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!

Chore Chart

The boy has a knack for asking for things whenever we go to the store.  Our knee-jerk reaction was always to tell him that when he was older and had a job and earned his own money that he could buy whatever he wanted.  That would always bring up the questions from him when we would go out about how he could get his own money.  Enter the chore chart, and allowance.  At 4 years old, we don't think that it's too young to start to teach him responsibility about money, and about helping around the house.  We've given him simple chores to do, that we know he can do without too much reminding.  If he gets all of his chores done during the week, he earns his full allowance.  If he doesn't do some of them, or if we have other behavior issues (which are thankfully rare) with him, then he loses part of his allowance.
I've had the Chore Chart Cricut cartridge sitting around for a while, in preparation for the day when a chore chart would come into play.  For the longest time, I'd had the background cut out so I could get a feel for what it would look like.
I learned a few things about this cartridge when I finally put it together.  Firstly, the cuts for the days of the week can't be done small...it just doesn't work...it's too small!  I tried and tried and tried, and wasted quite a bit of paper, cutting them out at 2".  I'll save you a headache...don't try it!  While it would have looked super cute if it would have worked out right at that size, it was just too small to get those pieces off the mat.  Secondly, it takes a bit of thinking to figure out how exactly you want the chart to work!  The chart is a 3 row by 7 column format.  This means that if you want to put the days of the week in there, you're limited to 2 chores a day, or if you want to put one chore for each row, then you've only got 6 columns left for days of the week.  Doing it that way means you're missing a day of the week (which I guess could work out if you wanted to give the kid a break for a day).  Also, there comes into question what you're going to want to do to make it reusable so you don't have to cut out a new one every week.  Lets face it...with a full time job, I don't have the time or energy (let alone paper!) to tackle a project like that every week!

My initial test cut of the chart ended up being too small.  When I did the test cut, I was just using some scrap letter size paper, so I was limited to a 6" cut.  While cutting at that size probably would have worked, it just ended up being too small.  Sooo...I grabbed some 12x12 paper and made a new chart.  I believe I was able to get it to cut out at 8" tall with that, which gave me a little bit more room to work.  We gave the boy 3 chores to do...feeding the dog, making his bed, and putting his toys away.  The cuts for those chores, while still having tiny pieces, were easy enough to put together.  I cut those out at 2", I believe.  Everything got laminated, and I put magnets on everything so that it could go up on the 'fridge.  I had a roll of 1" magnet material laying around at home (leftover from my menu calendar), and I decided to use that to mark the chores as being done for the day.  I simply covered them with some paper and wrote the days out on them.  That was much easier than trying to make the days of the weeks cuts off the cartridge.  While the cricut and my silhouette cameo are great tools and I love to use them, sometimes there are simpler solutions!  In any case, here's pictures of the final product.  We've been using it for about a month now and it's working out pretty well so far.

The whole chart put together.  I ended up putting the chores to do on the outside of the chart, so that we had a full 7 day week to work with.

Close-up of the markers.  I made them different colors to make them fun, and so that the boy would have a different color for each chore.

The ones waiting to be used are lined up alongside the chart.  Markers for the current day are usually under the chart, and ones for the next day are usually above.  I rotate them through in the evening so they're ready to go for the next day.

Close-up of the chores to be done.

 
The boy has been keeping up with his chores for the most part and he enjoys earning his allowance money so that he can buy things that he wants to get.  It's been a great way to teach him responsibility, and how to save money.  If he doesn't have enough to get what he wants, he can either buy something cheaper, or he can save it up to have more money and buy something bigger.  The first week's allowance went to some playdoh!