Help Me Sell It and Get Home for Christmas - Thanks

Life Updated

Well yes, I have been out of commission for a while and here is why!  In July hubby and I decided that we needed to sell our house in Florida.  We would have done it a long time ago, but with the market the way it was, it wasn't really possible before now.

The house was rented and the contract was ending so we decided that we would let our property manager do the selling. Big oups! I asked that he do an open house and told him my son might show up. The two had never met. The property manager, had no real sign out on the property except for a cheap open house sign, and he never took my son's information, told him the price or asked him any other pertinent information.  He did not give him a flyer or do anything else.  

I had been assured that the house was market ready, but one has to wonder what market! When my son sent me the pictures he took at the open house, I immediately yanked the listing, knowing that I would have to go down and get some serious work done. Things got worse when I walked into the house and putting all those other details aside, let me just say that it took 6 weeks and a few thousand dollars to get this house back to the shape it was in prior to our leaving it in 2009. 

The kitchen had to be remodelled. Everything but the floors and walls is new: the cabinets, countertop, appliances (fridge, converction 5 burner stove, dishwasher, microwave), the sink, trash disposal, compactor, and even the faucet. The floors were fixed and cleaned if they were tile or changed to laminate if they were carpeted and everything was painted inside and out. It's almost like buying a new house, except this one has already done all it's settling!

The house is now listed for sale and you can see the listing here. 

So if you haven't heard from me, please, please forgive me. My life pretty much from morning till night has been spent getting the house ready to put on the market and noow it's all about selling it. I hope that soon life will get back to normal!

Meanwhile, get crafty people, Christmas is right around the corner!
M-C

Mega Update - Part 1

Oh yes, it has been a while!  So I'll keep it to showing you pictures of anything I've made over the last few months! There is so much to show, that I'm going to break it down into at least two posts!

Ist Project of the Year!

My friend Marie Laurence told me that there is a belief out that if you create something on the first day of the year you have a good year. Who doesn't want a good year? Since I still had my Christmas stuff out, this was an easy project to make quickly on January 1st!

My Most Time Consuming Project Ever

You will see  more of this project created using the Time to Flourish collection from Graphic 45 in a separate post. It's been going on since late December and I'm hoping to finally finish it off this week or more likely early next week,  by mailing off the final kit to my dear friend Marielba.

Ist Layout Class of the Year

I created 3 two page layouts for this class. Apparently I only took pictures of one of the three sets!

Happy Valentines Day - Cards for 3 of my Nieces/nephew

I have a wide range of nieces and nephews and even some great nephews and nieces now. These cards seemed to be perfect for my the 6 to 10 year olds. What I love is that they actually fit in a standard card envelope.

Frozen Themed Box Card

When my friend Marielba's daughter Lianne turned 15 it was a big deal as they are from Puerto Rico. This box card was based of the Frozen theme she picked for her  Quineanera festivities.

Tiny Gift Box

I had something my hubby made that we wanted to give to my dear friend Erica. I made this box to put the gift in. It's probably 4"x4"x1.5". It was fun to work on!

Not Just Scrapbooks FB Group March Challenge

On my Facebook Creative Group, we usually have a challenge. This is the card I made for our March challenge. If you are interested in joining us, please feel free to contact me!

May Card Class

These are the cards we made in my May card class. We made two easel cards, two using the Heartfelt Creations using the Everyday Hero collection and one using the BoBunny Garden Journal collection.

Altered Box and Mini - Graphic 45 Secret Garden Collection

I took a wood box from Hobby Lobby and alered it using the G45 Secret Garden collection and a graphic of swallows I bought onE tsy from a shop called graphicals. The legs on the box are also from G45. The lace bow is from an antique shop in Waynesville, OH.  It was beige and I used my Spectrum Noir alcohol ink markers to color it. You can see more by watching my YouTube video. 

Well that's it for part 1. Stay tuned for part 2!

My Poor Neglected Blog!

I know that it has been a while since I've posted, but I will try to do better!  I'm still not sure how all those people who blog and FB and Instagram etc every day manage to have a life, but I'll try to find some sort of balance that includes my blog.

So what's been happening?  Well lots and not much. I had several classes in October, November and December that were fun, but took up a bunch of time!

Here are some of of the projects I created over the last few weeks of 2014:

Altered Projects

O Christmas Tree!

Christmas Tree from a wood tree 

by SaCrafters and the G45

Twas the Night Before Christmas 

paper collection.

I collected the miniatures over the

last few years at various locations.

When I make boxes or other altered items

I nearly always include a mini album.

This project was no exception. This 

was one small mini that fit in the bottom of

the tree. 

As you can see below, the mini opens up 

to multiple pages, including some that

you can put tiny pictures on!

 Santa's Sleigh

This is again a wood base from 

SaCrafters that I used the G45

Twas the Night Before Christmas

paper collection to decorate. 

