Friday, July 25, 2008

Just One More Thing

Earlier this month I had a couple of charges on my credit card that were not mine. No problem, the credit card company actually flagged it and called me on it. They changed my number and sent me a new card.

Today when I went to Sam's Club I had to go to customer service because I had misplaced my Sam's credit card. I thought I just put it somewhere like I sometimes do and forgot where it was. The super nice older guy behind the counter said that he would call it in for me. Good thing he did, someone had taken my card that same day and charged over $300 at Rainbow Foods, and over $300 at Target! And get this that card had my face on it! I really feel yucky about it. Some icky person stole my credit card with MY FACE ON IT and scammed Target and Rainbow Foods. What is going on!?

Speaking of theft... A little while back I had changed the buy two get one free stamp table, and by the end of that day some creep stole my little card holder that looked like a tennis shoe. Now that sucks because those were my girls'. I actually talked them out of them so I could use them at the store. Thanks to whomever stole that, you are one stellar human being.

This one is even better... The other day a customer was asking about Jessica's card class. I told her it was 7 cards and a card box. She said there are only 6 cards here. I walked around the counter and counted them a bunch of times and thought I was going crazy. I thought for sure maybe it was laying around somewhere. Nope some creep stole it. Now who in the world would give someone a card you stole from someone else. I would love to blame kids for this, but mostly I have adults shop in my store. Wow, why not ask me I might have given you a card maybe even the tennis shoe.

Sorry I vented on you guys I just have had enough of theft. It costs me so much just to keep the doors open at the store, so when people steal from me I take it personally. So instead of buying product I'm investing in cameras, sucks because for $1000 we could have had a lot of great product instead of cameras. Oh the joys of owning your own business, I could go on for hours! I'll stop now!

Did You Wonder What Happened To Me?

I bet you wondered what happened to me. I'm still here never fear!
I've just been dealing with some stuff this week and I haven't been in the best mood so I didn't want to pass it on. This next week isn't looking so good either! But hey time to pull up the bootstraps and muddle through!
Ron and I are taking off for the weekend for our anniversary. I'm really looking forward to a little R&R without children. I think the first thing I'm going to do is sleep in, maybe until noon then I'm going to eat anything that I want, oh yes and have some weird fruity giant drink, then swing on the front porch with another strange drink! That will put me right to sleep to do it all over again the next day!
What's new at the store? Cosmo Cricket! Just don't rush in until Wednesday when I get it checked in. It is super cute let me tell you it makes me want to go camping! We also got another shipment of Peel off stickers.
I've been moving things around at the store it's looking pretty cool in there.
You'll have to stop in and check out the challenge projects that the girls have been working on. I gave them each paper and told them to make something super cute with it. Marge just texted me here layout she did with the red paper I gave her and it is awesome! We'll see what Linda, Linda and Lynn came up with.
Have a great weekend! We'll see you at the store on Wednesday!

Just to give you a heads up: we are going to be having another event at the store on August 20th for crazy days. Here are some of the things I've come up with: free make and take, paper grab bags we're talking at least 25 sheets of paper, stickers and embellishments for one rock bottom price. Huge amount of never been clearanced papers and stickers. So mark your calendars!

Another thing to let you think about, starting this fall we will be holding some Saturday crops from 10:00 a.m until 10:00 p.m. We will be offering that for $15.00 and you will get pop, water, candy, chips and supper. So when you get together with your friends start planning your crop nights.

Sunday, July 13, 2008

Strawberries

My friend Lynn gave me a great idea to go to the strawberry patch. My thought was we would drive up to Cloverdale and buy a bucket or two and head home. Much to my surprise you had to pick your own. Yikes, I haven't berry picked since Savannah was Lauren's age! I thought to myself, they won't want Ella in the strawberry patch. Just then a guy walks by with 3 little kids. So I grabbed the sunscreen rubbed the two whities down (that's what I call them. Seriously I think they glow they are so white!) and away we went. And guess what? We had a great time. The day was just perfect, the wind kept the heat and the bugs down and we picked two huge buckets. I took great photos, I'll post some of them later. The girls thought it was great fun getting red fingers, and they loved munching while picking. We had so much fun that in two weeks we're going back for blueberries and raspberries! So if you're ever looking for something fun to do I suggest berry picking up in Cloverdale at High Hopes Berry Farm. And hey if you're looking to get into the berry business it's for sale. I was so afraid Ron wanted to buy it. I have no time to run a berry farm!
Don't forget to stop in for the Thrifty Thursday sale. Just to let you know what the sales were the last two weeks: 30% off t-shirts, and last Thursday was 50% off a bunch of stamps. So stop in, you'll never know what goes on sale this Thursday!
Remember art in the park is on Saturday. We'll be doing free make and takes on Saturday on the sidewalk until 3:00. You'll score great bargains at our sidewalk sale too. So make sure to come and visit us!
I hope you all had a great weekend!

