by Abijah Panos

The Cricut Mini Monsters is an excellent and fun cartridge that I think is ideal for making a wide selection of objects with, including cards, scrap pages for my youngsters and also making use of the cut outs as room decorations.

The Cricut Mini Monsters is filled with a massive selection of various monster images, but these are definitely not your usual scary ones, these are significantly more fun looking and entertaining. Each and every one of the monsters which are included are actually monsters of particular kinds of other 'things'. For example there are dog monsters, cat monsters and pirate monsters. The monster style and look reminds me nearly of jelly monsters or those Pac Man video games from the past. The colors of these images which are shown on the instruction booklet are great combinations and I should admit that several of my monster creations have 'borrowed' Provo Craft's more designer inclined eye. I know what I like, but sometimes my style and color combination results just don't turn out that visually appealing.

When I initially bought this cartridge, I actually only saw the great array of fun monsters that were on it and wanting to make a few specific things for my boys, that adore anything to do with ghoulish characters, I believed this could be perfect. It turns out that it really is indeed ideal for this. Nevertheless, what I just didn't realize at that time was how suitable this cartridge is to all of those fun Halloween projects that you usually seem to make during this holiday period. I never truly paid much attention to the choice of phrases that this cartridge has, or I should have guessed that it also had a excellent Halloween use. I suppose this has turned out to be an extra on what I originally purchased it for, so it now gives even better value for money.

My first item that I used this cartridge for was a few birthday party invites for my son's birthday, as unsurprisingly he wanted a monster and ghouls themed costume party. On a side note, you would think that getting hold of children sized monster costumes would be comparatively simple, but as I now know, unless you would like pretty plain looking costumes, great ones are unbelievably difficult to locate. Just felt I would let you in on that just in case any of you face this party theme in the future! Anyway getting back to my monster invites. I had thirty two to produce, so I wanted to make certain the layout was easy and to be honest didn't take too much time. I stole a simple card style concept from a video I noticed on the internet and then removed a few of the additional components that had been added to it. I really only wanted a monster character and phrase as well as the event particulars with my son's particulars added needless to say.

I began out by creating all of the cards with the same monster as well as the exact same phrase after which my son started to want other monsters, so I ended up using various ones from then on for each and every different invitation. I even added a couple of extra elements to a couple to make them a bit more fancy for a couple of his particular friends, as their moms are always sending out fancy party cards for their youngsters, but not handmade master pieces like these of course! I should confess, the Mini Monsters Cartridge does have a assortment of phrases to choose from, but it does not contain a full font, so I turned to utilizing another Font Cartridge for the specific wording on the invites, but that is fine.

Anyway, the invites turned out great, my son was happy and I think the fancy invitation moms were jealous of my superior party invites as they later asked where I had got them from! I now have a sneaky suspicion they are going to buy a Cricut Expression machine prior to their sons' next birthdays.

I have a couple of great project ideas for Halloween items that I need to make for the children shortly and there are even more excellent suggestions on the internet that tickle my fancy, so I will definitely be using the wide variety of Halloween monsters, Halloween additional pictures and a few of the better phrases shortly.

All in all the Mini Monsters Cartridge is really a really fun cartridge to use for and with children. I do not think it is worthwhile purchasing for strictly adult projects and you'd most likely have to grab any lettering from other cartridges to finish your projects, but even having said that, I still feel it can be a uniquely enjoyable cartridge to have and use. - 39969