In short, yes, it does. You might be wondering why the brand of card stock matters. Well, it really comes down to what you want for your end result. Let’s take a look at a couple of brands and compare how they do.
For this project, I used two different brands of card stock, for demonstration purposes. I wanted to show you that the quality of the card stock definitely matters when making things.
When I first started using card stock, I bought one of the $5 packs of ColorBök at WalMart in the scrapbooking section. Well, it turns out that it is great for scrapbooking, but not so great for Cricut projects. For starters, it isn’t colored to the core, so when you cut something, it has white edges. Secondly, it doesn’t cut well with the Cricut. It tends to snag and tear.
The second brand I used is Recollections from Michael’s. It is a smoother card stock, and has a colored core, meaning that your cuts won’t leave you with white edges. It gives a cleaner cut, and doesn’t snag on the blade like the ColorBök brand.
Due to the font used on these recipe cards, the pen smeared a bit on both types of card stock, so this isn’t necessarily a card stock issue, so much as a font choice issue. This could also be remedied by using a different type of Cricut pen, such as a gel pen versus a marker. I only had the marker on hand, so that’s what I used.
Overall, not horrible, but I believe that with a few minor changes, they could be great!
Now, another project that is often done with card stock is paper flowers. This is one of those projects that you really don’t want to have those white edges on. You will definitely want a solid for these projects. You can’t just grab the cheapest thing in sight, like I did, and expect greatness. I made several things with the cheap stuff, and finally broke down and bought the Recollections brand. I’m so glad I did, and I won’t use any other brand! The finished projects are prettier, and cleaner than with the other brand.
Now, I’m not saying to go out and spend a ton of money on card stock, just to buy the better one. Often, the Recollections brand is on sale at Michael’s. I generally get mine for around $5 a package on sale. Trust me, you will be glad you got it!