Tuesday, July 8, 2008

My Friend Chris

My friend Chris the UPS Guy brought us goodies again today! So I get this huge box from Melissa Frances and I 'm thinking what in the world did I order?! I open it up expecting paper, stickers and embellishments. Oh no, the box was full of stars. Yep that's right aluminum stars that you hang on your wall. Three different sizes Large, medium and small. At first I thought what was I thinking?! Then I thought hey these would really look cool altered with photos and paper! So I'm taking one home to hang on my front porch and another to alter with photos and papers. You'll have to stop in and see my sample. I'm cropping Friday night at the store maybe this will be the project I work on!?

The Pinecone Press book club kits arrived today. Super cute! The project this time is a card folio and cards. We still have two spots left, it's not to late to sign up.

Karen Foster came out with new hunting, camping and fishing paper packs. I got in new Heather Bailey embellishments and her clear stamps. We finally got in Black Magic cardstock by Coredinations. Really cool cardstock that is black but when sanded color comes through who knew?!

Stop in and check us out. Besides all the cool new products we've got some great discount areas for some really great bargains!

Monday, July 7, 2008

New Product

Advantus just sent me my Tim Holtz that I've been waiting for since February!!!! I love it!!!
New grunge board mini alphas, ball chain, long paper fasteners, game board spinners, philosophy tags, silver numerals, Journaling tickets, adage tickets, swivel clasps, jump rings, hitch fasteners, grungeboard shapes, and the unmounted stamp binder.
I have to have one of each, so hurry in fast to scoop up the cool embellishments because now there are only 5 of each!

Sunday, July 6, 2008

4th Of July Layout




I completely stole this layout from the December 2007 Creating Keepsakes magazine! I was going through a stack of old magazines and this layout jumped out at me. Then on the 4th I took these photos, and the layout worked perfectly!
One minute these girls love each other the next they're beating each other up! Oh the drama that we have yet to come.
I used Creative Imaginations paper, with an old stand by ledger paper from Making Memories. I distressed all my black and white photos with Distress Inks, faded jeans and corduroy. The letter stamps are Elsie from KI. The arrow template was from Scenic Route. And of course buttons from my stash! Oh yeah, my date stamp is from Making Memories from 100 years ago. That is a staple in my scrap room that I use all the time. It is a must have tool in my book.

Disney Layout


K&Co annoys me in so many ways, but this paper was perfect for this photo so I had to use it. I love the rub on title with the handwriting font from fontwerks. I used that 7gypsies hole punch on every one of my layouts! It gives you that torn out of a notebook look.

Disney Layout


That Prima paper is perfect for these Fairy Godmother pages. Bits of lace, buttons, and my 7gypsies hole punch. These photos are so precious!

Disney Page


My first page of Disney scrapbook. I used Prima paper again! I love the vintage lace along the edge. Buttons are a staple in my layouts. I used the Around The Block label maker for my title. I love the green tape! The label maker is another tool that I can not live without. I love to journal with it. Thankfully someone had the cool adventure charm in the scrap and stamp rummage sale, it worked great on my layout.


Sharing Disney Pages





Who knew I was going to love Prima paper so much?

I used Prima paper and flowers, some vintage lace I got at the flea market last week. I love snaps and buttons especially when the bits of thread are still hanging from them. I've been using my 7gypsies hole punch like a crazy woman! You can make any paper look like notebook paper. If you haven't tried this punch you should, I think it is one of those must haves.

4th Photos


Here are a few photos from the 4th of July celebration at our house. Notice Savannah isn't in any of these. Yeah, I'm not cool enough for her anymore! Maybe one day she'll join us again! My sister Holly, Brother-in-law Dirk, niece Jana, and my Mother came over in the afternoon and we had dinner on the porch. We've lived in our new house for a year and this is the first meal we've eaten on the porch. Ron and I went up to the retreat center and borrowed one of the old tables from the lunchroom. It worked perfectly. Luckily the mosquitoes didn't move in until we were finished eating. It was a great meal, mom's potato salad, baked beans, hot dogs, burgers, pink lemonade and wine! We had strawberry sundaes in my antique sundae bowls. I knew I collected them for a reason!


