Cricut cartridge review...Designer's Calendar

I have a collection of several cartridges for my cricut.  I'm ashamed to admit that I have some of them that I haven't ever used.  I was thinking this weekend, as I had some crafty time that I could start a series here on some of the cartridges I've got.  I guess you could say that I already kind of did that on the chore chart cartridge.  In any case, in my couple hours of crafty time that I had this weekend, I decided to pull out the Designer's Calendar cartridge.  When this cartridge very first came out, I wanted it.  I just didn't want to spend what they were asking for it.  I found a great deal on it during the black Friday/cyber Monday sales this past Christmas and just couldn't pass it up any longer.
For the past year, I used calendar pages that were in a kit from Creative Memories.  I either missed that they made a kit for this year, or there wasn't one.  These pages were on display in the kitchen on my Everyday Display.  I love those things!  They're magnetic and fit a 12 x 12 page perfectly in them.  In any case, I had decided that I wanted to make my own calendar pages this year.  I knew that it was going to be quite the undertaking in looking at the different aspects of the calendar cartridge.  Being one that doesn't like to back down from a challenge, I decided to go for it and the project went remarkably easier and faster than I anticipated!

To start, I picked out what I wanted for the background paper, and then picked a couple of cardstock colors to coordinate.  My first cut was the calendar grid.  Cut out at 8", it fit nicely on the 12 x 12 page, with room at the top for the month and other embellishments.  The trick to this cartridge is to slow your speed down and increase the pressure when you're making the smaller cuts, like the numbers and the corner embellishments.  I had the speed set at high for the grid and it worked just fine.  The month and the corner embellishments were both cut at 2", and the date numbers were cut at 1".

There wasn't a whole lot extra that I did to further embellish the calendar pages, other than outlining around the cuts with my Creative Memories pens.  Have I mentioned that I love those things as well?!  They're some of the best pens that I've ever used when crafting.

Instead of cutting out the days of the week, I decided to just write them in.  There were a couple of reasons to this.  Firstly, I wasn't sure how big to do them and I didn't want to spend a ton of time experimenting, and secondly, I didn't want to have to deal with teeny, tiny cuts!  I did try to cut out one of the holiday ones, and it was pretty small.  Had I changed some settings on my machine, it probably would have cut out better.  Lesson learned for next time around!  

I could have added more to the 2 calendar months that I had time to sit down to do this weekend, but I ran out of time.  Hubby was out at a photo shoot while I was crafting, and after he got home I wanted to spend time with him instead.  Family time takes precedence over crafty time.  If he's home, I'm spending time with him!

Overall, I loved this cartridge, and I really can't wait to sit down and make out the rest of the months for this year!  In looking at the back of the cartridge box, it looks like there's more options than just doing a grid for the calendar as well, which is really exciting to me!  It was really easy to put the calendar pages together, and there wasn't a ton of deciphering that needed to be done to figure out the booklet either.  I'll have to remember to post the rest of the month pages that I make for this year.  I see a lot of uses other than just making calendars out of this cartridge too.  It's good to remember to think outside of the box when using my cartridges!