Crying Crop-o-Dile Tears

Was it something I said? Were the piles too much? Did the ribbon-rack straightening wear you out? Some things never change, but everyone at Annalis has been changed, and in a good way, by you, Kay.

It's my way of saying to everyone that Kay is going back to her roots, her corn, her love of all things Husker, and the wide open plains of Nebraska. The love of her life and her husband (isn't that swell when it's the same person?) has been transferred, and so it goes.

She came into our store in a way that just made everything work, everything better, and everything fun. In spite of my very best efforts, she was able to keep things running smoothly and keep customers happy.

I will miss her so much, for so many reasons, but know that she is not moving away from us. Rather, as all things worth doing and being, she is moving towards something else. We hope they know how lucky they are, wherever it ends she lands.

We promise to write if you promise to visit. Take care.

Holy Cow, The Crop-o-Diles Came!

And they are flying out in record number. Yes, we are calling our wait list people first, but we do have a lot more that have not been claimed. Yet.

Disclaimer: Due to the unprecedented demand and popularity of this tool, we are placing a one-week moratorium on the use of our C3 competitor's coupon for this item only. In other words, you can decide to hold off for a bit in order to use a competitor's 40% off coupon on this item, but you will have to take the chance that there will be one available to buy next Tuesday, May 2nd. We heart you, too.

Have a Heart, Brad

Shaped gi-normous brads from Bazzill arrived in our store today. Hearts and flowers in the shades you'll love. Office supplies wish they could look this cute.

Alligator Disaster

Our crop-o-diles were misdirected and will arrive next week. Apparently, they tried to follow MapQuest directions. Silly 'gators.

National Scrapbooking Day Crop: Start Early on Cinco de Mayo

Time to party and bring on the SUNSHINE with our special event for NSD, starting early on Cinco de Mayo (that's May 5th to you gringos) with a fiesta crop and QuicKutz SUNSHINE demonstration.

We will offer food, fun, and goodies to spare, and we will bring SUNSHINE into the lives of some really special kids with your help. Using the new QK font SUNSHINE and our supplies, we will create some pre-made pages to donate to a local LifeBooks program. Can you imagine being a child and not knowing your own history? LifeBooks are created for kids in the foster care system, to help them understand their history and identity. Many LifeBooks volunteers are not seasoned scrapbookers, so having pre-made pages helps to get more books completed more quickly. Learn about SUNSHINE, create some SUNSHINE for others, and celebrate a bright Cinco de Mayo!

Reservations now being taken, and this one is filling up quickly. Cost is the standard $15 fee, and the fee is waived if you spend $30 or more during the crop. To tide you over until the actual NSD on May 6th, the crop runs from Friday 5/5 at 6pm until early Saturday morning at 1am.

A Few Days Late and A $ Short.....

Let's see...when was the last time we updated the blog?? We aren't counting the days or the minutes, so let's hope you aren't either. So here goes the last few boxes we unpacked:

Got Flowers?
We do now that we unpacked the boxes from Prima that arrived last Friday. Several milk bottles of Got Flowers? packed with the most beautiful colors we have ever seen. We also received an assortment of other flowers in all sorts of different packaging from Prima. But still waiting for the CHA releases to arrive.

Is it Gerber or Gerbera?
Red Gerbera Daisy line by MOD (Autumn Leaves). All the paper is bright and sunny. We even picked up a shaped paper for all of you who are in love with flowers. Don't forget to pick up the matching rubons that coordinate with this line.

Rhonna Farrer is in the house
Her beautiful collection of Splendor arrived yesterday. The coordinating papers, rubons and of course the clear mounted "Swirl" stamps. After we opened this box, we were just wondering where our copies of "Free Style" were. We will let you know ASAP!!

Chip Chatter
Now that these new chipboard alphas and shapes by Pressed Petals have went home with most of you, we thought we'd let the rest of the blogging world know about these great products. Bright and extra large alphas have arrived as well as a few smaller ones. Chip Chatter shapes in hearts, flowers and words....stop in before they walk out the door chatting with someone else.

Calling all Idea Book Junkies
1. Photography for Scrapbookers by Tracy White
2. Mini Albums by Scrapbook Trends
3. Babies Scrapbook Trends
4. Birthday Creations by Paper Crafts

And now we have to go because the Man in Brown just dropped off five more boxes for us to unpack. We are so excited because we can see that two of them are from Quickutz, so that means a new font and cute new dies for all those petting zoo pictures we all have lying around.

Bitter is the New Black

It's totally not relevant to scrapbooking, and you should read this book anyway. Funny, fast, and light summer reading, even though it is a memoir. Reminds me of Jaimee Rose ( in a really nice way) if you read her column in YES! magazine, or actually any of her AZ Republic writing. Too bad Oprah will not be inviting her to join her bookclub anytime soon, because she is pretty funny. I liked it enough to add her blog to our favorites list: see Jennsylvania.

