New Products are starting to arrive!

Our orders from the Craft and Hobby Association show are starting to arrive. Some of my favorites came in the end of last week while I was away. Here are some photos of the products that have arrived. First Basic Grey's new Scarlett Letter line of paper. Also from BG is the File Set. This was definitely the "greatest find" in the tool department. Getting into all the little nooks and crannies of chipboard shapes will be a breeze with these little files. What a great price also at just $7. Cosmo Cricket was another favorite booth. First because the product was so fabulous it was easy to order, I simply said, "I want it all." Second because the colors really seemed to stand out from all the rest that started looking very alike after awhile. I think you'll enjoy the deep dark colors of Halfway Cafe and the soft blues and reds of Dutch Girl. Souvenir was not a new line at the show, but one that was overshadowed in the fall because of the popularity of the Christmas Line. These rich dark colors will work well for Christmas, Outdoor, Fall, boy pages and more. Maya Road always has some interesting ribbons and chipboard shapes. We received most of our order from them. The photos that you see are mini books made from the Maya Road chipboard mini book kits. We hope you'll find time soon to come see these new products for yourself. Also watch for your newsletter to show up in your mailbox soon. We have some wonderful classes to offer and you won't want to miss our upcoming events...hint, hint: National Scrapbook Day Weekend Crop and the annual Used Stamp Sale! See you soon, Stacey

Snow Day

It's snowed last night and school was closed today. It's so beautiful outside, I hope everyone takes the time to go out and take some great photos. It's amazing that we've had 2 snow days in the Rogue Valley this year already. I hope I-5 heading north isn't too terrible as I'm on my way to Newport this afternoon for the Wine and Seafood Festival. Before I leave, I would like to make a quick announcement. We have chosen the first members of our Royal Design Team. Tiffany Moore and Darla Barnes are the 2 winners of our Design Team competition. We have inducted a 3rd honorary member and that is Robyn Acrey. Robyn will be leaving our employ next week, which makes me a VERY SAD girl. But we thought we'd keep her coming back anyway, as a Design Team member. The other very talented ladies that turned in projects we want to thank very much. We are hoping that we can expand our design team in the future, so they'll be on our list to call. Here are photos of the 2 winning projects. I'll post pictures next week of the rest of the layouts, cards and books that were turned in. Darla Barnes created a mini book that tells the story (written by her daughter) of her memories of losing her grandfather. Chelsea wrote an amazing story, I cried the entire time I was reading it. The Darla took the time to create a spiral bound album that included the story and photos. She made several and gave them to her relatives. What a gift. Tiffany Moore made a really fun coffee filter album that highlights her husband's top 10 favorite things. I love the "photo journalism" she did, the color scheme she chose and her great design. Tiffany will be teaching at the store in March and April. Look for some of her great classes on our next newsletter (which is at the printer right now.) She'll be teaching a Spring/Easter layout class, a mini book honoring mom, and a Gardener's Journal class.

Time just seems to go so fast

I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted. Hopefully you haven't given up on me and decided not to read our blog anymore, (I guess if you did you wouldn't be reading this post now would you.) With anything it just takes time to form a habit, which is what I need to do to get myself posting on "The Royal Chat" blog on a regular basis. Please don't give up on me! I'm in the middle of designing our March and April newsletter, that's always a fun time around here. You can always tell when it's that time of the month because everyone else is working out on the floor and stearing clear from the office. They don't want to be around me when I'm grumbling, groaning and having it out with my computer. I'm excite though about the awesome classes coming up. We've been hearing that we don't offer enough scrapbook layout classes, so we've added several of those classes. Tiffany, Clayette and myself are all teaching layout classes, along with a few "project" classes also. It's kind of fun to have different people teach classes, then there is a variety of styles to choose from. My layout class is "Get Chipped" we will do a 2 page layout using chipboard and use all the embellies that go along with chipboard. I saw a ton of glittered chipboard at the CHA show and I'm really anxious to give it a try. I hope to post links to our class projects for March and April in the very near future. The other item on my To Do list that I would like to share with you is the winners of our "Royal Design Team" search. We had really great entries and it has been hard to choose. So keep watching for an introduction of these fabulous winners and pictures of their projects. Have a happy, scrappy day! Stacey

Just learning

I'm just learning this blog thing, so pardon my goof from the last post. The top 2 photos are of the cute chipboard books from Maya Road. The two other photos are done with Cosmo Cricket papers. I will add more photos next week, so be sure to add our blog to your favorites list and check it often. My goal is to do post as new products arrive and as reminders for our upcoming classes. If you have suggestions of other information you would like us to include, please email me. Stacey

One last reminder for the day. Tomorrow night we we have a few spots left for our "Scrap 'n' Fun" workshop. It starts at 4 and ends at 11. The cost is just $10 and includes dinner and drinks. Call 857-4998 to register. Stacey I just wanted to share a few of the photos from CHA that I took. These photos are from the Cosmo Cricket booth. These are a few page layouts that were done with the 2 new lines of paper Halfway Cafe and Dutch Girl. Cute new chipboard books from Maya Road.

New finds at the Winter CHA show

Last week we attended the Craft and Hobby Association Winter trade show in Anaheim. Gloria and I scoured the show floor to find all of the latest and greatest products to be released in the next few months. What were the trends that we saw? Clear Stamps, Mini Books, Paper and more Paper! Some of our favorite finds were from the following vendors: * Heidi Grace introduced several new lines of papers and embellishments (one store owner said she loved all the Heidi stuff so much she spent almost her whole show budget in that one booth alone.) * Cosmo Cricket was probably one of my favorites. They had 2 brand new lines; Dutch Girl and Halfway Cafe. I took some pictures of sample pages done using these new lines and will post them as soon as possible. * Basic Grey showed 4 new lines all together, well we can't have it all...so we chose the "Scralet Letter" line and ordered it in it's entirety. You won't want to miss this risque' color combination of red, black,cream and a touch of green. Also new from BG is the new Precision File Set. These tools are perfect for getting all the tiny ruts and spaces of the chipboard pieces. * Tim Holtz has designed some amazing storage tins that are made of embossed metal. These are very functional and fun to distress and embellish. * Fancy Pants, this small company known for their Big Chipboard pieces has another terrific introduction...Big Clear Stamps! Yep a full 12"x12" sheet of clear stamps, some images small, some not so small. Rest assured though, all are awesome! * 7 Gypsies is somewhat of a new line to our store. We just brought in a nice selection of their existing products and a bunch of the new products were ordered before the show even started. Be sure to watch our class calendar for some amazing classes using this new line loved by stampers as well as scrappers. * BoBunny once again has some great lines of papers and embellishments as well. The themes include boy, garden, spring and Family. The little 6"x6" binder that has chipboard pages was so well received by all, they are now making them in 9"x9" as well. These are wonderful for theme specific albums and projects. * Speaking of mini albums, we found lots of "Naked" albums just waiting to be covered, distressed, painted, glittered or whatever you can imagine. We found so many different sizes and shapes of mini books from Maya Road, Fancy Pants, Creative Imaginations, Bo Bunny and Cosmo Cricket. We found many other items of interest, but this should give you a good idea of what's to come in the near future. Stacey