Thank you. It’s just the truth and pretty obvious by itself, but I have also watched Dragons Den, a very long running tv programme in the UK, where investors with loads of money listen to pitches by people wanting investments for their own products and businesses. Sara Davies of Crafter’s Companion is the newest and youngest dragon. It’s not just her, though, it is all of the dragons telling people they have to get their manufacturing costs down, and the Far East as they like to call it is the recommended place to go for their manufacturing. I have watched it a lot, and I have never heard them ever at any time mention anything but the Far East. I remember the earlier days of CC before I came to the US and before CC had even started making dies. They are now mostly a die company, but back then they were selling rubber stamps, not clear stamps, unmounted rubber stamps, and Sara Davies would be on create and craft tv saying that she’d phoned her company to turn on the equipment and make more rubber stamps. It was all done in the UK back then and so was everything else they were making. How sad that things have changed so much, and I just heard her say a couple of days ago that they have been taking on more and more staff, illustrators, engineers, everyone they need to make more and more products. Doing the manufacturing in the UK again would be a real help to the people in northeast England where they are based. I wonder if any of the many people with companies manufacturing their products in China have ever stopped to think about what a difference it could make to local employment, or if all they ever think about is their own profit margin.

I forgot all about it but wasn’t going to watch it anyway, and I don’t miss it or hsn.

Since they took away the $5 capped shipping in March, I haven’t watched hsn. I even forgot they were having a craft day today. The only products I’m interested in are Crafters Companion and Anna Griffin, and I buy anything of interest of CC from websites in England for cheaper prices,no tax, and free or very low cost shipping, depending on the website, and get emails from those websites letting me know about the new products, and I get product preview emails from AG and wait for Anna Griffin products until she adds them to her website. I’ve already got enough to open a shop so I’m not in any hurry. HSN is not a company I will ever buy from again. The only incentive they ever had to buy from them they took away and showed by their actions that they really don’t care and they don’t appreciate their customers.

It might be best to look on cricut.com for information or contact their ‘member care’ by phone or email and ask them. They seem to be working there at present. I’m not interested in buying the joy or any other cricut machine, but I have read some reviews, including on amazon, and there are so many contradictory statements being made that I don’t know what to think. People have said you need bluetooth to use it and have to use it with the internet and that it is very limited in what you can use it for, only A2 cards was said, disagreement about its cutting ability, overpriced for what it does, some love it, some wish they hadn’t bought it. I had got the impression that it’s main function was to cut vinyl when I saw part of a presentation on tv, as they were focussing so much on vinyl. It seemed a lot more limited in what it can do as compared to other machines.Their website has a lot of stuff you can buy to use with the machine, so you can see how much it could cost to make things with it. If it were me, I would do my best to find out as much as I could before I paid out all of that money. I’m happy with my dies and ebosser and rubber stamps and embossing folders.

That’s what I’ve been doing. I can’t see myself ever going back to buying from hsn, and I don’t miss watching the craft days, which is all I ever watched. I find the presenters annoying to have to listen to anyway and often switched the volume off and turned it back on when the guest was speaking. I find it hard to believe that there are still a lot of people who get excited about upcoming craft days. It was like throwing cold water on me when they suddenly stopped the $5 shipping. Maybe if they would have realised their mistake immediately and brought it back and even better had free shipping to make up for it there might have been a chance to get me back, but they’ve left it too long now and have not listened and clearly don’t care. There is nothing I have wanted that I haven’t been able to buy elsewhere and get a better deal, even if I have had to sometimes wait for awhile.

I’m so sorry to hear about your pet. That is horrible.

Like the other person, I feel certain that if it says ‘imported’ it is from China virtually all of the time. Of course they know where the products come from, and they want to hide it from customers. This is all about making the maximum profit and putting that first above everything else.