Lunchtime!

ProvoCraft has sent us a dozen lunch boxes, ready to be altered and dressed up for dinner. Make up your own kit with this very affordable and hard-to-find metal container. Take out one or several today.

Black Velvet

Making Memories has started to ship our Memory Trends order. Just in time for the holiday season, velvet adhesive letters in five lovely colors are in the store. Soft, fuzzy, sweet, and easy to use. Remember when we called them stickers?

Such a Gem

More Heidi Swapp jewels, both pink and white, are replenished. Add a touch of sunshine to the center of a flower, the dot of an "i" or embellish freely with these cute, inexpensive touches. Can't decide between colors? Choose the MM ones, a mixture of pink, green, and white. Similar, yet not so much. I think I need them alllllll...

Crop in Style Furniture

Just the ticket for organizing the top of your desk: a white MDF hutch built for scrapbook storage. We are still assembling them for the store display, but ask nicely and you could take one home for an early holiday gift. Matching shelving also available. Time to get that scrap area reorganized!

What a Knob!

Somehow, a delightful assortment of knobs all came in today. We have doorknobs in regular people size as well as cutesy doorknobs for altered art. We also received "open" knobs and pulls from the 7 gypsies line. Come on in for yours!

Fear of Flying

Merchandise aside for a moment. There are days when it is time to put your fears aside and tackle the things that scare you the most. And I learned some things on a recent balloon ride:

• Once the balloon takes off, you are committed. No changing your mind. And it helps to follow the shadow on the ground if you need to be distracted from the fact that you are no longer actually on the ground.

• Some of us will put aside all kinds of fears in pursuit of a really cool picture. After the first 10 minutes of wanting to scream "Get me off! Get me off!" some of the fear does start to subside. A little.

• A dog's territory includes all the surrounding airspace. All of it. All the way to the moon. And each one will bark the entire time you are in the air just in case you need a subtle reminder. And the ones who are not territorial will bark because all the other dogs are barking. People do not come out of their houses to watch the pretty balloons. They come out to see what the heck their dogs are barking at. (Hint: Look up.)

• Way up is kind of really way up. If you do not jump out of your skin just because you are afraid of heights, it is still likely that you will jump out of your skin every time the balloon flame is lit. Because it is really pretty dang noisy. And then you go up higher. Eek.

• You don't notice if the landing is bumpy or not when your main issue is trying to hand off your camera to someone on the ground so they can take a picture of you landing. Even if there is already someone on the ground taking pictures of you landing. Also, champagne is a tasty way to celebrate the end of a balloon ride. Except when you actually land in a church parking lot. Then, you go back to your takeoff spot before you break open the bubbly. This may be due to respecting the impending Sunday sermon. It may also be because the pilot does not want to share with the rest of the congregation. You decide.

I was pretty much not wanting to do this ride. The original plan was different. But sometimes things change, and you just have to get on board. I am not sure that I need to do that again, but I am really glad that I did it once.