Don't be fooled...

...by the imitations.

I've mentioned before in this blog that several companies have imitated our products.  It started with simple rulers with holes in them, but none were as versatile or as user-friendly as our Fiber Friend.  More recently, the imitators have branched out into shapes similar to our nested hearts and stars, daisies, leaves, one of which I discovered a few days ago in a popular mail-order catalog.

So I thought it warranted mentioning in this forum again.  With all the options out there, why should anyone buy our products?  I'll be happy to give you my reasons, though, if you've used our products before, you probably have your own.

Perhaps I should tell you that all of our products are designed for scrappers & stampers by scrappers & stampers.  We take personal pride in every design and create each template to be as versatile as possible.  We have upgraded and revised some of our templates to make them even more user-friendly and creatively versatile.  We test each and every design multiple times to make sure the hole placement is the best it can be and that it will work with different varieties of fibers. We include a variety of design sizes on each template to provide variation in your layouts and cards.  The templates are translucent so you can easily place the pattern in exactly the right spot.  And, you can turn them over to flip the design into a mirror image, thereby doubling the number of patterns on each template.  Our templates are thick enough to be durable and long-lasting, yet not so thick as to be inflexible.

I've done some comparison shopping with the imitations.  With some, the ruler-with-holes is made of hard plastic, easily broken, and only a few inches long.  One company has theirs in brass, making it difficult to position accurately.  A direct-sales company's template (the design of which was taken from a sample I gave them at a trade show) has markings that do not line up with the holes (this complaint came to me from a customer).  One company says their templates are for brads, but if you use them that way, the designs don't look right.  And now the latest company has "punch guideline sheets" printed on a thin piece of plastic...no pre-drilled holes.  You have to punch them yourself, leaving room for error. 

In case you're wondering, we were the first company to introduce stitching templates for paper crafters as well as placement templates for eyelets.  When we started, nobody sold a paper piercer...we had to use a wooden-handled pottery sculpting tool to pierce the holes.  Recognizing that this was less than ideal, we talked with a tool manufacturer about creating a multi-purpose paper piercer for us.  This led to our Multi-Tool which remains the only soft-grip paper piercer on the market 5 years later.  Our template designs have come directly from customer feedback.  Of course, sometimes the customer is ME!   Yes, I use each and every template we sell, and many of the designs have come as a result of what I want to use.  (This can also be a bone of contention between my husband and me.  He does the final design on 90% of our templates and if it's not exactly right...by my standards...he has to re-do it until I'm happy with it!)

But we listen to our other customers as well.  Customer feedback is very important to us.  Our first Fiber Friend came out of my own need to make even stitches on a card without it taking 30 minutes to measure out accurately.   We recognize that our customers have similar frustrations when crafting and we are always open to hearing your ideas.  Many of our template designs have come as a direct result.

We stand behind our products 100%.  We know that some other manufacturers' paper piercers' tips break off.  We know this, because our customers have told us.  We have sold thousands of Multi-Tools and we have only replaced two pierer tips.  One was lost and the other had been used for metal work and became dull over time.  We replaced each at no cost to the customer.  On another occasion, a customer discovered that her template had been imprinted incorrectly.  We replaced that at no charge.  If you should ever have a problem with a Timeless Touches product, we hope you will bring it to our attention so we can replace it for you. 

So yes, there are other products out there that are similar to ours.  Are we the cheapest?  Not always.  Are we the best?  We think so.  And our customers tell us we are.  And we are committed to continue producing our products for paper crafters all over the world.