Projects

Here are a couple more frames I made. The first one I used Handdipped and Needlepoint paper from We R Memory Keepers. The ribbon is from Hang 10. The flower is a Bazzil Blossom. I made this frame for a friend's birthday. She is getting married in August and I wanted her to have a frame for a special picture of them.

The second frame I used Anna and Eva paper from the Dutch Girl line. I made this one for my niece's baptism gift. I am her Godmother and I feel so blessed to have another niece!

I enjoy making gifts for the ones I love. I feel so blessed with all the people I have in my life. You all mean so much to me...

~Jenn

The Sunday blues...

**Warning, Warning - complete ramblings below**

I've got a case of the Sunday blues. The weekend is over already :-( I had intended to actually do some scrapbooking today and alas it is already 10:30 and it's almost too late to start a project. Anyone else get the Sunday blues?

Work has been so busy that I dread going in tomorrow - as I won't actually get a chance to do any work - I'm out of the office doing presentations tomorrow - all day. So to start out of the week - I'll be a day behind.

I was going to do so much today - clean the bedroom, the office, finish up my to do list for Scraploft - I was doing so good until late this afternoon. I just kinda fizzled out of gas - so Jack (the beagle) and I caught up on some afternoon television.

Having a DVR is great - love the convenience of it, but hate how easily to sucks up time. I realized two things tonight.
1.) I have over 15 episodes of Law and Order, 12 or so CSI Miami's, and over a dozen episodes of The Simpsons. AND 2.) I'll never catch up on my TV shows.

I watched from 4 in the afternoon until 9 or so. FIVE hours of TV. I'm ashamed. Wow - how easily I digress.

Okay - one other question - does anyone else sometimes feel like they have lost their scrapbook mojo? I'm in a slump. Anyone have any suggestions for how to get the mojo back?

Arizona...here they come...

Today is the day my baby sister and her family are leaving to make big changes in their lives. They are heading southwest to eventually live in Arizona. Andy, my brother-in law is going to go to school down there. I'm proud of him. That's for sure. But my heart is sad right now too. I have seen my sister through a lot of things in her life. The ups and the downs. She has become a wonderful mother and a loving, supportive wife. I admire her for doing something I would never, EVER, be able to do. Move away. Plain and simple. I chose a college that was within driving distance. I don't live more than an hour away from any of our family memebers. Actually my brother lives up the highway a few miles. How funny.

I didin't get to see my sister much, maybe twice a month or so. But hey, she was within that hour away if I did want to see her. Now she will be thousands of miles away. I'm having more trouble with this than I ever thought. 2:30 this morning after doing some work on the computer, I finally got up the courage to read the letter that Missy wrote to me. The tears came flowing again. I cried myself to sleep. I think I am having the most trouble with not being able to see my niece and nephew. They will change so much. Grow so big. We are planning to go visit around Christmas time this year. I hope this will happen. I can't imagine not seeing them for any longer than that. I will miss birthdays. Parties that our boys have had weeks apart for 4 years. I know that school is only for 2 years at most, but I have this feeling they will stay down there longer.

I don't want Missy to feel guilty or me to sound like I am selfish. I am just going to miss them. Miss them terribly. I love you guys! Hugs and Kisses from our family to yours....

~Jenn

Just a personal thought today.

Sassafras Lass is here!

The new Serendipity lines, Blue Boutique, and Scrumptious, from Sassafras are in at Scraploft! I haven't seen them yet, but I can already say Yummy! The colors are so pretty. I can't wait to see and BUY this paper!

~Jenn and Sarah

7 gypsies

We have gotten some new products in at Scraploft. Stickers, stamps, and tags from 7 gypsies! How fun this stuff would be to use! Use the stickers to label your photos or to date a project. The self inking stamps are so fun to use too.

The new Serendipity line by Sassafraslass should be arriving soon! Keep your eyes open for Scraploft!

~Jenn

Banner Baby!

Our Banner is now up on Creating Keepsakes. It's at the top of the screen and it comes up randomly. Quite a coincidence I saw it at 3:30 this morning! Kind of awesome to see it finally live on the site. The daisy animation is super cute! Sarah did a spectacular job creating it, so I give her props right now. Go Sarah, go Sarah. You are such an awesome person and you know I love ya'! :)

I think my favorite word of late is awesome. Yes, totally 80s. Random share.

Seriously though, I am so excited to see if having our banner on CK will bring more traffic to Scraploft. We are going to try this way of advertising for a few months to see what happens. Hopefully good things!

~Jenn

**From Sarah: Check out the picture of our banner below

A book for Ella

I have a new niece, Ella, who was born at the beginning of January. I made her brother, Jake, and album for a shower gift. I wanted to make one for Ella too. I decided to do it different this time around. Make it one where mom and dad can add whatever pictures they wanted. Not age specific. I had fun making this album. I got to use pink, black, and green! One of my favorite color combinations. Flowers and lots of ribbon too! I can't wait to see what pictures Amanda and Dave put in her album...