The white ball trim is from

Melissa Francis and the gold

trim was purchsed at Handcock 

Fabric's. 

Layouts

This is a 2 page, 12"x12"Halloween Scene 

combining some Carta Bella paper with 

some Paper House 3-D stickers and some

Scan N Cut elements! As usual the class 

consisted of  a total of 6 pages.

I was into scenes, so here is my lead

Christmas page for our XMas layout 

class. I used the green rectangle spaces at 

the top to put a couple of family portrait 

style pictures. We made 6 pages plus a 

special project.

Mini Album

My mother-in-law lost her wedding album 

 during Hurricane Katrina. I was able to scan 

the pictures, but restoring the very damaged 

pictures took a long time. I was finally able 

to give her back a smaller version of her book, 

complete with pictures and part of the guest 

book, just recently. This is just the front cover.

Cards

For some reason, I seem to have forgotten to 

take a picture of the Christmas/Holiday cards, 

except for this one. It's 100% made from die cuts! 

This is a pop up card I designed for 

one of my friends to use as an 

invitation to a frozen style party.

 Tags

This I made for a tag swap with 

a lady in Australia. We had to use 

certain colors and items!

The Start of 2015!

HUGE DESTASH GOES LIVE TODAY!

Our first big destash goes live today, December 8th at 1pm EST (New York time) on my zibbet store at:
http://zibbet.com/mccplg

The info on the destash has been posted on multiple sites on Facebook, so this is a first come, first served sale.

Here are specific links to the videos for each box:

Box 1 - Cooking $40 ($27.35USD+ shipping

Box 02 - Cooking  $45 ($32.35USD+ shipping) 

Box 03 - Cooking  $45 ($32.35USD+ shipping)

Box 04 - Boy/baby boy   $45 ($32.35USD+ shipping)

Box 05 - Boy/Baby boy  $45 ($32.35USD+ shipping

Box 06 - Girl/baby girl   $40 ($27.35USD+ shipping) 

Box 07 - Baby - Girl $35 ($22.35USD+ shipping) 

Box 08 - Love - Wedding   $30 ($17.35USD+ shipping)

Box 09 - Love - Wedding   $35 ($22.35USD + shipping) 

Box 10 - SOLD Travel   $49.00 ($36.35USD+ shipping) 

Box 11 - Halloween   $29.50 ($16.85USD+ shipping) 

Box 12 - Halloween    $37.50 ($24.85USD+ shipping) 

Box 13 - Birthday    $30 ($17.35USD+ shipping) 

Boxes 14 & 15 Thanksgiving    $35 ($22.35USD+ shipping) 

Box 16 - Thanksgiving    $37 ($24.35USD+ shipping) 

Box 17 - Christmas    $49.50 ($36.85USD + shipping) 

Box 18 - Christmas $49.50 ($ 36.85USD + shipping) 

Box 19 - Christmas   $49.50 (36.85USD + shipping)

Box 20 - Christmas    $49.50 ($36.85USD + shipping) 

Box 21 - Manly/Vintage  $35 ($22.35USD+ shipping) 

BOX 22 - Birthday - Celebrate  $30 ($17.35USD+ shipping) 

Boxes A, B & C- G45 Raining Cats & Dogs
$59.95 PLUS shipping each 

Box D - SOLD G45 Twas TNB Christmas
$49.50 PLUS shipping 

Box E - PRIMA   $45 ($32.35USD+ shipping) 

Box F - PRIMA   $40 ($27.35USD+ shipping) 

Box G - PRIMA  $35 ($22.35USD+ shipping) 

Box H - PRIMA + Marion Smith   $30 ($17.35USD+ shipping) 

Box I - (G45 + PRIMA Sea Themed  $49.95 PLUS shipping 

About Shipping etc...

To purchase this box, you will need watch for our announcement that we have gone live and go to my zibbet store:

https://www.zibbet.com/mccplg

If after 48 hours your item is not paid in full including any extra shipping fees, we will reluctantly relist the item.

****SHIPPING*****IMPORTANT INFO******

We filled Medium Priority Flat Rate Boxes. Most are full, so we cannot really combine shipping. If you buy three boxes, we will try to put it all into two and credit your Paypal account!

USA - $12.65 Please note: the prices quoted in our videos include shipping for most boxes, but not all! On Zibbet we had to put in the shipping cost separately from the product cost.

CANADA - If you are from Canada, we will send you a Paypal invoice for either $43.25 if shipping is not included in the box price OR for $29.60 to cover the "difference" in the shipping fees ($43.25-$12.65), and wait until this additional payment is confirmed before we ship your box out to you. After 48 hours, we will re-list!

