Cuttlewhat? Cricutty thingy? Yudu? Who do?!

When you enter the brave world of wedding planning, you simply become obsessed with DIY projects: I can make my own invitations! I can grow flowers for the bouquets! I can make my own organic make up! Okay maybe not the last one (or two for me) but I'm positive there's a bride out there who has done it because, well, we're a little nutty. We're all trying to out do each other on who put more handmade touches into our weddings, and honestly, it's a sickness I enjoy. 

My own DIY projects include: 
- our invitation suite
- our guest favours (not posting what that is yet you sneaky monkeys!)
- cake toppers
- votive holders
- menus
- escort cards
- out of town bags
..... I know there's more but I'm drawing a blank. Anyways, you get the point!

Now to make all of said projects, you need some serious artillery here. My manufacturer of choice is Provocraft. I'm pretty sure I own one of everything they make. So let's chat about what each machine is and have a looksie at what you can accomplish with it. 


Cricut
This is probably a bride's best friend. Basically it's a paper cutting machine about the size of a printer. You can buy cartridges preloaded with a font and a few shapes that you plug into the machine, insert your paper, hit the button, and voila, it cuts out whatever shape you just pushed. What I don't like about this is that the Cricut cartridges are about $90 each. Ouch!!! Silver lining though, Sure Cuts A Lot is a program that works with any font as well as with Adobe Illustrator. What does this mean to you? You can download TONS of free fonts (just google "free fonts") and free vector graphics (again, google), do up your design in Illustrator, import it into SCAL and cut it with your Cricut without spending $90/cartridge. Score!!!


So if you buy a Cricut, here's an example of what it can do:

This was a Valentine's Day card I made this year using a dingbats font that was Spanish tile inspired, and some sort of floral dingbat font for the flower.

This was part of a "Welcome home" banner for my friend's baby. I made the shapes on Illustrator and then overlaid the font. I scaled the circle shape up a bit and cut it in a graphic paper, and then cut the smaller size with the font on it out of the blue. I then threaded the whole thing onto some coordinating green ribbon. Super cute!


Cuttlebug
This machine is non-computer related, it's all you! Basically you buy the Cuttlebug (about the size of a loaf of bread), and some embossing folders or die cuts. I use the embossing folders since I have the Cricut to do my fancy cutting. You take your piece of paper, stick it in the folder, turn the crank to feed it through the machine and voila! Embossed paper! 

I love embossing, it just gives such a great depth to your project. What I don't like about the Cuttlebug is that it's size limited. The folders are about 5"x7". I also don't like that you're limited to the folders that Provocraft and other manufacturers create. I haven't been able to find anyone to make custom folders, but if you know of one please let me know! What I do love is adding texture to my projects. The Provocraft folders are really reasonably priced (about $7-$10 each) and the Cuttlebug itself takes all different brands of folders. 


Yudu
I mentioned in a previous post about Yudu, so I'll try to keep this short and sweet. A Yudu is basically a table top silk screener. Come up with an image, print it on an overhead, expose it onto your emulsion film, cover with ink, squeegee, done. It's fairly simple but somewhat time consuming. I love mine but haven't had the opportunity to use it to its full potential just yet. I hope to start in on Yudu-ing my invitations soon!

This is an exposed screen with a design I drew for a tank top. I've just rinsed the emulsion off and am about to put it in the drying rack. Below is my tank top in place ready to be printed on!

Does anyone else have a machine I'm missing in my collection?? Are you dying to learn a new DIY technique for your wedding or just for fun?