Expect the unexpected (a review)

After purchasing amazing earrings from BellaVia Jewelry, I was so excited to find out about Simply Stylish Creations (http://simplystylishcreations.blogspot.com/). Stephanie, owner of Simply Stylish Creations is a stay at home mom's part time online run business specializing in hair bows, tutus, and crocheted items. Being a crafter and avid crocheter, I get really excited about shops that make really cool hats, especially since I don't always have the time to do all of the crocheting that I would like with Moose running around everywhere.
I was even more excited when Stephanie decided to host an auction for her products. I flipped through some very cute hair bows and girl hate, but thought that I wasn't going to find anything to bid on for my son until I came upon a football themed hat. My husband and his family are huge football fans and it seemed perfect. The hat up for auction was for ages 3-5years, but I figured that we could either keep it for down the road or give it to my brother in law for his 3year old son. I bid, and I won. I was so excited for the hat to come in the mail, I checked it every day. I even sent Stephanie a message to discuss possibly ordering a second hat in Moose's size.
The day it came in the mail, I was so excited! I tore into the packaging, pulled out the hat, and instant disappointment. Not only did it not look like the picture of the hat in the auction, but I instantly saw several flaws and things that I could have done better.

(the hat on my kitchen floor)
The first thing I noticed was that the stitching of the whole hat was very loose, and not up to the quality that I expect from something I want to put on my child, or especially something I want to give as a gift.

 

Another issue I found was that the ends of the yarn were not properly weaves into the hat and were sticking out all over the place. I couldn't believe that someone would send out a product that was put together that sloppily. I would have understood if it was not obvious that the ends were not woven in all of the way, or if a tiny piece had popped out after putting the hat on (which would still mean that the hay wasn't great quality since I have never had the yarn ends come loose on hats that I made), but I noticed the ends as soon as I looked at the hat, long before it was tried on.

I decided to try the hat on Moose to get a picture of it not flat, he wasn't a huge fan and it took a good 10 minutes to get a good picture of him wearing it.

I tried on the hat too (since my head is small and the hat looked really big) to give an idea of that it looks like on a larger head.
At first, I thought that maybe the hat was not top quality since it was for an auction and she may have made it in the very short time between my purchase and it being sent, but then I realized that a good shop owner would want to make good quality products no matter what to encourage customers to come back and to pass on a good word to other possible customers. Unfortunately, with the quality of the product I received and what she charges for a hat at regular price, I don't feel that the hat would have been worth it. I definitely won't be purchasing from Simply Stylish Creations again.


Note: The opinions in this post are mine, and mine alone. I was not given a product, nor was I asked to write a review by the company. I purchased the product from the company myself and chose to write a review to inform the public about the quality of the product I purchased. The pictures in this post were taken by me of the product that I purchased. No pictures in this post belong to anyone but me.