Harder to find inspiration examples for older products??

I just look at Pinterest or Google search. If I find a good design of some other card, I adapt it.

It’s true. There seems to be a constant stream of new products. Once a few samples and/or a video is made, then the big names go on to the next new stamps/dies or other product and do a few samples and video, in a never ending round of new products being promoted, and older ones quickly forgotten.

The big name crafters are so busy creating videos that showcase new products all the time, they probably don’t have the time to go back and do additional samples of products they’ve already used.

Frustrating. I found as soon as I buy a stencil, stamp or die set I take photos of the examples either from a video or stills. Otherwise, poof, gone.

I do all this, too. I really need to organize my screenshots into folders, because I have a ton of them in my iPhotos app, going back years. There are some companies that remove the inspiration ideas from their blogs once the product is retired and that really annoys me because I think if I buy a product from someone I should be able to go back to the date in their blog from the release and see what what done with it. I can't remember who it was, though.

I think one exception to always moving on to new products, minimal examples/videos is the Karen Burniston site. She releases new items less often, but she keeps the tutorials and samples available online, and over time, each pop up design ends up with a lot of additional examples. Her tutorials are very good and her design team offer additional fun and creative ways to use them. Pop up cards aren’t everyone’s thing, but she has unusual ones that she designs herself (she is a civil engineer). I’m sure they take a lot longer to design, which is probably why her new releases happen less often than some companies.

Another company that is sometimes an exception is Queen & Company. Their Facebook page encourages customers to post their projects, and while not all of them are unusual or creative, there are some that really are. They end up with a ton of examples, courtesy of their customers, and some are very cute and creative, even if they aren’t the big name/well known crafters.

I get frustrated by the companies that sell out so fast of whatever the latest and greatest is, and those of us who aren’t checking every day often don’t even have the option to buy. I recently got an email from Queen & Co. that an item I wanted had been restocked. (A light up mechanism for cards.) It took awhile for me to manage to get the original kit, and a few days after I bought the kit, I got an email that the light mechanism refills were in stock, but the email came through after I had checked my email. It was a day when I couldn’t check my email multiple times. By the next morning, when I checked my email, it was already out of stock again. I’m still waiting for it, but at least this company does give customers like me a chance to eventually get the new releases. I may have to wait awhile, but I’ll be able to get it at some point.

I get the feeling that some companies don’t want to ever have to offer products on sale, so they just discontinue new products relatively fast and move on to offering something new that will be in high demand then disappear. When companies do that on a regular basis, I stop shopping there.

I will go to an IG page, in this case maybe Spellbinders, Ranger or Simon Hurley, and then find and select "Tagged" and you will get a feed of posts from random people showing their makes and tagging the companies and designers. Not really any way to search it, but I find that there are examples made with some older product, especially if you scroll down a little ways closer to when the product came out. This is a little more helpful that just the account feed where they are showcasing the newest releases.     I do this on a desktop.  Still have not found "tagged" option on the phone app.

Ha!  Found it!  Thanks!!  Silly me, I was looking for the word instead of an icon!