Strolling with Santa........

Someone took this picture of us this weekend, it reminded me of something I heard;

The four stages of life,
...you believe in Santa,
...you do not believe in Santa,
...you are Santa,
...you look like Santa!

Every year my husband goes to extremes to white out his beard for the kids. Friday night he came in on the firetruck and helped our Mayor light the Christmas tree. Afterwards we did Santa pictures. This picture was taken without us knowing, sometimes those are the best photos!

Santa Claus Is Coming To Town

Friday kicks off the activities in Waxahachie for the holidays. All the stores are decked out in holiday splendor. Special treats are available at many. The home tours begin and Santa is really coming. Friday evening, all the stores on the square will be open extra hours, the tree will be lit at the courthouse and Santa will ride in to the square on a firetruck. Pictures can be taken with Santa as well. The ice skating rink will open. There is so much more - info HERE.

We will be open from 10 am to 9 pm on Friday the 27th. Saturday the 28th til Midnight and we will add Sundays from 1 to 5 for your shopping. In addition, we will be serving hot apple cider and cookies.

For this weekend--Friday, Saturday and Sunday, we will have EVERYTHING in store stock on sale for 30% off. This includes previously marked down items. (No punches will be given during the sale).

See you there!

A Second Drum Roll....

DEBBIE W you now win a prize too! You were the second closest with her guess. Just wanting to reward another person! Prize is at the store! We're glad you played. (stay tuned everyone...more games and fun to come)

Hours at Thanksgiving

Just a quick note to let you know the hours for this week.

Wednesday (tomorrow), we will open at regular time (10 am) & close early at 4 pm.
We will be closed Thursday, Thanksgiving.
Friday, we will open at 10 am and will be open late--at least 8 pm- maybe later.
Saturday, we'll be open from 10 am to midnight.
Sunday, we will be open from 1 pm to 5 pm.

Until Christmas Eve, we will be open our normal hours, including Friday until midnight and we will add in the hours of Sunday 1 to 5 pm.

See you soon!

Drum Roll Please

I am excited that eleven of you decided to come out of lurkdom and take a shot at the inventory. The actual number is 23,773 separate items. Yes, that is twenty three thousand seven hundred seventy three different items in the store. IF you take into account that for each of those, there are probably at the minimum 3 of them in the store, and on many items somewhere around 25....you can see why we dread inventory. It means counting somewhere around 200,000 individual pieces.

Brook, looks like you were the closest. Next time you are at the store, pick up your PRIZE.

Will update with other news tomorrow. Thanks.

Inventory

Around this time of year, the reality of how much product is in the store becomes all too clear. Decisions about ordering many times are weighed by whether or not we will need more before the first of the year, because at the first of the year, we do inventory. The thought of counting everything starts to make some of us cross-eyed. We spend about 2 to 3 days counting all of the things in the store, comparing it to the computer record, updating the computer record and then starting the year with an fresh start.



I thought that it might be fun to put out a challenge to those who read our blog. The person who makes a guess closest to the actual amount without going over will win a prize package. We'll throw in some papers, a punch (the wings one pictured here), some flowers and maybe a stamp or more. It will be worth about $30.00. I hope that be motivation to make a guess. I will look for the winner Monday the 23rd. I can only hope there will be more than one response in our comments field.

The question for you - How many items are currently listed in our inventory? (different items)

I'll try to clarify....Say a paper is called Mistletoe and we have 25 sheets of it, for this purpose it is one item, not 25. Make sense?

For obvious reasons, anyone who works or worked at the store and can see the number in our computer is not eligible to guess or provide assistance to any guessers, but other than that, the rules are simple: post a guess before Monday evening, I will pick the person closest and then will put it on the blog for all to see.

Later!

Sockfellabella

Cute name, huh? It is the name of a Bella Stamping Rubber Stamp that came into the store today. Several have been asking about them and wanting certain stamps. We received several images that we hadn't had before as well as some sentiment stamps. We got a couple of the images that we have been requested to get back in stock as well. Some of the other names are wreath-a-bella, tis-the-season-to-be-jolly bella and bettina butter cream. Some of the stamps are holiday, but more are everyday or birthday. I think it would be a fun to determine the names for their stamps. "bella" this or "bella" that.




Also, for those who were waiting for the snow markers to get back in stock, we received several of those today as well.

Wish I had a picture of the bellas to show you, but I could only put this picture out here tonight!

