Have I Told You This Story Before?

My Dad always wanted to see a bear in the yard, I'm not sure why but he did. So three years ago when he was sick and dying in the hospital a bear showed up when a bunch of us kids were home. My brother Pete took a picture of it and we put it in his room in the hospital. So a year later a bear showed up at my Mom's on her birthday. Then the next year a bear showed up at her place on Lauren's birthday. This year the bear showed up at our place on the third anniversary of my Dad's death.

Last night Lauren was playing in the living room and said "hey, there's a bear outside!" We all looked and couldn't find anything. She thought maybe she had seen a stump.

Then this morning she exclaimed "There is a bear outside!" I was just taking a bite of Cheerios and jumped out of my chair and yelled get the camera. Ella dove under the table and Lauren hid behind Ron! As the bear was destroying yet another bird feeder Ella said "Dad should get the gun and shoot that bear!"

I think I took about 50 pictures of it. He was so cute!

Ron did not think he was so cute when he came back this afternoon for more birdseed!

Details

I've been working on getting things in order for my Tim Holtz INSPIRED weekend.

The cost of the weekend will be $235.00. What is included with your weekend? Saturday breakfast, lunch and dinner. Sunday breakfast. Snacks, soda, water, two nights of lodging.
You will also receive over $150.00 worth of products to complete 2 tags and a mini book packed with technique. I will be doing six demos with other Ranger products, six drawings and one grand prize drawing. Plus a special discount coupon to use at The Pine City Scrapbooking Co Inc.

Not only will you be learning awesome new techniques, but you'll have plenty of free time for scrapbooking so make sure you bring a lot of photos to scrapbook.
In order to get my supplies together for our classes and demos I need to close registration July 31, 2008. So place your deposit now to confirm your spot. The deposit for this event will be $75.00. Final payment will be due 30 days prior to the event.
Join me for great fun and I'll teach you new techniques that maybe you've seen and wondered how did they do that?!

Call us at 320-629-9960 to reserve your spot. Retreat is limited to 24 guests.

Have You Given Any Thought...

Have you given any thought to the new "staycation"? My husbands job is seasonal so we just don't get a summer vacation. So if your family is like mine, or if you're feeling the gas crunch, or maybe you just need a little me time. Scrapbooking In The Pines Retreat Center is doing a Staycation sale for a two night stay at the retreat. Book any Friday and Saturday in July 2008 and get $20.00 off. So instead of two nights for $110.00 you will get those two nights for $90.00!
So plan your get away, and give us a call at 320-629-9960 to book your stay. You'll be glad you did!

That Saturday Sale

Stop in June 7, 2008 for That Saturday Sale. We'll be doing a free make and take all day! You will get a free sheet of paper with purchase, and don't forget to sign up for our drawing! There are several stores in Pine City participating with each store doing a different sale:
Creative Cottage
Family Pathways Thrift Store
Treasure Chest Consignment
Picturing Pine
The Red Poppy
Dollar Stuff
The Creek's Edge
I'll have fliers at the store this week so you can check out the specials. There will also be an ad in the Advertiser and the Pioneer. This gives you a great excuse to shop some of our unique stores in Pine City and get a deal! Doesn't get any better!
The next Saturday Sale is scheduled for July 5, 2008.

Travel Book With Marge

Marge has a super cool mini book class! She used a 6x6 chipboard album and Cloud 9 travel paper. The colors are spectacular!
Her class is May 31 at 10:00 a.m. The cost is $25.00
Give us a call at the store and we can sign you up 320-629-9960.

New Products

I've been super busy checking new things again!



New food paper, spaghetti, popcorn, cherries and strawberries. Cloud 9 and Heidi Grace, I loved these so much I went home and did a mini book quick. Creative Imaginations had FFA, John Deere, birthday, wedding, baby boy and girl and dance. World Win specialty cardstock. Somerset Studio magazines with awesome ideas! Meri Meri die cuts and pre made music and school bus pages. The Paper Loft paper is so awesome. I found this in Arkansas while I was down there and had to have it at my store. I actually used it on one of the windows in the retreat center.

Make sure you stop in and check out all the fun new things. I promise you're going to love them!

Why Oh Why

Why oh why won't my brain let me update my website?! It's so frustrating learning new things. So I'll update on my blog and hope I can remember to fix the web site later!