Photos from our Duluth trip






Fireworks

Where did you go to see fireworks? We went to Braham July 4th and watched a pretty good display of fireworks. Braham is a small town, but they have a pretty good show!

On Saturday night we went up to Grand Casino Hinckley and watched the best fireworks I've ever seen! They had them set to music which they had playing in the amphitheater. We were parked close enough to hear the music, and it was awesome. I highly recommend this show to everyone! Just a little hint, take the back roads back South or you'll never get out of Hinckley!

Ella and Lauren loved the show, Ella had her ears covered with her hands and Grandma's! Lauren was very brave this year and wasn't afraid at all. Wow, my girls are growing up.

Wednesday, July 2, 2008

Sale

Check out the bottom of the blog I added a new poll.

Don't forget about the Saturday Sale on Saturday! Check out our local small businesses, we have tons to offer!

Taking A Few Days Off

If you haven't noticed I've been playing hooky from work! My Niece is here from Bismarck and I've wanted to spend as much time with her, my mom and my three girls as possible. Soooo I've been skipping work! We have eaten, shopped and laughed a lot! Thanks to her I've taken the time to visit our local shops and restaurants and I've been pleasantly surprised! We really have great places to eat, and very interesting stores to shop at! I'm going to update my places to see and do while in Pine City on my website.

Sometimes it feels like I have more days lately that I'm feeling oh whoa is me. But today I really felt like hey, I really do love my life! It could help I'm just coming down from the pms thing! But really these little thorns in my side (some of you will know what I'm talking about.) can't ruin me. Yes it will make my life tricky, but these thorns will make me stronger and make me fight harder for my store. So enough with my pity parade on to living my life.

Tonight I decided to start scrapbooking Disneyland. I got a ton of Disney papers and stickers out, started printing off pictures and tried to layout my opening page. I could not get into those pink Mickey heads to save my soul! So I put the Mickey paper in the box and started digging through my stash. Believe me I have a stash, I didn't know how much stash I had! Needless to say my first three layouts are on Prima paper and the only thing Disney I have on them are the photos! I'm sure down the line I'll use some Disney products but not yet.

The things that inspired this Disney crusade are the new Share and Tell albums by Pebbles. I got them in about a month ago at the store and I'm just finally getting around to trying them. I love the concept! In the CK July 2008 issue they talk about the albums which egged me on a little more.

I thought I'd be so cool and be really organized about this project. I sorted my digital photos into 4 folders, 12x12 layouts, 4x6 photos to insert in photo pages, Lauren and Ella's albums of autographs. Lauren and Ella's folders have about 35 photos. The 4x6 folder has 138 photos. I thought the 12x12 layout folder would have maybe 50 photos. No it has 101! Yikes, and most of those are 1 photo layouts. I bet I'll be sorting those again. So if you wonder what projects I'll be working on this summer, now you know!

We took a little adventure on Sunday and went up to Duluth to play. It's been three years since my Dad died and every time we start coming down that hill Lauren talks about when Grandpa got sick. I wonder if that icky feeling I get in the pit of my stomach when we come into Duluth will ever go away. When will we just celebrate the fact Ella was born there instead of the dread of his death? Okay now this is getting too dark.

We had a fantastic time while in Duluth. We stopped at Subway and bought sandwiches to have a picnic lunch at the gitchee gumee (not sure on that spelling!) park. We had sandwiches on the rocks! The girls thought it was the best, Ella was mad because we forgot the kitty picnic basket. I must remember it next time.

We threw rocks into the water until we got our feet wet, then we went to Grandma's and had huge melting ice cream cones. The girls had to walk through the fountains, then it was off to the rose garden. I got some great pictures that I can't wait to scrapbook!

I highly recommend this day trip. I know with gas prices so high people are staying home more, but this was a cheap adventure and we felt like we had been on vacation! Believe me none of us wanted to come home we were having so much fun.

I hope you all have a safe and happy 4th of July. Ours will be low key as usual. Ron is in the middle of busy season, and just picked up a bunch of Mills Fleet Farms to stripe as well so we'll be staying close to home.