Friday, January 27, 2012

Create & Craft...update 2

I clearly never should have praised create & craft for that credit note as I now stand by my first moaning post even more and can add a bit of extra moaning to go with it!

Lovely Kanban time machine stamps have not yet arrived and after contacting customer services, I have been told that they are not going to because STOCK LEVEL ISSUES- which in English means...

THEY SOLD ME A PRODUCT THAT THEY DIDN'T EVEN HAVE!!!

and took 4 days to even think about giving me the refund. Pissed off would be a gross understatement.

My, strongly worded, letter of complaint will be on its way to them tomorrow and I have lodged a complaint with 'Consumer Direct' too. Never known service like it.

Saturday, January 21, 2012

The Range, Kings Lynn

Visited The Range in Kings Lynn today, specifically to buy the lovely new Papermania Portobello Road stamps (with creativity magazine voucher of course). Particularly want to use the double decker bus stamp to create a Harry Potter Knightbus card (even though it's not a triple decker, it will be purple!)

Realised, that I'd not blogged about this shop in particular (slipping...sorry!). The craft section isn't quite as impressive as other The Range stores i've been to in Nottingham & Lincoln but they do stock a good Papermania/docrafts selection as well as some dcwv & dovecraft papers. Prices are pretty reasonable but standard and not many offers in store really. Good for the basics, but not the sort of place you travel any real distance to visit.

Not like certain Kanban based factory outlets (already itching to go again despite having used very little of the purchased items from last years June visit)!!!

NEVER tidy a craft room!...update

The tidying of the craft room is still ongoing :-( but it's getting there (although very very very slowly)!!!

Hopefully it will be finished by the end of the month so that I can actually get back to making some cards and trying to complete some scrapbooks. I'll probably have another million pics by the time I get started though!

Create & Craft...update

After my moan about Create & Craft the other day, thought that I ought to give them a bit of credit after my discovery on Thursday.

Got home early so had a quick look at the Kanban hour on Ideal World. Not very exciting, but thought i'd give the website a look to see if i'd missed anything good earlier in the day. After logging in to my account, discovered that I had 2 credit notes on there (one for the cricut cartridge overcharge and one for who knows what!). Not sure why they credited an extra £6 to me, but needless to say, it made me feel a bit more positive about C&C.

Or maybe that was the fabulous set of Kanban Time Machine Stamps that I ordered???

Friday, January 13, 2012

Create & Craft

Create & Craft / Ideal World are one of those companies that I don't really like but still tend to buy from every now and then. I started my t.v. craft buying with QVC and that is definitely where my loyalties lie although as they are going through a craftless patch at the moment, there aren't many options open to us!

Things I dislike about Create & Craft:-
1- paying for the phone call esp. when their website isn't all that reliable,
2- the way they drag out those phone calls by trying to convince you to buy utter junk that no normal person would ever want to own,
3- the fact that when you do try to talk to someone, they don't actually listen to what you are saying!!!

You have probably guessed that I've had a not so great C&C experience over the past few days but, to give them their dues, I do like the C&C club and the capped p&p offers.

A few weeks ago, just after Christmas, they had a show including some reduced price cricut cartridges but they, regularly, emphasised that the full selection was online. When I got online, hardly any cricut cartridges were on sale price, even including the ones they had shown on t.v. After checking the website regularly for the next couple of days, there was a wide selection of cartridges on a half price deal. I found 4 that I was pretty keen to get (dinosaur tracks, robotz, create a critter & mini monsters) and they were all reduced to either £19.99 or £22.99. This price would also have my 10% discount added on too so I thought I'd treat myself.

When I eventually got all 4 cartridges into my basket and went to the checkout, the capped p&p offer was not shown and my 10% club discount was not working for the Robotz cartridge. I thought it was best to give them a ring and try to do it that way so that I wasn't overcharged. After listening to the various options & some very dodgy Christmas tunes, my call was answered. By this time the 'Create a Critter' cartridge had already sold out (gutted!) and the price was still not showing correctly. I had worked it all out, whilst listening to the dodgy Christmas songs, and tried to explain to the saleslady why the price was not correct. She was adamant that her computer was telling her the correct price even though she had already manually had to change the p&p amount! After going through it and trying to explain it to her 3 times I gave up and ordered them planning to ring customer services when they arrived.

The 3 cartridges were here within a few days and the invoice showed that my c&c discount HAD NOT been applied to the Robotz cartridge (as I had tried to explain)! I rang customer services (more dodgy Christmas music-even though it was January by now!) and it took me 2 attempts to explain to that person before she agreed that I had been charged incorrectly and they would credit the money to my account BUT it has to be used within 3 months- con!

The amount credited back to my account probably doesn't even cover the cost of the telephone calls but it makes me wonder how many other people are ripped off without even realising it.

Create & Craft / Ideal World customers- BEWARE!!!

Wednesday, January 4, 2012

NEVER tidy a craft room!!!

This blog acts as a word of warning to all crafters...

NEVER ATTEMPT TO TIDY YOUR CRAFT ROOM!!!

After my, very disappointing, trip to Peterborough in search of crafting bargains, last week, I took a trip to Nottingham to see if Hobbycraft there had anything better to offer me. Having left with about £50 of stuff (worth about £100) then I can say I was most definitely impressed. Favourite deal was a fabulous snowflake shaped cookie/cake tin for £7.50- originally £15!

BUT...
Nottingham = Ikea

I went with the mission of buying extra bookcases and cd storage and that mission was successfully completed however, I also saw a very handy looking large shelving unit that instantly screamed at me "I'm perfect for making your craft room tidy". I should have realised that that was mission impossible anyway! The next day after the Ikea visit, the diy began and all the shelving went together very quickly. Cd's, Dvd's, Books & Scrapbook Albums were organised in record time so I was obviously feeling adventourous.

I then decided that it would be a good idea to go through all of my crafting boxes (mainly Kanban stuff) and re-sort it so that similar themes were together. That was last Thursday, and my living room, hallway and landing are all still full of boxes and piles of stuff that needs sorting. Not good considering that I'm now back at work again!

My advice- never tidy your craft room