 
amien1 said:
I have a silhouette portrait (it's the smaller one) and have loved using it for the things you said exactly. I don't use it super often anymore- maybe just a busy life, but it's super fun! I got it a few years ago- but it was around $150 for the package that included a bunch of vinyl & extra doo-dads. The thing I like about silhouette is that you can use any fonts you have on your computer- where at the time I purchased mine, you had to have cartridges for the cricut. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but it was a deal breaker for me- as I have a jillion fonts from scrapbooking! ;)
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Oooh, yeah, I want to use my own fonts. I have a ton of them, some I purchased for a customized look for some things too!
 
Kat said:
You know we have a person who does jeep vinyl cutouts for the jeep club... It never dawned on me that might be how they are doing it
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My husband used to do car graphics for a living and at the time had a bigger, more powerful machine. That was years ago, but I got to thinking one day that I could do similar things one a smaller scale with my Cameo. I also do lots of decals for like the big Yeti type cups and coffee mugs to personalize them or for gifts.
 
amien1 said:
The thing I like about silhouette is that you can use any fonts you have on your computer- where at the time I purchased mine, you had to have cartridges for the cricut. I'm not sure if that's still the case, but it was a deal breaker for me- as I have a jillion fonts from scrapbooking! ;)
Click to expand...

yup! :yup what she said! I actually just donated my cricut to the Ronald McDonald House near me since it has gone untouched after I bought my Cameo.
 
I've learned a lot from this thread! Maybe one day I'll take the plunge, but first I need to finish some of the hoards of unfinished projects I have laying around the house before I start on something new.
 
I have the 8.5 x 11 (Portrait) Silhouette and I LOVE that thing. I have used it for so many different types of projects from card making, stencils, print and cut and stuff for school projects with my kids. I paid $99 for mine years ago and it was the best money I ever spent. I picked it over the cricut because of the cartridges and how limiting that was. i don't know if that's still how they do it, but I wanted to be able to use all of my massive scrap supply and fonts with it rather than buying a cartridge for each project.

Lol... that you're planning to buy one while the husband is away. :giggle
 
I have so many ideas! Yeay! Silhouette is the obvious winner. I am now trying to decide where to buy mine. Michaels has it for 250-299 which is pricey. Amazon has a cameo 3 for 199 so I might go that route. I am only going to buy once so go big or go home! lol
 
I'm a "Silhouette Converted to a Cricut" fan!

I used to have the Silhouette Cameo and was major bummed when updates weren't installing correctly on my new MacBook Pro (a couple of years ago). I didn't have much success with the Silhouette Customer Service and would hit a voice mail box instead of a "live" person. No one would ever return my call (live ever). I had the very first series of Silhouette Cameo but it was still in mint condition. I donated it last year.

Dear hubby bought me a Cricut Explore Air 2 for Xmas and it has been a major game changer for my hybrid designing. Here's a pic attached for the proof on how amazing it cuts an intricate design with just one pass on the blade. Pristine.





Super easy peasy (as in seconds) to add in my .png files for print & cut or cut files into the Cricut program.

I used to be super adverse to Cricut (i.e. thinking it was only good for big die cuts and cartridges) because it was so "not my style". However, I had a hybrid scrapbooking friend highly recommend it and I swayed the way to Cricut.

Hope this helps!
 
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Wow!! Does the silhouette compare on the cutting? I'm worried about the cricut being less design friendly. No one has a cameo locally so I'll have to order whatever I get.

Wendy Morris-Saponaro said:
I'm a "Silhouette Converted to a Cricut" fan!

I used to have the Silhouette Cameo and was major bummed when updates weren't installing correctly on my new MacBook Pro (a couple of years ago). I didn't have much success with the Silhouette Customer Service and would hit a voice mail box instead of a "live" person. No one would ever return my call (live ever). I had the very first series of Silhouette Cameo but it was still in mint condition. I donated it last year.

Dear hubby bought me a Cricut Explore Air 2 for Xmas and it has been a major game changer for my hybrid designing. Here's a pic attached for the proof on how amazing it cuts an intricate design with just one pass on the blade. Pristine.





Super easy peasy (as in seconds) to add in my .png files for print & cut or cut files into the Cricut program.

I used to be super adverse to Cricut (i.e. thinking it was only good for big die cuts and cartridges) because it was so "not my style". However, I had a hybrid scrapbooking friend highly recommend it and I swayed the way to Cricut.

Hope this helps!
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I started with Cricut, and moved to Silhouette for the cartridge reason, business reasons, and because I liked the Silhouette Design Studio better than the Cricut Design Space. When I switched, you could download both to play with. Perhaps that would be something you could do to see which is more intuitive and lets you do what you want?

I also have a first generation Sizzix eClips. I like it, but it's quirky, so I would recommend sticking with the Silhouette or Cricut.
 
Does the Silhouette cut fabric? I'm a quilter and that would make cutting fabric shapes a lot simpler!
 
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