A Crowning Achievement

We unpacked the new Queen and Co today and are utterly smitten with the cuteness of it all. Pink cosmetic bag holds your scrapbook makeup so you can touch up your pages just so. I know it's just packaging, but the contents are royally charming as well.

Shoot, It's Tracy White

CK's new photog mag also arrived. We just love what Tracy did for our journaling, and can't wait to see all her photography tips and tricks. It's not just the camera that takes great photos, ya know. Great photography can happen with off-the-shelf cameras, if you use good technique and apply feedback accordingly. I'm from the school of Nick Kelsh: get closer, use natural light, and take more pictures. Toss in a good "always willing to hear more advice" and we're cooking.

Where's My Crop-o-Dile?

Due to arrive momentarily, we have prepared for the oncoming assault by building a wait list. Be the first to be called for your new tool by ensuring your name is on the list. First come, first called, first served. Remember, it is better to be called about a tool that to be called a tool. We know, we are just full of useful advice. Can you stand it?

iAy Carumba! Mon Dieu! DDD7 Designs!

We're not trying to be unAmerican here, but our newest import of paper just came in the door. We think it is spectacular and can't wait to start enhancing our foreign language skills. Mostly, it's paper for love, babies, family, and cooking, but one of our twills did arrive and is perfect for the "tout simplement adorable" of your world. Hey, we think you're kinda cute too.

Clearance sale continues through tomorrow...

And sign up for the Rusty Pickle class taught by Lance Anderson. It's a Thursday night class to kick off your convention week. More specifically, that would be on Thursday April 20 from 7-9pm. Can't beat that the bargain price of $25 with a stick, either.

Get Out of Here

Join us for our First Anniversary as we clear out the old and continue to welcome everything new.

All clearance papers will be 50% off the clearance price of 3/$1. Various stashes of this and that will be marked down for quick sale. And we might periodically just stuff things in your bag if we feel like it.

And our gift to you? We are rolling over our Frequent Buyer Program without starting anyone off on a clean slate. So if you are at our 10% or 5% discount level, you will not need to requalify. If you are just approaching the qualifying level, your purchases will continue to count towards the next qualifying level. And we can all join hands and sing Kumbaya.

And We Also Carry These Fine New Products:

More Fancy Pants arrived today: coordinating rubons and Prima flowers. Now you can complete your layout with rubon doodling and most beauteous flowers. Yummy.

Maya Road sent our nifty neato cool and totally awesome board books in flower, paisley, heart, and standard shapes. Some even can be placed into the coordinating and equally funky metal tins. As if that were not enough (and really, when is it?), we also received enormous bottle caps (open stock) and colorful ribbons with matching ribbon slides in enamel flowers and paisleys. We are just dancing here. Giddy, I tell you.

More Creative Imaginations Studio 101 arrived, plus other CI themes like skater papers and chipboard; dance papers, stickers, and epoxies; and rodeo princess papers and ribbons. Did you even know there was such a thing? More dancing. Now I'm just dizzy.

And we liked the White Sharpies so much, we reordered and added some silver extra fine sharpies to the collection. Doodle on, kids.

This Is Only a Test

So I'm flipping through the new issue of Simple Scrapbooks, and I spot this article about hard-to-find theme products. "That's us!" I think, since we work pretty hard to bring in products that are just really dang difficult to find elsewhere. Honestly, if you've seen our doorknob collection, you know exactly what I mean. So, let'e see how we compare to these particular "themes" in terms of products we found in our store, in stock, and ready to sell. We're going to focus on the categories that the article considered "harder to find" in each category.

First Category: Times of Change
Harder to Find: maternity, single life, retirement
In Stock: Maternity paper (Carolee's Creations), adoption (Reminisce), single life (Kelly Panacci collection, Creative Imaginations papers and embellishments, rob and bob studio collection, various metal charms, printed ribbon, albums), retirement (Does golfing stuff count? We have cute little metal charms that are golf carts! And golf paper! OK, we do have papers by NRN and Creative Imaginations with timepieces that would work for retirement.)