I used the Tickled Pink line by Three Bugs in a Rug. Love, love it!

Enjoy the pics...

~Jenn

We have paper racks!

We finally have racks for our paper. With our limited budget we were previously keeping our paper stocked in boxes and on shelves. Things were beginning to look a little messy in the office, so we needed to organize the paper. We got a steal on these racks so we couldn't pass them up. Everything looks so nicelly organized now. While we were pulling and organizing the papers we realized how much we really do have. It's crazy!

Over the next month or two we will have even more paper to add to our collection. Exciting! Keep checking back on us at Scraploft to see our new products coming in.

~Jenn

Believing in yourself.

While going through the blogging world tonight I found this quote on a blog. How perfect for us. What we are doing now in this adventure, huh Sarah?

"Believing in yourself is not just for you; it's for every person who has touched your life in a significant way and for every person your life will touch the same way five minutes from now, or five centuries from now."

Jaye Miller

You have to BELIEVE in order to ACHIEVE.

We rearranged the office on Friday night. We got some paper racks from our friend Suz. Thannk you, Suz! Prior to racks we were using boxes for our patterned paper. Taking the paper out of boxes made us realize how much we really do have. Therefore we will need to get even more racks. Once all was said and done, the office looks wonderful. Organized and clean. We even have a desk that both of us can comforably sit at. Pretty exciting!

I forgot to take pictures but will share as soon as I do...

~Jenn

Cosmo is here!

I just finished entering the new products from Cosmo Cricket. Wow! What a challenge to find images for the products this time around. Halfway Cafe and Dutch Girl are both amazing collections. There are 6 double sided papers for each line. Along with die cut sheets and alphabet die cuts. We are so excited to have these available to you. So come check out Cosmo at Scraploft!

We will be getting new products in over the next few weeks. We have ordered Basic Grey, 7 Gypsies, and Sassafraslass so far! So go ahead and come back soon...

~Jenn

Blog Challenge!

So I was reading Bonnie's blog - which I try to do at least every other day. It's hard to keep up - but with her's I usually do.

She had a unique challenge. Realizing your dreams. The challenge was blog about the obstacles that are keeping you from realizing your dreams....

This is two fold for me. I'm living my dream. I own a scrapbook store. Yikes - did I say that out loud? I own a scrapbook store (okay it's a "we", but you know what I mean)- it's an online store, we have a tight budget, we have to "pick" what we buy new. We have a basic printer, and a Sam's club shipping table - there are always more that we want.

With all the struggles - no capital, losing a partner, no sales, lot's of sales, marketing, graphics, learning how to maintain a website - everything - it's been worth it. Totally and completely worth it.

I own a scrapbook store! It still seems unreal - but alas it is. I'm living my dream.

Okay - so onto my obstacles that prevent me from making my dream a huge success. As many other say.. the obstacle is me.

1. Find more time. I know this seems strange, but I need to stop saying "I don't have time" I have time - I just need to use it more wisely.
2. Be strategic. Plan the business and work the plan. It's so easy to plan, so hard to execute. I will come to all meetings with my fair share of work done.
3. Market Scraploft. I have such a hard time with this. I feel like I am wrapped up so much with the day to day shipping and a never ending to do list, that I don't have time to market the business. How am I going to get more business if I don't market myself?

Okay those are the obstacles that are keeping me from continuing to live my dream. As Bonnie said "Dreams just don't happen. It takes committment to the dream" Well I'm committed.

Thanks Bonnie for such a great quote!

Scraploft SALE!

In order to make room for new stuff coming soon to Scraploft, we are having a sale. 25% off everything, yes EVERYTHING! The sale runs through Sunday, Jan. 28th at midnight. Just type ILoveCHA in the coupon code box on the view cart screen. Buy all you want for 25% off!

Have fun!

~Jenn
Scraploft.com

Guess what will be here on Monday?

The newest Cosmo Cricket lines. I received the UPS tracking number today. We pre-ordered before the show - you have to see this beautiful stuff. Here's a sneak peak...

If you woud like to see the whole line check it out here: Cosmo Cricket.(Thanks Mitch!) I can't wait to get this. This will be the first of a bunch of new stuff that we are getting - and Bonnie - I'm working on those stamps right now!

Also - tomorrow you will be receiving a coupon for a "I love CHA" sale. Enjoy!!

the weekend and CHA

Sarah and I were both at a scrapbooking retreat this weekend at Birchpark Retreat. It was a lot of fun! I got a few projects and some 12x12 layouts of the boys done. Great food, great friends, lots of laughs! Time went way to fast though...

Well, the weekend was also full of good stuff for Scraploft. We met some new people and spread the word about our business. Scraploft provided prizes for some drawings. Congratulations to the winners! :)

We had a little sit down meeting with our friend Bonnie and got some pointers, suggestions, advice from her. So that was good. Some things we can work on and improve. Some ways to the Scraploft name out there. Thank you, Bonnie.

