Thank you horse card - Exploring PCs new machine & svgs

Hello everyone.  A very long time without any word!  I had been so overwhelmed by life that even posting seemed to be too much.  (I still wish we never burned the bras that "allowed" us to go into the work force! haha!  I may love my job, but really, I'd love to stay at home and craft!) 

There is a lot of chatter over Cricut's new Explore... and with good reason!  This new machine has just propelled Cricut back to the top of the market!  It is a very user friendly program, but that is nothing new for Cricut.  They have always tried to keep their programs simple so that everyone can enjoy using them.  It cuts wonderfully.   It also does what I thought the very first Cricut did, but didn't.  It combines the ability to use the Cricut carts and svgs that we can either buy or make ourselves!  THIS is what I have been waiting for!  I love my Cricut carts and I also love svgs.  Now, in one machine I can use them both.  Ahhh, life is good!

Here is the first card that I made combining the two of them. 

I love the fact that I can put the images svg & Cricut on the same mat and cut them out!  No more guessing how big to make them and guess the size they need to be, and  no more turning on two machines to accomplish the same thing that this one machine can do!  The horse is from Kadoodlebug Designs and the fence and grasses are from  Cricut carts.  I love the fact that we can type in a word in the program and search for what we are looking for. 

Now that we can do this all in one swoop, we need to know that there are millions of svgs out there for our taking.  Some of them are free and some need to be purchased.

My absolute favorite place to go and get 3D items is SVGCUTS.com.  It is a husband-wife combo - Mary and Leo.  They are a mighty force together.  The designs are well thought out, very detailed and come with good instructions, and videos if you prefer that method!  They are super friendly and helpful.  They have sales whenever they put out a new kit.  Right now it is $6.99 value that you get free if you purchase two other kits. 

This is one of their projects.  I made it for my mil for her birthday and put a flickering electric candle in it.  Super cute!

Some of the places I get svgs from:

SVGCUTS.com
misskatecuttables.com
sherrykdesigns.com
kadoodlebugdesigns.com
silhouetteonlinestore.com

You can also just type in "free svg" on the search line and it will give you a whole stack of places to go and svgs in the images section!!!

One of the best things about this machine and how it operates is being able to get downloads instantly and begin to cut, whether that is a Cricut cart or a svg!  Instant gratification is so satisfying!

 I also love the fact that with the Explore, you can cut, score or write!  The pens make it simple to download and svg, stamp image, etc. and have it drawn for you!  Super exciting for card makers! You can now have all of your images on your computer and the machine can draw them out for you exactly where you want to put them on your card!  How awesome is that? 

This machine now lets you use TTF (true type fonts) that are already on your computer!  You can pop in a pen to draw them and cut, score or a combination!