Cosmo Cricket Contest

A couple weeks ago, we blogged about Cosmo Cricket's open call for video submissions. Each new release comes with a comical series of skits. They asked the scrapbooking public to create their own videos to help them with ideas. Hailey, one of our instructors, came up with a funny idea for a video. We whipped it up and submitted it to Cosmo Cricket in the nick of time. It's given me some good chuckles (both for our lack of acting skills and amateur film-making abilities), so I thought I'd share it with all of you. I hope Hailey's idea is chosen as a finalist - it's very creative indeed! If you have trouble viewing the video, you can also find it at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4DJeZUQVx8.

Construction Progress

It's coming along... my arm is very sore from faux painting the repaired and added walls (don't know if I'll be doing that again). I think I'll sleep well tonight. There are some other counter pieces to add in, but we're getting there! I have another few hours of painting to do, a cool sign to make, and the construction crew (aka my family) has a few more items to wrap up. But by this weekend, we'll be checking customers out in style (or at least more efficiently). Hope you can all check it out!

A Child's Year Cartridge Arrived

We just got the latest from Provo Craft - the Child's Year cartridge for the Cricut! This one's a keeper, so I have 'em both for sale and for rent. Create silhouettes of tons of images - these would be great on pages, even cards!

On Being Nice...

I was reading the 3/50 blog today (http://alwaysupward.com/blog/the-350-project-on-the-national-airwaves-twice/) about their exposure on national news, and found a link to another great website. Operation NICE: Welcome to Operation NICE! Now, for those of you who know me, you'll probably agree that I'm quite an optimist. You can imagine my surprise when I came across this girl's website dedicated to being nice to others! Reading her original post, I thought, "this is something I would have done". A large part of being successful is being nice, in my opinion. Even in tough times, my Mom has always been a positive, supportive, strong woman. I'll give her credit for passing some of that on to me. I think that, in addition to my experiences with negative situations and people, has made the eternal optimist. My husband and I joke about my ability to look at the glass half full (as he does the opposite). In today's world, one important thing we can do is to be nice to others. Check out the Operation Nice website if you need a pick-me-up. It's full of stories about people just being amazing. I guess our parents were right to tell us to "play nice"!

Freedom Grab was a Blast!

Well, we did it again... we made a bunch of people winners in our Freedom Grab! Carol Anderson won a 60-second shopping spree, and walked away with $288 in merchandise! We also gave a 15-second shopping spree to Maggie Fisher, who gathered $48 worth. I even threw in a 30-second shopping spree... in our clearance area! Sharon Crispin won that, and managed to get $95 in goodies! Congratulations to all of our winners, and a huge thank you goes out to everyone who participated and showed up today! You all rock!

Shop Hop Winners

We had several prizes to give out to our shop hoppers, and here are the winners:

Grand Prize (value of over $125):
Marsha Snider (from Scrapbook Emporium)

Scrappy Chic Prize Basket:
Terri Harmon

Other prize basket winners:
Nancy Hiliker
Lynne Gifford
Joan Matsui

If anyone has questions about their prize, please contact the store at which you registered. Congratulations to our prize winners, and thanks again to everyone who participated!

Pardon Our Dust

We're doing a little construction at the store (it seems I do this when I run out of space). We've decided to recreate our checkout area to make it more efficient. The girls are excited because it means no more bumping into each other, and no more 'too many cooks in the kitchen' incidents. With this change, we'll only have one direction when you're entering and leaving the store instead of two. But we think this change will create a better work flow, which means better service for you! By the way, I swear I'm not trying to change things up right before the Freedom Grab, I didn't pick the date to build... it's merely a coincidence. :)