We also got some requests for products! It's fun to see what other scrapbookers are looking for when they shop. It's just good for us to know because then we can get more of a variety for our store too. So we will be ordering some new stuff soon. Yeah!!!

Speaking of new stuff. We saw some sneak peaks for CHA on a fellow scrapper's website. Thank you, Mitch! Check out his blog at http://web.mac.com/mitchellkraft

Watch for new product coming to Scraploft within the next month or two! Thanks again to Mitch for the links and to all of our fellow scrapbookers this past weekend. I had a fabulous time!

Until next time,

Jenn

SNOW!

Snow...I missed it the first time around...getting pictures that is. But we have some! I can hardly believe it. I was watching the news last night and they said we "on average" would have 27 inches of snow by this time of year. Well we have only had 8 inches or so this winter. Kind of crazy!!

The snow looks so pretty, but brrr it's freakin' cold outside! That is one thing I hate about winter. The other thing is driving in the icky weather. I drove home on Sunday night during the storm. I caught the end of it, but the roads stunk! It usually takes me 40 minutes to get home and it took over an hour that night. I realized at one point I was driving on the edge of the road too. I didn't even know because of the snow on the road. Oh well, I made it home safe. That's all that matters.

So, the snow is here and it's cold...which means this time around the pretty white stuff will be around for a while longer! oh, how I love Minnesota in the winter!!!

Peace

~Jenn

my space friend...

ok. So we have created a myspace account. Actually Sarah created it...thanks Sarah! I got a request to be a friend from this awesome coworker of mine. She is such a sweet, easy-going lady. So here's to yet another possible internet concept that I may POSSIBLY understand how to use. Did that last sentence make sense? Um, I am not very computer savvy. So if I can successfully get a reply back from this myspace friend of mine, that will be a miracle. Funny how a few months ago I was a little hesitant about this whole blogging thing...

I get it now....

~Jenn

Gettin' down to the wire...

Hey all out there in bloggin' world! Thursday Sarah and I are heading to a 4 day scrapbooking getaway at Birchpark! I am super, duper excited to get there and do some scrapping. But, I am not looking forward to packing up my stuff to bring along. I have my SB stuff all over my basement right now.

My goal was to get all of it in one little area, go through it, and decide what I could bring and what I could leave home. Um, not so much. I spent two hours last night winding ribbon around ribbon cards. I could have gone longer (much longer, that's how much I have!), but I ran out of ribbon cards. So yet another trip to Joann's. My third one in just a few days. Oh, and I can't find some pictures that I got printed a couple weeks ago! So I almost had a mental breakdown last night looking at the disaster of a basement!

So can't wait to do some scrappin' this weekend. I will be working on finishing up an album for a special little someone in our family. :) I will try to finish my Bahama's trip album. It's officially been a year now, so I NEED to finish that up. I have a planner to finish up. And maybe try to fit some layouts of my little guys in there somewhere!

I will probably need a nap on Thursday because sleep will be low on the priority list the next few days! Have a great rest of the weekend and a fantabulous weekend!

~Jenn

1st Meeting of the Year...

So we just finished up the first meeting of the year. It was a good one. We have a bunch of things in the works.

We talked about finishing up our books for 06. Not a fun conversation - it's not like we don't like to talk about money, its that we hate doing the accounting part of the business. Lucky for us we have an accountant and if we've done everything right - she will take over the rest after we've entered everything.

The funniest part was talking about the product. We are "saving" for CHA at the end of Jan. So be on the lookout - because we want to get lot's of new stuff at the end of Jan.

So my question I pose to you... If you could buy any line - what would YOU buy? Both Jenn and I love Scenic, so we will probably get some of the new Scenic - but what else would you want to get?

Be sure to be on the lookout for new posts regarding new CHA stuff. We would love to get your opinion!

~Sarah

Back to work...

Sarah and I took some time away from meetings and hard core energy over the holidays. It was great to spend quality time with our family and friends. So many memories will be close to my heart for a very long time.

On Wednesday we are getting back into the weekly meetings. It's been over a month, so it will be interesting to see how productive we are. The monthly newsletters will be back up starting this month too. We are hoping to work more on advertising and marketing starting in February. The funds will be going towards driving people to our site. I'm curious to see which advertising realm works for us.

So...hi ho, hi ho, off to work I go!

~Jenny

Happy New Year

Happy New Year!!!! Here's to you and yours in 2007. May the memories of 2006 be in your minds forever. As the new year begins the tradition of new year's resolutions is present. Mine are simple, yet difficult.

1) Make better decisions financially. Save more, spend less.

2) Exercise my body more. Brain and muscles alike.

3) Lose weight. I now have even more motivation because I am going to be in my really good friend's wedding. Thank you Pieps for asking me! I am so excited!

4) Say more I love you's. To everyone that I care about.

5) Call my friends and family more.

6) Be more organized.

7) Be successful with this small business venture.

Lucky number 7...that should be enough to try and achieve for the year!

What are your resolutions for the coming year?

~Jenn