Everything AE/Ali Edwards

Sept 13, 2017 16:09:14 GMT paperamy said:

Sept 13, 2017 15:46:21 GMT nicolep said:

Where are the older kits listed at? They used to scroll across her site but I haven't seen that for a while.

I think they are pretty much just on the blog. I searched and found the am/pm kit and it IS a huge difference.



ETA: for reference, this is the current Time kit.

I'm going to have to defend her on this one... I don't think it's thinned.  I know everyone has said this and I've been a subber from the beginning so I one time took like an hour of my time to categorize every kit and found that they really haven't gone down in size. 

Take these two right here they both are identical when it comes to: (1) six 3x4 cards; (2) four 4x6 cards; (3) acrylic word of the theme; (4) chipboard sheet.  So then you're left with the extras.  AM/PM comes with: (5) transparent squares/rectangles; (6) transparent suns & moons; (7) number sticker sheet; (8) narrow label sticker sheet; (9) brads.  Time comes with: (5) 7 rubber pieces; (6) wood veneer shapes; (7) puffy number stickers; (8) two sheets of clock stickers.

So by the numbers, after the core stuff in every kit, AM/PM came with 5 additional embellishments (if you actually count the two sets of transparencies as separate embellishments) and TIME comes with 4 additional embellishments.  But if you get down to comparing embellishment by embellishment, I think TIME actually comes out on top.

AM/PM has the narrow label sticker sheet and TIME has two sheets of clock stickers.  Those are both plain flat stickers, but you get two 4x6 sheets in TIME and one 3x6 sheet in AM/PM.  I'm sure most people would agree the design is nicer for the AM/PM one, but for pure cost... TIME wins on this item.

Then the numbers.  AM/PM comes with one sheet of flat number stickers and TIME comes with one sheet of larger puffy numbers.  From a practical sense, the AM/PM ones might be better because there are more of each number.  But from a cost perspective, the ones in TIME are definitely more expensive... they are puffy.

Finally, the remaining embellishments, AM/PM has a variety of transparency sheets--two sets I think, one in square/rectangle sized (6 pieces) and a set of small round ones (6 pieces) + plain silver brads.  Lets be honest, the brads are basically worthless, there are like 9 of them and they are just plain silver.  I do like the transparencies and there is a good variety of them, 12 total.  TIME has 7 rubber pieces and 3 (or 4? I can't tell if the arrows are separate) wood veneer pieces.  That is 10 pieces, only two less than the number of transparent pieces in AM/PM.  But... we all know that of the 3 embellishment types (transparencies, wood veneers and rubber pieces) the rubber pieces cost the most.  I would say wood veneer next, but they're probably comparable to the transparencies.  Of course, the transparencies have whatever value the brads add to balance them out... but no way does that make up for the added cost of rubber pieces.

So at the end of the day, TIME is actually a fuller kit than AM/PM.  From the photo it probably doesn't look it, it's more spread out for one thing.  Also, in AM/PM they popped one of the chipboard shapes out and put it towards the top of the arrangement.  I think TIME also gets slighted because when you have two sheets of the same sticker (like the black clocks) it doesn't look like much more than the label stickers in AM/PM in the photo... but it's really more than double the square inch of sticker.

Sorry for this ridiculous analysis... I am just super analytical and once I took this approach to breaking down the kits I keep getting so confused when everyone says they have been thinning.  Like I said, I previously went back to the beginning and compared EVERY kit in this method...although with slightly less detail (I know, it took forever) and what I found is every kit has the same core elements (same number of cards, plastic word + chipboard sheet--either 1 4x6 or 2 4x4) and then what ranged from 3-6 additional embellishments.  However, the number of additional embellishments has not gone down over time, it just varies from kit to kit and depends on what the item is... for example, if it includes something like a small sequin pack or twine, it's going to be a kit with more embellishments.

For sure criticisms could be made on the design of the kits, or if people don't like the specific type of embellishments included, but if you're talking about pure value (how much the items would cost to produce/retail for regardless of quality of design) I don't see it getting thinner over time.

ETA: I want to point out that even though AM/PM might have more variety in pieces, I think TIME definitely has more value in its pieces. Maybe the TIME kit would've benefited from having only one sheet of the clock stickers and adding a set of label stickers instead just for variety. I also think the AM/PM kit looks so full because of the size of the transparent pieces... if you really value huge embellishments, that might be worth more to you than the rubber pieces, but I think Ali has found over time that most of her subbers are using these for pocket pages so the large embellishments just aren't really hits. Who knows... but at the end of the day, I think there is more value in TIME.