I'm SOLD!!!

I finally opened my brand new LIMITED EDITION Cricut EXPRESSION 2 yesterday!
In the shipping box was a box...

Once I opened the inner box I found a brand new 12x12 mat



as well as the Expression 2, various cables, a manual and quick start guide and 4 manuals for the preloaded cartridges.
The first thing I did was to power this baby up and make sure she was working.  No problems here...
Then I knew I needed to update her firmware by synching her to the CricutSynch software on my computer. 
Did that...

No problems there either...so my new little baby was good to go!

It has a cute little stylus for the touch screen which is located inside the front cover.

Here it is in the little holder....

And here it is pulled out of the holder.

I played around with my E2 a little bit and decided to cut some vinyl using the Cricut Decals cartridge which was preloaded.  It had the cutest little lady with a tennis racquet!  That's sooo ME! 

Isn't she cute???

I cut her out and slapped her on the back of the E2.  ONE of the features that I really like about the new E2 is that there are settings pre set (Ok, I can't think of another way to describe it) for the different weight papers and vinyl you might cut  AND you can add your own settings and save those out.  I did find that the setting for the vinyl I used did not give a "kiss" cut so I changed the blade depth a bit...but the pre set settings are great reminders and starting points.

Then I decided I would put my nickname on the E2 with some other vinyl I had using the Cricut American Alphabet which is also preloaded in the E2.

And that's Ten -Es-Gal as in Tennis...not Tense Gal or Tennessee Gal! :)  Tennis is another of my passions and I am really good at it (especially in my own mind.....)

OK..neither of those projects have the wow factor but they were fun to do as I started playing with my new toy.

Another feature of the new E2 is that it has a light on the cutting area which makes visibility better.  You can set it to only light up when cutting, light up when the machine is powered on or you can also set it so that the light never comes on.

You can see the cute little light in the above picture.  And in the photo below you can see how the screen looks when you have images on it:.  One thing I like is that the paper and images are cut the way you see them.  On the original Expression it cut from the top right corner by default and you had to make sure you had your paper in the right way.  Sometimes I got a bit disoriented!!! (You may not have had that trouble but I always had to really think how my paper would be laid out!)  The E2 is a bit easier to visualize...it is more like WYSIWYG (what you see is what you get!).  It begins cutting from the top left of the screen and mat.  It cuts exactly the way you see it laid out on your screen.  I like that!

I also made a Mother's Day card but will post that later! :)

Happy Crafting!