Hello. I got several of the new cartridges in the past week or so. One of those I picked up was the "Sweet Treats" cartridge from our local Michaels. I was excited about this cart because I like to make bags, boxes, containers. I tried a couple of them. I cut out 2 "cupcake holders" and 1 "Party Favor Boxes". I cut 2 of the cupcake holders trying to figure out the sizing for a cupcake. You would "think" that they would give the basic sizes to cut to get the correct size for something like this!!!
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My biggest issue with this cart is what I feel like was deceptiveness on PC's part with this cartridge. At first glance you would think you had 50 cupcake holders. However, in fact, there is only 1 "cupcake holder" and 49 more IDENTICAL cuts. There is NOTHING DIFFERENT on any of those cuts. The shift function gives you "emblishments" to add to the cupcake holders that make them "different". Then there are a large number of identical cuts on the Party Favor Boxes. There are 3 of 1 and 5 of another that are identical on the word cuts. They are actually the same boxes but just 2 different sizes, 3 one size and 5 of another. Then there are 10 identical cuts for the "candle" party favor boxes. So you don't have 50 different "Party Favor Boxes" you get far fewer. Again, the shfit feature for each gives you "emblishments" that make them different. However, I don't need 10 or 50 of the same cut for that. Just give me one cut and then the different embelishments..JPG)
At first glance, I thought hey, these look identical - then I thought no they wouldn't do that. So, before I accused them I decided to make sure that I was correct and I cut them all out to verify they were in fact identical as I suspected. Sad to say, I was right. :( Then there are a number of "not available" spaces (23 or more based on my account!!!) Plus, this I didn't verify, but I believe that some of the cards and the tags may be the same as well. Again, just with a different emblishment with the shift feature. :( So when you start adding it up, there are probably well over 100 that are blank or identical. Compared to the newly released Old West and Pagoda that has no identical cuts or N/A's on them so they have a full 700 images! Sorry PC but I don't see that as acceptable. If you can't do a fully loaded cart with different images, then make it a soulutions cart!.JPG)
With that said, here are the 3 items that I made with the Sweet Treats cartridge. The first 2 are the cupcake holders. The first one the purple one with the crown I loaded the mat with a 12x12 piece of paper and told it to "fit to size" (at the moment, Sweet Treats and Paisley are not avialable on the Gypsy or DS software - maybe tommorrow or soon!). With fit to size, it said it was cutting at 11". When the cut is completed and the holder is folded up and glued together, you get a completed holder that is fairly large. It gives you a 4"x4" square bottom and its width is 4" wide at the bottom, 4 1/2" wide at the top. It's height is 3 1/2". To get the "crowns" you use the shift function. It cuts out 2 side panels leaving 2 sides undecorated. You can do all 4 sides by cutting it again. I think this size is probably even still too big for a jumbo cupcake. However, it would make a nice size box for other treats..JPG)
The second cuupcake holder I "guestimated" the size to cut based on my results from the first one. I cut it at 7". This gives you a 2 1/2" x 2 1/2" square bottom. It is 2 1/2" wide at the base and 3" wide at the top. It is 2 1/4" in height. I used the shift function to cut the scalloped border. This cuts 4, one for each side. This is probably the right size to hold a regular size cupcake or muffin..JPG)
Finally, I tried one of the Party Favor Boxes. I cut the number 6 ice cream cone. Again, since for some unexplainable reason, PC does NOT provide sizing guidelines, I had to "guesstimate" or try a "fit to page" and just see what he end result was. I put in the 12"x12" paper and told it to "fit to page". It then cut this Party Favor Box at 5 3/4". As a result, it only uses 1/2 the page of paper but it takes the full 12" width to cut it out. If you could use DS or the Gypsy. You could manipulate this a little to get more height if you wanted. The "favor" part of the box ends up being approx. 3 x 2 3/4" in width and a little less then 2 1/2" in height. Not a huge box by any means! You then need to cut the layers of the ice cream out. Since you will need "2" of them, you will need to "flip" some of them for one side. Not a problem if you use plain one color paper, but an issue if you use a print (as I did for the strawberry ice cream). If you do that you will need to "flip" the ones for that side. I found it easier to mark mine as I cut L for left and R for right. I then embossed with the Cuttlebug "swirl folder" so I had to make sure I was embossing the "correct" sides as well!! They also have added the "holes" for adding a handle. I don't know that I would have added a handle, but without it being loaded on DS, I couldn't do a hide/contour feature on it to prevent those holes from cutting, and the Gypsy doesn't have that feature so I wouldn't have been able to do it on there at all.
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End result, I like a lot of the things on this cartridge. However, I do feel that PC "short changed" us by giving so many identical cuts! I would not pay full price for this less then complete cartridge!! Glad I got mine on a sales price match!! Please let me know if you have any questions or want to see a particular item cut out from this cartridge. There is of course no .cut or .gypsy files for this since the are direct cuts from the cartridge and they are not yet avilable on on the DS or Gypsy cartridge listings for use. Have a great day!