Lions and Tigers and Bears

...OH MY.

Well, we really didn't have any of those visit us at the store today, but we think you'll be excited about what we did get done.

Annette brought in the items that she will teach in the Santa's Workshop for pre-teens next week.

Here is a peek at them:

Cute picture frame / gingerbread house.

Banner with Picture Frames

Pendant for a Necklace

SO, get those pre-teens signed up while you can!

A second thing ready today is the book we will use for the cookie swap/class in December.
During the class, you will complete this book and swap recipes which can be placed into this book.
Dates of the class will be December 15 and 19th at 10:30 am each day.


Pictures just can't pick up the full prettiness of any of these projects. and full details for both classes are here.

And for those who have been patiently (&/or impatiently) waiting....Flower Soft is finally here! 15 colors, a few of their stamps and a couple of kits. We definitely have the polar white color for this time of year. We plan to have it incorporated into a card class in January.

More later.

When Is Christmas?

Back in late October, when we were putting out Christmas decorations and starting to get all of the Christmas products into the store, we had people-mainly children, ask us why we were putting Christmas out already. One eager youngster asked his mom "when is Christmas?" I think he was really counting on it being sooner than it was at that time.



Hopefully, you know that we decorate for Christmas and get those products in the store early so that our customers can get ready for the holiday. Making gifts and cards isn't as quick as just buying something pre-made and we want to give you plenty of time. Today I was counting the Christmas & Winter paper lines. I counted 25 different lines.



Aside from scrapbooks and cards, we have the pieces for making a yearly calendar, decorative trees, advent calendars, wreaths, planners, ornaments, recipe books, canvases, shadow boxes and many other items. If you need some ideas, come in and take a look around. The design team members are bringing in things every day. Also, take a look here for some ideas from past years.

(PS: it is 40 days til Christmas)

Hmmm, Food or Mist?

Oh MY! Today we received an order of the newest Maya Road items. They JUST released some items this week and our order has made it already. It is sometimes really hard to work at the store, know that there are new releases coming, finally seeing them online and then waiting for them to come in. Ok, there are worse things, but you know what I mean... This time though, there was a quick delivery, so the worst part of it all now is what to buy....food or mist? Oh, you thought I'd say which MR thing to buy? ha, never a challenge...ALL of it is awesome.



Did you notice those cute little trinket pins? Heart shaped tops! Perfect for all occasions. Carolyn will have a few of them poking through flowers soon. Oh, look, new flowers to poke them through! Aren't these great colors?



Not enough colors of mist for you? Well, there are many more now. I have only included a few of them here. There is Carnation Pink, Mulberry Red, Fern Green, Hydrangea Blue, Dark Cornflower Blue, Silver Plated Metallic Sunflower Yellow.




We received samples of all of the mists, but the mists themselves won't be in the store until next week. You can reserve it though by calling or coming by the store and paying for what you want. We will put it back for you. Only limited numbers of the mists will be coming in, so we think it might go pretty fast!

Speaking of food. There is a new mini chipboard set of cooking utensils. Perfect to use in a class for January!



Later, Sherri

Writing Your Own Story

A new line we received over the last week is one called Life Stories by My Mind's Eye. Many people scrapbook or craft to create books and other items for their children OR to do a heritage book of their own families. This line is created to make that process a little easier.

One of the ways they do this is with these daily dose cards. Each one has a different prompt for journaling--trips, pets, children, and many others.




The papers are also set up to allow an easy way to complete the books. About half of the papers are printed with designs such as flowers, plaids, etc. The other half (or so) are forms essentially. They are designed for fill in the blank information about a person's life.



The colors are muted and all of the line is on a kraft paper type background. This allows a person to individualize the style to themselves. Or so it seems to us. You can go as bright or as soft as you desire in the color scheme and as pop or vintage as desired in styles.



In January, we are going to offer a class that will cover several weeks to make a book "about me". This was done a couple of years ago with great success. Annette has come up with some wonderful ways to make this into one book. More information will come out about this later.

As you think about gifts this time of year, keep in mind how special something like a heritage album can be for your family. Later-

More Fun Things

Let's take a break from the new products (at least on the blog) to look at some of the other fun going on here at the store.

Saturday, we had two classes going on.




One side of the store had a fun holiday card class going on. Annette was the teacher in this class. The group made five great cards. Well actually, they were gifts within cards. Each card had something additional, like an ornament, or a spot for gift card or a spot for photos, making them more than just a card.

