It is usually really hard to come up with good gifts for people you don’t know very well. The first thing to your mind might be to look for stuff the recipient will like and have practical use for. But how do you know what this person will consider practical? Another mistake some people do is to buy gifts that appeal to themselves without considering the taste of the recipient.

Too bad that everyones lifestyles make completely different things useful for everyone. I for instance don’t know very much about repairing and tuning cars. If my car breaks I just leave it at the mechanics, get a rental for a couple of days and that’s it. This makes the book about do it yourself car repairs and various tools I have received from my car loving father completely useless for me. Even if it might have saved me money in the long run and been considered “useful”.

In modern western society most adult people already own everything they might want or need. The only thing that remains are those that they cannot afford like a sports motorcycle, a trip around the world or a yacht. But those gifts are completely unrealistic for most of us.

So if we ruled out practical gifts, what is left? Gifts that invoke some kind of memory or positive emotion. This is why souvenirs are so popular even though they often are cheesy, pointless or even plain ugly. They invoke the memories from the trip. In the same way a nicely framed picture you got from your partner might invoke happiness every time you see it.

So here we come to the underused prank gift or gag gift. What does a prank gift have to do with positive feelings you ask. Well, a well thought out gag gift will have the whole party laughing, and will create a unforgettable experience for the recipient. What do you think a person will remember more from his 18the birthday party, the awesome time he had at the party or the gifts. Unless he got a Ferrari he will remember the party.

Most of us who have an interest in scrapbooking, home decor and paper craft are already familiar with the Cricut line of products. What is it then, that makes the Cricut Expression different from the other two Cricut machines, and is the Expression worth the extra money over the original Cricut? I will have to say that it depends on your needs and goals. All three Cricut machines are made by Provocraft, the original Cricut machine, the Cricut expression, and the Cricut create. The two we will concentrate on today are the original Cricut and the Cricut expression as they are the most popular and have pretty similar uses.

All these machines are used to make shapes, letters and other designs for scrapbooks, home decorations and other uses, like making christmas cards. The machines use advanced cutting technology and are very precise. The Cricut Expression Machine can cut not only paper but a load of other materials like vinyl, soft plastics or fabric. It is a larger and heavier machine than the previous Cricut machines so you can use mat sizes of 12″ x 12″ or 12″ x 24″. Another benefit of the larger size is the inclusion of a LCD screen in this model, which allows you to see what you are typing before you cut. This of course will save you time and paper, and avoid frustrating mistakes.

All the various Cricut machines come with built in keyboards where you select which graphics or letters you want to print, so you do not need to use a computer to design your cutouts. Instead the systems use keyboard overlays that are unique to each Cricut cartridge. On a side note, the Cricut Expression uses the same cartridges that the original Cricut machine uses, so if you want to upgrade to the Cricut Expression you can keep using your entire library of cartridges. Cricut cartridges come in themes such as “Christmas”, “continents” or “Storybook” graphics, or as font cartridges which typically contains a font and a lot of associated borders, decorations and so on. There are around 90 available Cricut cartridges out right now, so you will be able to find graphics and fonts for every occasion.

Overall the Cricut Expression is a robust and useful machine if you work a lot with papercraft. If you already own a cricut machine I would consider if I need the increased mat size or the LCD screen, if you don’t I would stick to the original Cricut machine and use the money for additional cartridges.