SU Review

The 2006 - 2007 arrived with a thump on my front porch, about 15 minutes before the ambulance pulled up to take my mom to her 3rd trip to the ER in month. What's a stamper to do? Took the catty with me and good thing as we were there until 2 am. Here are my thoughts, for what they are worth. I'm a demo, but a bit different than most. I don't do workshops, but will take orders on line. I'm not out to make any money, just love getting to know folks and make my minimums!! SU stirs up such passions among stampers. Some folks hate the company and and some love it and every single thing it sells. I'm in the middle. With a catalogue so diverse, I can't imagine loving every single thing! However, I love their cardstock and ink. Can't beat it for quality and price. First, the good stuff!! SU has an amazing selection of jumbo wheels. At $7.95 I think they are the best bargain around (no pun intended!). In addition to the usual assortment of pretty flower and vine wheels, there are some great background wheels, such as dry brush and splatter. These are on my "must buy" list. Next, the backgrounds. I love love love SU's backgrounds because of their size and their quality. I really like the Paisley -- the design sits on top of a cloth type background, but will probably skip this one. Speaking of cloth, the catty has canvas and linen and aida cloth (what you would use for cross stiching) and a background called flannel plaid, which is way nicer than it sounds -- has a soft distressed look. I already have canvas and linen, and will bet these as well. I've found that linen makes any card look better! There are many other great backgrounds as well. If you love polka dots, there are a couple of backgrounds here and, in fact, the whole catalogue has tons of dots in it!! There are some fabulous word sets -- especially if you are in the market for Christmas greeting sets -- check out Glad Tidings and Many Merry Messages. And there is a new 56 word set called Amazing to Zany that I lOVE. It is in a modern font, much nicer than Everyday Flexible Phrases and there is a cute accent set called A to Z accents, which gives you tiny little backgrounds to put behind the words. Another must buy for me. However, the Christmas sets themselves are a huge disappointment. Santa has never looked worse -- good grief, they kept the crazy looking one, who is driving a motorcycle!! There is a Jewish greetings set that is sooo much nicer than the previous one and I will definitely grab that before it retires. There are a few other sets that I love -- Sassy Stems, a set of 3 flower stamps, 2 of which are in vases, Bodacious Bouquet, which reminds me of last year's Island Blossoms. There's a matching wheel for Bodaciuos that is also very nice. One very, very nice feature is that each of the Hostess Level One sets are nice, and some are very nice indeed. They brought back some of the nicest sets from previuos mini catalogs, and I'm so glad, because I missed out on most of them. Dream Come True is back with a new wheel and that's the only heart set I really like so that is also on my must buy list! Two new sets deserve special mention -- Close as a Memory is a drop dead gorgeous sympathy set (again, no pun intended!!). I don't need sympathy words but this set may end up on my purchase list anyway simply because I love the gentle flowers and sayings that go with it. On the same page (89) is Artfully Asian, my absolute favorite thing in the whole catalogue. It's a set of 5 stamps, two sayings and 3 simple line drawings of leaves and flowers. $22.95 and worth every penny. Finally, that page also has a lovely jumbo wheel called Watercolor Vine that has limiteless possibilities. I'm buying all of page 89! How can a company that makes Artfully Asian produce a set with a lawn jockey, a gnome and sayings such as "Lawn decorations covereth a multitude of weeds" and "I like to hang out with people who are shorter and chubbier than me."????? To whom would you send such a card? Two big definitely decorative 2 step stampin sets, Wild Rose and Serene Sunflower are straight out of previous catalogs in terms of their style. If you like an old fashioned, sort of vintage look, you may love these. They are not my cup of tea!! Then there are the assorted mice, hideous kids, etc. that creep into every catalogue. Shudder. There's some new patterned paper that is better than last year's but can't hold a candle to Basic Grey, Sei, and other top notch companies. The albums are the same plain linen and one black leather. Again, a huge disappointment. There's a couple of new punches that I'll get because they are designed to go with the Hodgepodge Hardware kits, and that makes a lot of sense. They punch out little ovals to fit into those metal labels. Cool idea!! There is new patterned ribbon, but I don't care for it. Will have to feed my ribbon habbit elsewhere (I NEED dotted organdy!). There is a new set of neutral watercolor crayons which is a great idea, and some really nice chipboard accessories. So, enough I LOVE to earn several hostess sets. Enough to ignore so I don't feel sorry for myself for not having enough $$ for all of it. By the way, my mom seems ok at the moment....