First thing is first: GARAGE SALE! Mark your calendars for June 28 - July 6, 2008. We will be holding our garage sale. If you have never participated in our sale this is the skinny. Call us at the store for a number, go through all your scrapbooking and stamping supplies price them how ever you like and make sure you include your number. Bring them to the store no later than June 26th at noon and we will display everyones things and sell them for you. We will keep track of what you sell (that is why you want your number on everything.) by the number on the price tag. What ever you sell you will get a gift certificate to use at The Pine City Scrapbooking Co Inc. in that amount.

We've done this in the past at Divine Memories and it went over really well. We've had a lot of vendors and a lot of buyers! For the best pick make sure you are at the store at 10:00 a.m. on the 28th! You must shop often, because many vendors keep bringing in more things through the week.

So start digging through your stash, pull out those papers you thought you would use but haven't, how about those tubs of stamps that aren't quite you? Bring them in, you never know who has been looking for just that item!

Hi Everyone

Just to let you know we've got new stuff in at the store!

I just finished checking in new Maya Road chipboard, and tons of it. It will be so great with the Glimmer Mist. I also got in alpha stickers from Luxe that cover the chipboard letters from Maya! Maya Road came out with these awesome sheer sheets. If I would have know how cool they were I would have ordered more colors. But for now I have this great swirl, you should really check this out.

An order from Luxe also arrived. They have these great basic patterns, fantastic colors, and they are double sided.

Dance paper from Reminisce is in, and beautiful. It was a much needed addition to that area of the store.

Cupcake and Boxer from Basic Grey are in. Elsie outdoor and pet line are in and selling very well.

Flair came out with a new food line and it is super cute.

So make sure you stop in and check out all the cool new stuff!

Linda is having a card class on Sunday, Three great cards for $10.00. She is doing 2 great folding techniques that you won't want to miss. And one card is a basic graduation card that you can change to match your school colors. Anyone one of these cards can be used for any occasion. As of right now she has 6 extra kits so if you just want a kit call us up and we can put your name on one for you.

Next Sunday Vikki is having a Graduation card class. You will be making 10 cards in what ever school colors you need. This class is great for ideas to use for Christmas cards, birthday or any occasion. If you can't make the class give us a call and we can put a kit together for you.

Marge is getting her travel book class ready. She is using our favorite Cloud 9 travel paper on a cute 8x8 chipboard mini book. She is just putting on the final touches now. That class will be May 31 at 10:00 a.m.

I'm working with a great girl, Jessica, on teaching classes for us. She is super talented and I would love to have her join our team of teachers! She's interested in teaching card classes and kids classes. Is anyone interested in kids classes? These classes will be geared towards kids but be great for a mommy/Grandma and me class. Or hey if you like the class you can be any age!

I've been busy putting in orders this week. Some of the companies I can remember are: Cosmo Cricket, Thermo Web, Creative Imaginations, Creative Impressions, World Win shiny paper, Meri Meri, Hot Off The Press, Paper Loft, and more that I just can't remember right now!

Today is Lauren's Birthday, she is 6 years old today! We're pretty excited around our house today!

Shopping

Oh the shopping never ends. Today Savannah and I went to Target looking for the toys on Lauren's birthday list. Did you know they now have Fancy Nancy toys? If you aren't familiar with Fancy Nancy books you really should check them out. Lauren and Ella love them, I do too because I love the illustrations. If the book has bad pictures I don't buy them! I'm terrible about judging books by their covers!

Anyway after an expensive stop at Target and Cub we were hungry. I talked Savannah into Taco Johns because I've suddenly become addicted to the chalupa. Sometimes I can't stop myself from thinking about how I will get my next one! She absolutely refused to go in so we did the drive thru. The guy asks us if we would like a medium or a large meal. We went for the medium because we had to save room for dessert. I pull up to the window and he hands me out this enormous soda. I couldn't even grab it with one hand it was a two hander! Savannah and I instantly cracked up uncontrollably. I mean my goodness if this was the medium you must need a small trailer to carry the large! We laughed hysterically, I was laughing so hard I couldn't see to drive through the tears!

