Bests & Worsts Reviews from Amazon

My husband bought me the Silhouette Cameo Starter Bundle from Amazon after I bragged about how many things this machine could do. Of course, after receiving it, I wanted to start using it right away. I went to our local Joann Fabrics store and bought a multi-pack of cardstock. I immediately started cutting. What I noticed were the following: * the cardstock was tearing while cutting * cardstock was even tearing more after I tried to get it off the cutting mat. I was rather disappointed at first. I tried a few different settings with the blade, but nothing helped. I even used the new blade that came with the bundle but even the new blade was tearing up my paper. Until I did some more research on the Silhouette Cameo. Yes the cutting mat is very sticky, but looses it's stickiness rather fast after a few uses. Now after so many uses my mat isn't sticky enough anymore. So I use adhesive spray to keep my paper in place and it works great! NOW the most annoying problem of them all was the tearing of the paper while cutting. I bought the Core'Dinations Premium Textured Cardstock from Joann's. That was a big mistake. That type of cardstock seemed very soft and fibrous. So after some research on peoples blogs I found out that Bazzill Cardstock or American Crafts Cardstock works the best with the Silhouette. Of course our Joann's doesn't sell any of these. But our local Michael's does sell Bazzill Cardstock but only as individual 12 x 12 sheets. I bought some sheets and tried them! Oh boy! What a difference! No more tearing and nicely cut shapes came out of my Silhouette. Now I'm as happy as can be! So anyone who is having problems with tearing cardstock I advice to try different brands because the Silhouette cuts some cardstock better than others. In the meantime I have cut vinyl and used the sketch pens without any problems. Another big PRO to the Silhouette is their website and lack of cartridges. I never owned a Cricut or any other die cutting machine because I simply didn't want to buy those expensive cartridges. I do graphic design in my free time and I love to be able to use my own creations to cut with the Silhouette. Also shapes in their online store are $ 0.99 so it's a bunch cheaper and you only pay for the shapes you want. They also have a free shape of the week and weekly clearance shapes for $ 0.50. There are also online stores where you can buy reasonably priced shapes. Much better than fooling with cartridges.