Prices going up and quality going down?

Simple Stories die cuts and stuff always seemed kind of thin to me in comparison to others but I haven't really bought anything from their lines in a while, mainly because the lines weren't my style (I only bought the disney themed lines).

Carta Bella seems to have the best cardstock dies and paper, it's thick and has a bit of texture to it.

Some of my projects I want to use thinner cardstock/dies so my albums won't get too chunky but if it's too thin (like regular copy paper thickness) I would probably not buy those.

I think Simple Stores die cuts have always been on the thin side.

I've had the same disappointment with the die cuts from the Spellbinders card kits, they were incredibly thin and if I popped them up, I didn't think they'd withstand the mail very well, so I came up with a "hack"/workaround. It's definitely extra work, but to me, it was worth it, so I thought I'd share. You have to have an electronic cutter though (in my case, a Silhouette).

I took the die cuts and scanned them, with the back (white) side against the scanner. I also put a sheet of black cardstock on top of the die cuts. This way, I could bring the image into Silhouette studio and trace the white images, which really stood out against the black cardstock. (I also flipped/mirrored the traced images, just so it was easier for me.) Once that was done, I cut out 2-3 extra white blank backers and adhered them to the back of the original die cut and voila, I had a really sturdy die cut! In fact, I did this instead of popping them up at all, because it was way more secure.

Like I said, may not be worth it for everyone, but I can get obsessive about trying to fix a problem, so I decided to do it.

It seems increased prices/decreased quality is a trend not only in scrapping supplies, but everything! 

Like wendifful, I often add bulk to thinner ephemera. My approach is simply to either punch or diecut slightly smaller sizes of standard shapes, or trace & cut the perimeter of irregular shapes, out of scrap cardstock & layer behind each piece of ephemera. I add at least one layer before adding foam adhesive or multiple layers for a chipboard/Thickers appearance in lieu of foam adhesive.