WooooHoooo!!! Made My First Cut!

Came home from work and ready to play with my new baby. First, I had to move her location though... I decided that I wanted her right at my workstation with me rather than on the table a few feet from me. Soooooooooooooo, I had to shovel some craft stuff outta the way (I'd been creating and I get a little messy because I don't always put things away when I'm done with them LOL!) and then relocate my baby to her new home -- on a table that is butted up against my craft desk!

Anywho... Continued through the manual so that I could finish setting her up -- I crashed at about 11:45 p.m. last night trying to get her all setup and do just one cut but I just couldn't keep my eyes open any longer. I actually had everything done except putting the media on the mat, the mat in the machine, and using my gauge to ensure the blade height was set properly (I used chipboard for this because I read that some folks damaged their blades with the CD. Thankfully my chipboard and the CD were the same thickness...) Then I did my cut and SUCCESS!! She cut the image nicely. It was CLEANLY cut -- even the smallest detail and thinnest cuts. It was just a lovely experience! I am using Inkscape and SignCut. Here's a picture:

I used my old Cricut mat because I was afraid of damaging my BC mat on my first attempt at cutting. I'll use the BC mat once I am totally comfortable setting the BC correctly. This image was cut at a height of 2.5 inches. Lifted the image from the mat and it was CLEAN! Didn't have to pick the little pieces out of the slits, nothing was "catching" on the cut, just simply nice and clean. Sweet!!!

Oh, and I'd thought I'd share this picture which I call "Perspective!" It's my Cricut Expression sitting in front of my new 24 inch Black Cat Cougar...

Can ya say there's a slight size difference? LOL! I know, I know -- I got the 24 inch BC and the Expression is only a 12 inch cutter...but still!

Now I'm off to do some real cutting!