Unhappy with craft day

I like Anna Griffin products as well as Crafters Companion and Diamond Press. However, when $5.00 shipping ISN’T offered I don’t spend near the amount of money I spend when they offer the $5.00 shipping. The prices have increased on crafts, let’s keep the $5.00 shipping please.

When Anna Griffin is presenting Cricut, she is not presenting her products. The TSV was the Cricut Joy and Anna presents that product for Cricut as the live rep from her studio in Atlanta. It’s what Cricut and HSN wants. Every second of Anna presenting Cricut is not “her time” for her product. In fact, Anna got very little time for presenting Anna Griffin Inc. products throughout the last event day, which was not a 24 hour craft day. Every hour that was scheduled for her alone had a huge amount of time for Cricut. Some of the items she was supposed to present like the Anna Griffin envelope dies were only mentioned in passing or not at all. They sold out anyways. All told, Anna Griffin got less than 50% of the time she was supposed to have for her product alone, which was three hours in total. Totally Tiffany, a subsidiary with Crafters Companion, and Sara Davies got more time than that on the day.

We can expect to see a lot of Cricut always! One reason is because HSN has short term exclusives with Cricut. Cricut did its world launch on this last craft day of the Cricut Joy Foil Transfer Tool on HSN and HSN was the exclusive retailer. Kind of a big deal, although HSN hosts seemed oblivious to that fact. Doesn’t matter because Anna Griffin sold it out with her presentations. Cricut is high value items and that equals revenue for HSN. It’s like selling Apple products. The CEO of Cricut has his pick of vendors to launch products. Anna Griffin delivers. Her studio and production exceed what can be done live in house at HSN. Yes, I said it. Cricut does not need HSN to launch its products. The big retailers will happily do it. But HSN needs Anna Griffin to rep Cricut live because she has the skills and technical know how to give a high end presentation. Just know that Anna Griffin Inc has no skin in Cricut. Two different companies altogether. Don’t confuse the two.

As to Anna Griffin’s products, I am a vigorous consumer hands down. But I also like Diamond Press, Sissix, and of course Cricut. Different strokes for different folks. Go online to HSN. There are amazing vendors selling artists, sewing, and a world of craft products. Shop it and maybe you will see that vendor get air time. For me, I want way more live time for Anna Griffin products on HSN with knowledgeable hosts, and the huge base of Anna’s fans feel just as I do. HSN has Anna Griffin exclusively and HSN needs to deliver professionally.

I also am not a fan of Anna’s style or much of Crafters Companion either, but at least CC has more tools and mediums so it’s not all the same every time. While I’m not crazy about SOL (her images are just too big for my tastes and everything looks the same) at least they are a relatively new addition and it breaks up the monotony. They need to find some other small companies to feature.

I haven’t been buying from HSN in the past months, but I still want to say something in support of Anna Griffin. If you look online at what other companies put out (monthly new releases now), you will see REAL repetition. Companies like Echo Park, PinkFresh Studio, Photoplay, etc. (search for them online) come out with “new” designs every month. They emphasize new in their advertising because they’re recycling the same tired designs with minor tweaks: small objects floating in space. They change the colors and the objects with the seasons, but the design concept is the same: objects floating in space sold with complimentary papers with borders, stripes or whatever tired designs they dredge up from their files. Both Anna Griffin and Crafter’s Companion are much more inventive in their designs. Anna’s card design concepts are consistent because that’s what sells. But the products themselves show great variety and widely different designs, many not floral, which can be used in many ways. She’s done Asian, Renaissance and Latin American themes that I remember offhand. And her designs and products are much more versatile than her demonstrations show. She demonstrates what sells, not versatility of her products.

When Anna started to talk about the TS and just kept going I knew I could not watch. Even her monologue is getting really tiring. I thought Suzanne Gets Crafty would have to have other vendors so I waited to watch that. NO! Anna again. I kept flipping back hoping for anything else so I finally gave up when I knew she was gong to dominate the whole thing. I have often wondered why they give her so much time, It either has to be profitable for them or she bought into HSN. Possible??? What do you all think.

AG’s items may be new, but the reason why they all look the same is because they are variations on the same old tired themes over and over again – background and decorative dies, cardmaking kits, floral embellishments, etc., and I’m so bored with it. I’ve collected AG’s stuff for many years, and I’ve had enough. How much of the same sort of thing does one person really need? It may be pretty, but it’s too much of the same old thing. I like Diamond Press far better now. They have some innovative products that are far more interesting.

I didn’t watch today, though, because I already knew what would be on and I refuse to pay shipping on each item plus tax on the shipping as well as on the product when everything will be shipped together in the same box. I bought one DP item. Hsn have saved me a lot of money because I used to spend a silly high amount of money, several hundreds, on craft days with the $5 capped shipping and now I don’t watch and buy nothing at all or maybe one item like today. There aren’t many sell outs any more of items I might buy, so no reason to buy anything on craft days.