Travel - Sweet Stampin'

Good morning all!

As this goes live, I'll be busy getting ready for our charity craft fair today, so wish us luck!

In the meantime, there's a new challenge starting over at Sweet Stampin', and the theme this week is travel. Another of my favourites, and trust me when I say there's some brilliant inspiration waiting on the challenge blog!

I myself went with a New York theme, using the Statue of Liberty, and made a Tim Holtz-inspired tag.

Yes, I even looked up which "route" goes to New York (the shadow fell strangely, but it's a 7, honest!), so I didn't add a random number and got one of my american friends pipe up "nice try, but that one runs through Arkansas", lol.

Now I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out, but I must admit it took some doing!

Problem was the stamp. it was, in a word, awful! I'd bought it not long ago from a small independent online craft shop in the UK. I like supporting such shops, as even though they can't often beat the "big guys" on price, the service tends to be great and you know you're helping out someone who can use the help, rather than someone who already has a high-paying job working for a big firm.

However... In this case, when the stamp set arrived, it turned out to be cheap, super soft silicone from China. (the sleeve had a sticker on it in Chinese). Trust me when I say it wasn't even close to reasonable value for money. It took about half a dozen attempts to stamp something I could work with, and even then I needed to touch it up with a pen in many places.
I had no idea this was what I was going to get, and there was no hint of it on the website, but needless to say I will be avoiding that shop from now on!
I know there have been quite a lot of heated discussions about this kind of thing recently, but until now I had never come into direct contact with any of these products. I have no idea if it is a stolen design or not, as I'd never seen it before, but on quality alone it's an epic fail. It made even magazine freebie stamps look good! lol.

Anyways, enough ranting from me! Time for you all to go check on my fellow Sweeties, and then please come and play along with us.

Have a fantabulous day!

Sammy-x