Smoke That Alarm

I just spent six hours on a frustrating search-and-destroy mission. It started when I awoke an hour earlier than usual to the beep of a smoke alarm with a low battery. The beep wasn't very loud, and it only chirped once every ten or fifteen minutes. But it was enough to prevent me from falling back asleep. So, I sighed, flung the covers off and stumbled to the kitchen.

I never actually hit this, or any other smoke alarm with a hammer. However, the image does illustrate my frustration at trying to change the batteries in multiple smoke alarms that all seemed to be beeping at me all at the same time.

As I was making coffee, the alarm beeped again. Luckily, it was the kitchen alarm located directly above where I was standing - or so I thought. The beeping already had me so on-task that I replaced the battery before the coffee had finished brewing, As I poured myself a large mug of magic elixir, I congratulated myself on accomplishing an onerous task before I had even had my first sip of coffee. I was on point, and it felt good, surely a great start to a productive day

That should have been my first hint. Never, ever do anything that even remotely resembles thinking or deciding before caffeination. As I trundled towards my morning sipping and contemplation spot, it beeped. The new battery had not worked.

Tool List for Cricut Maker

Our MakerSpace got an almost new Cricut Maker machine. But it came without the tools or mats, so we had to figure out how to provision it. Since the Cricut brand machines are new to us, we wanted to start with all original Cricut Equipment.

Basic Starter Kit:

We didn't fully understand all the different options, so we opted for Cricut's official Starter Bundle basic toolkit. (affiliate) It seemed like it had all the required tools and materials and we seemed to even save some money over buying each tool individually. 

The bundle includes a Fine Point tool and blade, a Deep Cut tool and blade, a Bonded Fabric tool and blade, plus a 3x mat selection and marking pens. Add some transfer-tape and you can start working with a huge variety of materials right away.

Cutting Mat 3x Variety Pack (affiliate)

Transfer Tape 2-pk (affiliate)

Fine Point Tool w/Blade plus some Replacement Blades (affiliate)

Deep Cut Tool w/Blade plus some  Replacement Blades (affiliate)

Bonded Fabric Tool plus some Replacement Blades (affiliate)

Scoring Stylus (affiliate)

Combo Embosser/Engraver Tool (affiliate)