Goodbye 2005

Well, Christmas has come and gone. It was a very busy month at the store. There were many happy scrapbookers on Christmas morning!

Personally, we had a wonderful family Christmas. Christmas eve was spent around a Karaoke machine. We don't have a singer in the bunch, but we sure had fun! I can't wait to get the pictures developed and scrapbooked. All those protesting males, ended up monopolizing the microphone!

We are all looking forward to 2006, our family and business keeps growing with each passing year. And I am one year closer to retirement!

Happy New Year, may it be the best of all!

The Busiest Shopping Day of the Year....

is at a close. I, the dedicated shopper that I am, drug myself out of bed very early this morning, grabbed a cup of coffee and sat down at my computer to begin my long day of bargain hunting for Christmas 2005! Yes, I love the fact that I don't have to leave my house to spend money. I love the fact that my purchases will be delivered to my door and I love that I did not have to brave the cold and the crowds to do my Christmas Shopping. I sit here tonight with my Christmas Spirit still in tact, no unhappy store clerks, no shoving shoppers, no tired feet. Yet, I was able to purchase what my loved ones wanted at a sale price and FREE shipping.

Today we also celebrated my grandson's "5th" Birthday, I can't believe it has been 5 years since I first kissed that wonderful little face. My grandchildren are such a joy in my life.

With that said, tomorrow will be a very busy day for us at Scrap-a-latte. Our after Thanksgiving sales is off to a big start. We will be packing orders and shipping most of the day and early evening. One of our Design Team members created hand stamped gift packs for our Gift Certificates this year, they are beautiful! We also have a new Kit for Decemeber developed by Aimee. (She is so talented) The mini-album kit for Christmas awesome. We have so many different Christmas papers in, I can't decide which collection I want for my own memories...such decisions just can't be made quickly.

Happy Holidays!

Thanksgiving Time is Here!

I can hardly believe the Holiday Season is upon us. We have been so busy at our store putting up new items and packing so many orders that we haven't have much time to think about Thanksgiving.
We are breaking the tradition at our house this year and eating out. I have always spent days in the kitchen preparing a feast, this year we decided to eat out, I actually will get to enjoy the holiday and spend time with my family instead of the stove!

Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours! We have a lot to be thankful for this year.
Any please remember or men and women overseas, I give thanks for them everyday!

Fall

We finally got the Heidi Swapp items in our store, after many phone calls and a lot of frustrations. Does anyone else think Advantus needs some help in the Customer Service Area? We were persistent because we love Heidi's Designs and creativity.
We also recieved in all of the New Pressed Petals new items from CHA Summer. The Chip Chatters are great! We have dressed them up and distressed them, either way I think Pressed Petals has a hit! The distressed metals from Pressed Petals, Monday's Metal, are very nice. I have not had the opportunity to use them, but I do like the look.
Just today, for the first time in weeks, I got to scrapbook for my own pleasure. I completed 3 of the 7 Gypsies Clipper Frames (grandkids just had their pictures taken) and one layout from our vacation in SF. The layout was a simple lay-out by I felt a sense of accomplishment just getting something done.
We are busy adding all of the new Christmas items in the store. We can hardly wait for the Basic Grey Blitzen collection! Imagination Projects has a couple of really cute Christmas lines this year, we have them all on pre-order and the orders have been good.
The Making Memories Vintage Hip is going great for our store, it is a shabby chic style with a lot of class!
The item of the month was the Provo Craft Rectangle Tins, big surprise! We sold out our second shipment within 3 hours of sending out our newsletter. We are anxiously awaiting our next shipment in the next 10 days, they are already sold on pre-order. I wish we had a million of those things! Speaking of lunchpails, we can't keep the Basic Grey Lunchpail on the shelf either. I am saving mine for Chirstmas Pictures!

August, the Dog Days of Summer

We have been so busying putting up all the new stuff arriving daily from the Chicago CHA show! We are running out of room, so more things had to be put in clearance. But the new designs and bright colors are awesome. We love all of the new Junkitz embellishments and paper. I can't stop using the Salsa collection. The KI Memories has been showing up in my LO pretty regularly too. New accucut dies are here and boy oh boy, have we been cutting new shapes! The mini file folders are very popluar and a get compliment to any page, random tags have been fun, different shapes and sizes.

What Happened to July?!

Wow, the month is just about gone, summer is half way over. And what a hot summer it has been. CHA in Chicago was fabulous! So many new and exciting products were shown. Some of my favorites is the Basic Grey Papers, Junkitz paper and new embellishments! We ordered so much new stuff our walls will be bulging. We were told at the show that ROB and BOB collection from Provo Craft will be shipping next week, gosh we have waited forever for this collection. With all the new orders to place and items to check in I sure hope I get to scrapbook this week-end. I need a creative outlet, all these ideas clogging up my brain!

Happy Independence Day!

It has been a great day, spent with family and friends. We had a fajita 4th of July, grilled outside. CHA is coming up quickly, we are so excited about all of the new products that are rolled out at the show. We will be loading up our gallery each night with pictures of what we are seeing at the show.Our CHA Summer Sale is going very well, making room for all the new stuff we will be ordering!Keep all of our service men and women in our thoughts as we go through our days, both past and present, for without them we would not enjoy the freedoms we have today. God Bless them.

The weather changed overnight, it is HOT and HUMID! The kids are out of school and the yard needs mowed.We are still receiving in new products from Winter CHA, more ribbons from Creative Impressions, the newest gingham colors are awesome! And the Dog bone clips are so darn cute...the metallic flower clips are perfect for the summer fun layouts.Junkitz photo anchors (All Colors) and the long bradz to match are in, the Salsa is our favorite!Ths long awaited Foam Stamps from Making Memories are in stock! We were so excited to finally see them, that each member of our design team has a set on the way! The Gabby Alpha is my personal favorite.Enjoy the summer, cookouts, swimming and time with the family....aaah heaven!

Need a Vacation from My Vacation

It has been a productive week. Two rooms are freshly painted with one more to go. The DH painted our fron porch columns today and they look exceptional! Sadly, tomorrow is the last offical day of my vacation. I have really enjoyed being at home this week. Today after the work was done, I, my daughter and 2 grandchildren made a trip to Barnes and Noble for a reward. I chose the new book by Dean Koontz "Velocity", Tate chose a book on Alligators and Crocidiles. Audrey chose a Dora The Explorer book. On the trip back from town we stopped for Ice cream, always....one vanilla and one chocolate.

We received in our Junkitz color photo anchors today, I can't wait to use them. Also additional styles of buttonz and twill snapz were in the box too. I loaded up all of the Prima Flowers we received on Wednesday, had to scan each one since the site does not offer images. We should be getting the new ribbons from Creative Impressions in the next few days, love those fibers. And the replenishment stock of Basic Grey is on the way. We have sold out of many styles twice!

My First Blog!

Tomorrow I turn 49, 49! That is one year away from 50!! Half a Century, middle aged, ugh!
Actually, my life is going great, a little hectic at times, but good. In the past 5 years, I have re-married, had two grandchildren (the best ever!) built a house and started a scrapbooking business and that is after I finish my day job. The house is not quite complete yet, the grandchildren are growing up too fast and the business is growing faster than my expectations. We thought we would be alittle slow this week-end, but today the orders started coming in.
I actually got to scrapbook this week-end, finished a 8 x 8 album about my favorite Aunt that passed away last July. It felt good to complete a project. My Daughter (my right arm) and I painted the dining room a beautiful shade of teal, tomorrow we will try our hand at a HGTV technique to subtly stripe the wall. Wish us luck!