So Savannah and I were wondering if anyone ever just cracks up like that or are we just the crazy ones. Now I just can't crack up like that with just anyone. Savannah and I usually have one really good crack up on any shopping trip we go on. Brenda, from the Hastings Scrapbook store can crack me up like that as well as an old childhood girlfriend Deb. Around just about anyone else if I feel like I'm going to crack up like that I totally suppress it because I know that they'll think I'm crazy. But you know after I have a good laugh like that my heart always feels lighter, and things don't feel as stressful as they once were. So my tip of the day is just have a good laugh. Not a tee hee, but a good old ugly laugh with tears, the ole' cross your legs you're gonna pee laugh. You should do that at the very least once a month. So please let us know if we're just the crazy ones or what!?

Oh yes, the shopping trip continued to the thrift store. I found a great side table and table cloth for the retreat center and Savannah found a new couch for her new apartment. Oh man if you could see the odd angles to get into this girls apartment you wouldn't believe it. Poor Ron was going to cut her box spring to get it into her apartment! Savannah settled with a twin bed instead. She got a great deal on the interesting looking couch. It reminds me of an Archie Bunker couch! We're going to jazz it up with old embroidered pillow case pillows. So we bought the couch now we had to get it into the van! With a lot of shoving, pulling and pushing we got it in! Ron is going to wrestle it down and into her apartment tonight.

So that was my fun for the day. I hope all you Moms enjoyed your Mother's Day. I know my Mom and I did. We went and had Olive Garden, yum. After that we came back to our house and had birthday cake. My Mother also turned 76 on Sunday. Lauren turns 6 on May 16th, and my Mom turned 76 on May 11th. Funny!

So on Mother's Day I was getting ready and thought to myself, gee I hope Dad sends me a cardinal to let me know he's thinking of us on Mother's Day. When I went downstairs and was snuggling in the chair with Ella, I looked out to my bird feeder and there the male cardinal was. I just said: "Hi Dad." Another odd thing that has been happening since my Father got sick is a bear comes through my Mother's yard once a year always at this time. My Dad always wanted to see a bear in the yard and never did. Then while he was laying at the hospital dying a bear came into the yard while most of my family was visiting. Now each year after we've had a bear in the yard at the same time each year. The year after he died the bear came on my Mother's birthday, the next year it came on Lauren's birthday, and this year we haven't seen him but he destroyed the bird feeder on Mother's birthday.

Tomorrow I'm off to Mystic Lake for a scrapbooking retailer conference. I need to be there before 9:00 a.m. Yikes, I've never driven there, I've only ridden with Rhonda so this should be interesting! I hope to bring back cute make and takes to share ideas with you all.

What Have I Been Up To?

What have I been busy doing? Well, I checked in the new Flair paper along with the Ki Elsie pet and nature collections. The new glue dots in the dispenser came in too. My favorite new albums by Pebbles came in too. I have been saying they should make albums like this for years. They are 3 ring with refill pages that are 12x12 and others that hold 12 4x6 photos. The concept is to scrap as much or little as you would like. Stop in and check them out.
Our retreats are in full swing. This weekend we have a group of 24 busy people. These gals are super high tech, some of the computer equipment I couldn't even identify!
Nicole Langer, my sales rep, was in the other day and I ordered a bunch of new things for the store.
Lynn (one of our new employees) brought me in presents today. She had been to a few garage sales and found some great things to add to the collections around the store and retreat center.
Savannah and I are going to go the the Pine City garage sales tomorrow. She is decorating her new apartment with garage sale and flea market finds. Her apartment is covered in really dark paneling. So we're going for chipped pink and white china!

Scrap Map On Sunday

Vikki has her class, Scrap Map, coming up on Sunday. You'll get to make a 6x6 album. She brought me samples on how to make the 6x6 into 8 1/2" x 11" and 12x12". These are really great techniques, and you could really get a lot of pages done fast with this formula. Stop in on Sunday at 12:30 for her class.

Stop In And See Me Tomorrow!

Stop in to The Pine City Scrapbooking Co Inc tomorrow to do a free make and take. I just finished designing and cutting it out! It's cute, I used the new Fiskars border and corner punch. I'm really liking this punch. Sometimes I get a new tool and use it once, I've already used this one twice!

We're having our first weekend crop. I had two guests over night Wednesday, but this is my first weekend. I left Marge in charge at the store at 7:00 and just about everyone had checked in and were busy working.

Marge is teaching her Graduation Album class tomorrow. Don't worry if you haven't signed up, she has kits prepared so you can either drop in tomorrow at 10:00 or purchase a kit to do it on your own time.