Scrapbooking with Cricut (Annie's Attic: Paper Crafts)
Love scrapbooking but find it hard to think of the perfect layout?  We all get moments like that when faced with a pile of photographs but with the help of a Cricut diecutting machine and this book you should never be stuck again - well, not for a good long time anyway. Even if, like this reviewer you don't own a Cricut these simple but delightfully clean-cut and tidy layouts are likely to inspire.  I love the way they don't swamp the photographs with too much bewildering pattern but carry the theme with a few choice words and images.  Patterned papers are used, but it is mainly plains in a huge number of shapes and combinations that are used.  Another good feature is that the photos themselves are absent from the layout, which is not something I have seen in other scrapbooking books.  Usually it is all too easy to get caught up in somebody else's personal story detracting from the basic idea.  There are layouts for most occasions and holidays, organized in month order.  Choose from New Year, wedding, Easter, baby, Thanksgiving, Christmas, back to school, vacation etc as well as less often featured events such as Cinco de Mayo and Hanukkah.  Following the simple instructions is easy, and there is a helpful list of what you need with each project.  You might have to invest in quite a lot of dies if you want to make a lot of different pages, but this book does not make use of the vast array of other scrapbooking paraphernalia that magazines love to list.  At the very back is a list of suppliers, but anybody outside the US will need to look elsewhere for their stock.  Overall I was impressed with the back-to-basics look at this hobby and anybody else who is tired of the rather overblown look of many scrapbooking layouts will surely agree.-Myshelf.com