One day every week I am going to post a product review of a scrapbooking/card making/crafting tool or product. A lot of products available out there today are, in my experience, over the top or unnecessary. A lot of products are really great, and yet a lot of products have quirks or issues that you have to work with in order to use it properly. Knowing which products are really helpful and which are a waste of money will help you, as a consumer, make the right decision for you when you are looking to invest in your own tools and products. Thus, the product reviews. It is so important to read reviews of products to get a good feel for how the product or tool performs and to determine whether it will be worth your investment. When you purchase software, cameras, kitchen appliances or cars (etc) it is always recommended that you read product reviews to determine which is the best product on the market and which is the best product for your use. The same goes with scrapbooking and crafting tools and products. Many of these tools can be pretty pricey and as you use them to preserve your memories or make cards or other crafty things for friends, family, or to sell, you want to use the best products out there. And the best may or may not be the most pricey or made by the best known companies or be the most convenient, easy tools.

This week I am going to review a circle cutter by Making Memories I bought a few weeks ago. I am horrible at cutting circles – and I mean horrible. I have a coluzzle template set that has a circle template, but it is pretty limited with the size of circles I can make. When I make cards or scrapbook pages or other projects I like to use circles cut outs every once in a while for embellishments and things. Let me tell you it gets pretty frustrating when you have to keep trimming a circle to make it perfect, then by the time you get it as round as possible it’s the size of a dime. One day my husband and I were shopping at Michaels for a couple things and I saw this circle cutter from Making Memories. It is a really cool product – it comes with a self healing square mat, blades and a little compass-like tool.

One of the great things about this product is that it does make a good circle – clean edges and unless you move the paper or compass while you are cutting the circle, it creates a perfect circle – no squiggly lines in other words. It is fairly simple and easy to use and the pieces all come apart so you can store it pretty well. The cutting mat is self healing, as well and it comes with 6 blades.

One of the unfortunate things about this product (that I really just discovered today) is that the smallest circle it can make is a 2″ diameter circle (1″ radius). If you are looking for smaller circles, tough luck with this one. I found that out the hard way today with a project I was working on and had to resort to tracing the caps of a couple bottles to make the right size circles I was looking for. For larger circles, though, it works great and I really do love it. Another unfortunate thing about it (and this may just be the one that I got, not all of them) is it is a pain in the caboose to get the blades out. The compass comes with three different pieces – the arm of the compass (and where you put the blade to cut the circle), the base, and the handle/storage for your refill blades. The blades are kept in a little tube – made of glass I believe – with a cap on the end. It took my husband and I two days to get the cap off to get to the blades. We finally had to run hot water over it for about 5 minutes and then use a pot holder with grip lines on it to get the cap off. I don’t put the cap on tight since we got it open the first time, so I haven’t had any problems with it since then and I couldn’t swear that every one of these is the same way. We could just be the lucky ones!

All in all, on a scale of 1 to 10, I would give the Circle Cutter by Making Memories a 7. It is a great tool and cuts great circles and has been a huge help to me – but I would have really preferred that it cut smaller circles, as I use more of those in my cards and smaller projects. I believe this product cost me $20. With one of their 20% coupons at Michaels, I would recommend this product but I would caution against it if you are wanting to make a lot of smaller circles.

Thanks for reading with me!

As always, if there are any questions or comments you have, please feel free to leave them or email me! If you have any questions or would like information on other products or papers or anything you have seen and are interested in please let me know and I will happily give my best thoughts, reviews and recommendations.