They chalked, stamped, sewed, glued, sanded and did a lot of other fun stuff to the papers!



On the other side of the store was a class making book covers out of grungeboard. Many had not ever worked with grungeboard (or so they wanted us to believe). They made some great covers and each one turned out different. The project was easy to individualize with colors and words. Carolyn was the teacher of this class. She brought this class back from a workshop she went to that was created and led by Tim Holtz.

As you can see, they used their hands and inked, stickled, sanded, bent and poked holes in the grungeboard. This one of those products that can be folded, stapled and otherwise manipulated--well actually, that is how you use it!

Here are a few of the book covers. See the great differences?






Makes you want to get your fingers inky doesn't it? Both of these classes are being held again. The holiday card class is Thursday November 12 at 10:30 am and is only $30.00. The Grungeboard class is being held again on Thursday November 19 at 6:30 in the evening and December 12 at 10:30 in the morning. Check out the Events Page of the website for other classes as well.

More New Things

Another new line that we have picked up is the JUSTRITE stamps. These are stamps that allow personalization easily among other functions. There are stamp holders of different sizes, then these can be adapted with sets to make about any combination you might like.

Here is a picture of a starter set. As you see, there are sayings, monograms and borders shown. Notice the wording "completely interchangeable".

We have several of the kits that can be purchased separately of this company. On November 21 at 3:00 in the afternoon, there will be a class to play and learn about these stamps. In that class you will receive one of these starter sets (pictured above). If that isn't enough, here are the three cards that you will create!

AND, the class is being conducted by Christy Gilbreath. She is an excellent card maker and some of you may know her from her store that she had in Fort Worth in the past.

You'll notice that on these, there are shapes from Nestabilities used. The store is also starting to stock some of those as well. This is a new addition for the store, as you know.

Switching gears, here are some more new papers that will be out on the floor Monday. Very cute stuff!!

My Mind's Eye, Abbey Road. Within this line are three groups of paper and embellishments.

First here is Round & Round: Cute papers for a little traveler







Next is Stomp: Dinosaur themed and Buddies Items




And then Whirlybird: Just the Girls and Best Friends-- for little or big girls.



More FUN, NEW stuff in the next post too!

What's New?

This week has been a little quieter as far as new items coming in, however, today the UPS guy dropped off around 15 boxes. I guess this made up for a quiet week.

In those boxes we have received and now have out on the shelves:

-- KI Memories Christmas. Very Cute Papers, reminds me of folk or dutch styles. It has glitter snowflake paper and glitter Christmas tree papers and some great embellishments. As always, these papers are better looking in real life than in pictures. These are three of the papers.

-- Anna Griffin Christmas. Pretty in brown, silver and reds. Nice 3 D stickers, vellum quotes and other embellishments. Sorry I don't have pics.

-- My Mind's Eye. 2 lines of Christmas. One is called Colorful Christmas and the other is The Merry Days of Christmas. The pictures are of the scrapbook kit, but you get the idea, right?




-- Making Memories Mistletoe line came in earlier in the week and was out Monday, but since many of you haven't been in yet, here is a peek of it.



-- American Crafts Merrymint (Christmas line) came in at the end of last week. In case you haven't seen them, here is a peek at them. These are two of the heavily patterned paper, there are others not quite so busy. I think they'd look great for holiday recipes too.




Basic Grey Nook and Pantry is here, Debbie Mumm holiday papers, some cute project pieces from BE and if that isn't enough....we also got more of those cute little suitcases, restock of Simply Swank, Ten Seconds Studio, Zip Dry and other standard supplies too.

I'll post later about the JustRite stamps that have come in....That will be a long enough post on its own. Whew...and I got it posted before 6 pm. Later!

Halloween Follow Up

Finally, a few of the pictures from the Trick or Treat Day on the Square. We were visited by kids in many types of costumes. Accompanied by parents, hundreds of children came by to get a treat. With merchants all around the square handing out candy, each child could get quite a bag full!





How cute are they?



This princess is a special part of our design team (as a model)-Ask her grandma.



another super special model:



and you may also know this guy! He has been in a few layouts and books over the years.



In case you didn't recognize the last one, that's Carolyn's son. He came up with the costume on his own and was quite an actor, portraying a much older man.

Wanna know what items are new in the store? You'll have to check back on Friday's post!