Since I AM a CM consultant I do have to say something about your post. Hands down, CM is QUALITY. You get what you pay for. Not saying that you can't get AWESOME deals on clearanced stuff like this. ANd I can not attest tot he quality because I don't know. Now, there are papers and other things out there that are just as if not more expensive than a LOT of the CM stuff. Have you seen the pages in some of these Magazines that cost over $20 a page? COme on! Now, there are alos a lot of good quality items that CM does not offer (brads, fibers, twill, metals) that I do buy and I do use in my albums. I don;t care what anyone says, CM albums rock my socks. They are by far the best quality out there and they come with a lifetime guarantee. AND you don't have to use CM pages in the albums. You can use a brand of page protectors called Pioneer and still top load into your albums. That is what I do and I am INTO scrapbooking. Right now I have 16 albums completed (using whatever I want to in my albums, not just CM products) and am plannignon tons more.