Everything AE/Ali Edwards

Ok, here is my official review of the items I got in the mail today.

In my box were: the main kit, chipboard bundle, and the diecut bundle.

Main Kit:

It comes in a 6x8 plastic envelope, so that is nice. Its the same one from last year, I believe. It has the days of the week, in black, on the flap. String closure. I like the envelope.

The kit itself - overall, I give it a B. While most of it is nice, I will expand later on how it could be better.

3x4 cards - I love these. I know the gingham wasn't everyones favorite, but man I love them. So fresh. Downside? A couple of my cards have a brown spot on the white journaling spot of the card. Specifically, Monday and Friday cards have the brown specs on them. Boo. In times like this a digital copy of the card would be so valuable. These cards are blank of the back.

4x6 cards - I won't be using these. I do think Ali missed a chance to coordinate these cards with the 3x4 better. They are blank on the back. 

acetate days of the week - nice quality. Not too flimsy. I like them.

rubber ovals - Ali really missed a good chance to knock the kit out of the park with these. There are only 6 of them. Quality of the rubber ovals is so-so. They are thinner than I expected and some of the ovals have a clear plastic 'tag; (I don't know what else to call it) on the edge where it looks like they didn't get cut all they way through. Its fixable, I just think it shouldn't be the consumers job to fix this. The green oval is my favorite. I love the pop of color.

chipboard banners - they are nice, but I won't be using them.

epoxy stickers - I like them. I thought they were going to be chipboard, so that surprised me (I missed it in the description). But they are nice and good quality.

word strip sticker - I like these as well. They are a true white vs the cream colored ones that are in the sticker add on pack.

todays details paper pad - eh. Not my style and will not use them. I did open the pad up to see the thickness of the paper and well, its the same thin paper that the December Daily notepad had. The holes are punched so you can include it directly into your album but I would not advise this as the paper will tear easily. You could add it to a page protector and it will be ok though.

plastic hexagons - I like them, but again, Ali missed an opportunity to include one extra so each day could have this element. I did notice the hexagons themselves have a pale distressed quality about them. They have a 'sanded down' background that allows white to show through that I did not notice in the photos before hand.

cork numbers - not my style and won't use them. They offer me no value. They are 3 inches which is a good size if they are something you would include.

wood veneer - cute but not something I will be using.

Die Cut Add-on

cork speech bubbles - not my style, but they are a nice size.

paper tags - these are circle, square and heart shaped. Nice weight. I like these but am disappointed that you can see where the tags were punched. I will need to use my scissors and clean up the edges.

Chipboard Addon

I like the chipboard add on. Was it pricey? yeah. But its better than what was charged for the DD chipboard. I feel like between these 3 sets Have enough chipboard to complete many projects.

A final thought - I really like this kit for the most part. I, personally, would have liked Ali to leave the cork numbers out and drop the price as the cork has no value to me. Design wise, I love the kit. There is a random blue color, though, that is thrown into a couple of embellishment pieces that I don't think matches. Its a bright blue..but there is no gingham that matches. Its just random. While this kit does have some pink/peach in it, its not overwhelming at all.

YES! I agree, completely.

I got my kit today as well.

I got the 6x8 album, main kit, chipboard bundle and dimensional bundle.

I too hate that there are only 6 of the two large embellishment sets. I have an idea for how I am going to use the hexagons but I need one for each day. My solution is to use it as the last page for each day (I didn't get any dividers so I am just going to use a 6x8 full page to "separate" the days) and then just not do one for Sunday because I won't need the 6x8 leading into the next day. I won't use the large numbers for this project because I never do large numbers in WITL, but I like the way they look and will probably save them in my December Daily stash. However, I worry that they are super fragile and will break easily.

I am super excited about the hexagons, white days of the week, word phrase strips and puffy stickers. I typically love chipboard, but I hate hate hate the chipboard banners with the misspelled days. I can't handle that. I will probably use them on only Monday, Friday and Sunday where the words are correctly spelled. I am not a huge fan of the word veneer pieces and don't like the thin paper on the paper pad (although I might use and slip into a 3x8 protector). I typically love rubber embellishments but I agree that these are more cheaply made than they have been in the past (I noticed this originally with the add on ones with the home story kit, they are the same thinner rubber with raw edges) and with the huge size I'm not entirely sure how I will use them.