Second Category: Where We Belong
Harder to Find: Boy or Girl Scouts, clubs and sororities, military
In Stock: We carry a few papers for scouting activities ( Stamping Station, Carolee's Creations) for both boys and girls. Girl Scout paper is very hard to find because the Girl Scout organization infrequently allows the licensing of its images and trademarks . Generally, you can find the more generic "scout" papers and embellishments showing activities that involve girls (as opposed to "Girl Scout" activities.) They are pretty rigorous about defending trademark infringements, too. (Safety first, girls!) Council stores are the best place to find licensed Girl Scout papers, if you like paper that is just kinda unattractive... Anyhoo, we also carry a lot of Karen Foster camping papers, metal signage, and adhesive-backed embellishments (not sure I can use the word sticker anymore, people) for all those camping/scouting pages. For the Greek in you, we have college paper by Creative Imaginations and epoxy Greek alphabets that are also limited. We are in the category of trying to find more fraternity/sorority papers and embellishments for our customers. We just received our Stamping Station order of military papers, including papers for Operations Iraqi Freedom and Enduring Freedom. Of course we have some metal charms and lots of red, white, and blue-themed patriotic papers in current and WWII military styles (Rusty Pickle). We carry license plates with HONOR, which I suppose can be used for those who sit and judge as well as for those who fight for our country. I'm just saying.

Third Category: Things We Do
Harder to Find: cheerleading, running, home remodeling
In Stock: We rock this category in oh so many ways. We carry custom cheerleading diecuts for Mountain Pointe, Desert Vista, and Horizon, and custom kits for all those schools plus Corona del Sol and Marcos de Niza. We also have a custom cut for Track and Field for Horizon (why? cuz they asked!) and varsity letters for the same schools. We also carry multiple papers and accessories for cheerleading and running (Karen Foster, NRN, Rusty Pickle; marathon and track & field), plus a die cut in our lab of a runner coming out of the block. Heck, we have volleyball, swimming, biking, skateboarding, surfing, bowling, and even lacrosse stuff! As soon as I find some rugby paper, you'll be seeing that here too. New subject: we also have home remodeling paper by Karen Foster, Flair Designs, Sticker Studio, and Design Originals, plus enamel charms by Making Memories, and random metal charm tools like hammers, saws, and ladders. (No chutes though. Yet.)

Fourth Category: Who We Are
Harder to Find: individual states and countries, foreign languages, occupations
In Stock: We carry a lot of foreign country paper, even though our supplier, Paper Love Designs, is no more. When we find the right replacement, we will bring them in. As far as states go, we carry all 50 states on one paper (Reminisce) as well as a variety of epoxy stickers for a few chosen states. Like anything we do, when we receive multiple requests for a state, region, or country, we look for a way to bring it in. We are most proud of our selection of Spanish Memories papers and adhesive-backed accents, as well as our bold and bright stickers from Creative Imaginations. We also offer (upon request and periodically on our calendar) classes taught in Spanish. Although only one of our staff is fluent in Spanish, the rest of us will nod and smile as best we can and look for alternative communication methods. Muy malo, lo siento. In other language offerings, we carry ASL embellishments and clear mounted foam stamps. I don't think any of us sign, except for various animal signs (yes, I can say snake, cat, bird, and dog in ASL, thanks to the ABCs of Sign Language, and I can applaud, thanks to Extreme Home Makeover), but most of us can wield a pen and paper with some expertise. We are also anticipating that some new papers and twill in Spanish and French from DDDesigns7 will arrive any moment now. Really.

Fifth Category: What We Believe
Harder to Find: specific religions, religious holidays, astrology
In Stock: If we could find some Jewish-themed paper other than the stock blue/purple/silver Hanukkah papers, we would bring them in. (And yes, we do carry the Creative Imaginations papers for Hanukkah.) We have found some great Go West! embellishments in acrylic bottle caps and engraved wood mini-frames, and we also have a variety of metal charms (including the Star of David) available in our open stock and we have the dreidel QuicKutz die. In the Judeo-Christian category, we have a baptism/communion paper, and metal charms in both the more traditional cross as well as the fisherman's prayer. We also carry some Kwanzaa paper, Easter paper, Christian-themed ribbon, and all kinds of offerings in the universal religion of love.

Considering the Simple Scrapbooks article covered online sources and local sources within a 50-mile radius, we are pretty pleased with how we compare. We know that it takes a lot of work and a lot of vocal customers to find the right stuff for these special categories. Therefore, our hats are off (and yes, we have papers with shoes and papers with hats, plus...ummm, metal charms?!) to all our customers who help us define, refine, and fulfill those challenges. You are each unique and special, and we want your pages to reflect all those areas of your life that make you exactly who you are. In English, en Espanol, au Francais, you are our "raison d'etre!"

"It's the boy. He has bewitched her with words."

source: The Duke, Moulin Rouge

























Create your own romantic story, with Visiting Professor Lance Anderson of Rusty Pickle fame. Join in the magic of this class, Thursday evening, April 20 from 7-9pm, for just $25. Selected papers from the Moulin Rouge! line accompany a gorgeous accordian-fold album project. Limited seats so everyone has plenty of room to create. Hors d'oeuvres and petit fours served up with this class. Register now to reserve your spot and be eligible for special RP goodies and giveaways.

Et voilà quelle trotte
La lune qui flotte
La princesse aussi