HACK OF THE DAY 26th AUGUST, 2019

For my Hacks of the Day this week, I am going to continue with the Back to Basics, these are the things I wish I had known when I started paper crafting. So far, I have covered paper and inks, next is stamps.

As most of you know the market is huge in stamps, many companies produce some amazing images, sadly there are several companies who fraudulently copy these and sell fakes, they are sold online and are cheaper but you need to beware when purchasing these:

• fraudulent stamp sets are a blatant copyright infringement, the designs have been stolen from reputable companies who have worked hard to create the product, investment money in the product, they OWN the product.
  
• from sites I have looked at the stamps are inferior and made with silicone, silicone does not make a great stamped image, if you consider what silicone products we use in our households, silicone is not made to reproduce clear images
  
• the size is usually different - smaller
  
• stamps are not the only thing they knock off, dies, embossing folders every possible craft item.These are made in countries that don't protect their workers
  

These fraudulent products  are something that any crafter should stay away from, apart from being illegal and inferior, they are often produced in illegal sweatshops that uses slave and or child labour.

If you love your crafting, please do not purchase knock offs.

Talk soon

Sue x