As far as the cards go, I am happy with the 3x4 cards although I tend to not use many cards in WITL because in the past I have filled most pockets with photos/typed journaling. Regardless, they are versatile enough I can use them in project life. I'm still undecided on if I'll use the 4x6 cards for WITL or save them for project life. I typically write A LOT for WITL and have the journaling flow throughout the day in the album. These cards don't really make sense to me, they are too big to just highlight one thing (such as meals throughout the day like on 3x4 cards that were included last year) but they aren't large enough to include journaling for the full day. So are you supposed to do a short recap of the day on these cards and then expand in the rest of your journaling? That seems unnecessarily repetitive. I am considering using them as a "themed" week in project life and then putting all my photos in the 3x4 pockets with more journaling than usual, but I'm not sure if I like the idea. I also might trim them down to be 3x4.

I bought the dimensional sticker pack for the puffy stickers and those are just as amazing in person as I was expecting them to be. The cork shapes I will use, but they aren't exciting because we've gotten these before numerous times. The clear stickers are interesting because I haven't seen these from Ali/SC before but I am not a fan of the huge banner one that takes up half of the sheet and is just a bunch of repeated phrases. I will have to see how Ali uses it.

The chipboard bundle seemed much more reasonably priced/sized to me than the DD one (which I passed on) and I'm pretty happy with it. My only complaint would be that I would prefer to not have the hearts die, this one seems super basic like it shouldn't cost as much because there's almost no design. I also still have extra chipboard hearts from old SC kits. I will probably save most of this chipboard for regular project life and I love the versatility of the phrases. One small annoyance is that I tend to use products as I get them and one of the dies is the same one as in the home story kit and the March SBTM (or I guess February, the one with March themes). I am perfectly happy with them reusing dies, but I'd rather they spread it around a bit? Small complaint though because I can just dig through my stash instead of using the current products if I get sick of certain shapes.

The album looks nice and I'm really happy with the pattern. I considered not getting one this year because I have a few extra albums in my stash but the one I would've used was light grey and my last two WITL albums were grey so I thought it would be nicer to break up the pattern with a black one. I actually might switch my 2017 WITL into this album and use the album that one is in (grey and white diagonal stripes) for this year (because 2016 is in a grey with white text album and 2015 is in a black cloth album--if I switch them they will sit on my shelf black, grey, black, grey instead of black, grey, grey, black. Yes, these are the weird trivialities I overthink on a daily basis).

In summary, I am pretty happy with the kit and although I need to find work arounds for the embellishments that only have 6 items I am excited for this project!

The problem I normally have with cork stuff is it is so easy to tear.  I'm not overly fond of the look, but the tearing is ridiculous. (not that I know about these specific ones, just in general)

I can't believe SC's vaunted "logistics excellence" means their back end system can't have a rule set up that says "When you buy product A (the WITL kit) and product B (an album), you get product C (the digital kit) for free". WOW!! Unbelievably ordering-101 type of logic.

I understand not making that discount available ACROSS ORDERS, but WITHIN ONE ORDER!?!? C'mon.

mom do you already have someone lined up to buy your chipboard banners?? I would be interested.

If anyone wants to sell their hexagons or rubber pieces, I'm interested in buying them.

I just want the recent Home Story Kit lol! 🤩 Please!

Omg, I just realized that I wasn't getting my email on my phone today after reading your post so I went and checked and I'm one of the lucky ones!!!!!

So happy for you!!  I know how much you've wanted this kit.

Call me crazy but after looking at the Story Kit themes for the next months, I find them refreshing. I just hope they deliver. TYPE, TECH and LIGHT in particular are making me curious. I just hope TYPE won't veer into "You're just my type" too much.

Does anyone do a yearly album with AE Story Kit stories (not PL-type)?

I keep wondering about Type too. In my mind I have a hard time thinking beyond "you're my type" which is boring to me lol.

No worries!if anyone is looking to sell their chipboard banners let me know!

FWEEENDS! (but also aww )