ALL OTHER COUNTRIES - If you are from any other country than the US or Canada, we will send you a Paypal invoice for $61.75 if shipping IS NOT included in the box price OR  for $49.10 to cover the "difference" in the shipping fees ($61.75-$12.65), and wait till it is paid to ship out to you. and wait until this additional payment is confirmed before we ship your box out to you. After 48 hours, we will re-list!

DESTASH!!! Update

Wow we are nearing 30 boxes of never used never opened crafting goodness! Some items are vintage Cookbooking,  Top Line Creations and Breezy design, (now that is one company whose designers were very much ahead of their time) and some are just released Graphic 45!  We also have some Marion Smith, Simple Stories and some Prima! All the boxes will have flowers and lace that, if not white, were individually hand colored to match what the box contains!

What's more, we have determined that there will be a second round after the holidays!  Yup there is still a whole lot to destashsing to do!!!

The actual box buying will be via this blog and you will have to look for the pages at the top of the blog!  We are starting to make the videos today and will post them a couple of days before the sale starts so that you can view what we have and note the number or letter of boxe(s) you want.  Then  we will let you know either in a new video and/or online in FB as well as here in a new post, we will publish each page here on the blog!

OK, time to get the videos done!

Destash and Giveaway

If you read my blog, you've noticed that the post about the store has disappeared. I've come to that conclusion that a store now would not be a good idea! So for a number of reasons, not least of which is quality of life, the desire to enjoy my crafting and not be constantly on my phone or computer looking for the next email, and the realities of the paper crafting business right now, I will not be opening an actual store. 

In that frame of mind, I've decided to do a major destash and giveaway! A couple of my friends are helping me create priority boxes filled with crafty stuff.  The prices will include prioirty shipping to the USA.  If you are international, you will have to pay the difference in the shipping charges, which sad to say, will likely make this a bad deal for you since shipping priority from the US to any other country is crazy expensive!

I will post video's on YT to show you what is being destashed in each box and there is also a group on Facebook called Not Just Scrapbooks which you can go to.  Just liking the FB page will get you one entry into the giveaway, (think G45 Raining Cat's and Dogs)!

There will be many boxes, so please make sure you keep track of my videos on YT!!

Have a great day!
M-C

Paper Arts Show, CHA Summer 2014 - Days 1 Part 1

OVERVIEW:
 For those of us whose love of paper crafting has led us to becoming retailers, and who can't get out to Anaheim California, this was an anticipated event. I won't say that this was a big show. Gone are the fancy booths, and we are back to the standard trade show black curtains with tables and wire panels and/or bookshelves.  It's in a hotel not a convention center and the ceilings are low, not soaring. There were fewer than 50 exhibitors (notably absent were DCWV, American Crafts, Ranger, Stampers Anonymous, and sadly, Marion Smith Designs, one of my biggest reasons for attending the show)! For the life of me, I can't seem to meet Marion or Garret no matter what, lol! Only 200 attendees had registered when the show opened on Tuesday and from the wholesalers point of view, that did not mean 200 customers as some retailers bring 2-3 people. Yet that doesn't mean in wasn't a good show! It was great for networking and getting to know people, you did not have to go crazy trying to place orders and it was much easier to navigate. Oh and there was the open market, where you literally could get some great bargains!

Day 1 - The Workshop Day

It turns out that only 200 people signed up to attend the show, which makes it terribly small, especially since sometimes up to 3 people are from the same store. But there are advantages to being at such a small show and the first day workshops are amongst the good things. Getting to talk to more people because you are bumping into them again and again is also an advantage and I got to meet some mighty fine people.

Now here are some pictures from Day 1:

Bo Bunny

 

 

 

Bo Bunny was my first workshop of the day at 8:00 am. It's also where I met Ivana, also known as CraftMuse. We were a very quiet class.  Then again, by definition, the projects in such classes are ambitious and very quick paced, and we all know going in that we don't have any chance of finishing them! Finishing comes later, maybe at night if you can keep your eyes open long enough.  But I digress!

 

We made the layout you see above as well as a cute envelope with an accordion album to slip inside the envelope.

 

My favorite new Bo Bunny products are the Glitter Paste, which comes in 3 colors for now, Gold, Bronze and Silver and their new stencils.

 

 

The stencils are made of a very thin, pliable pink plastic, that clings to your project, making it much easier to work with.  Right now they have released 4 sets. Each set comes on 12x12 size backing. So that border in the picture is 12 inches long. The Glitter Paste dries fairly quickly and the stencil is very easy to remove, wash and use again. Based on my experience in the workshop it is very easy to use multiple times, in one sitting, without having to clean it between each use.  That makes the Bo Bunny stencils a great choice if you are creating invitations or a series of cards. Of all their currently released ones, I loved the doilies!

I also visit our instructors, Liz Welch & Vicki Bentley in their booth! Can you see we had fun?

We made this cute tag in the Bo Bunny booth!

 



Well there is so much more to say even about the first day, but this post is way long!

 

More soon,

Be happy and crafty!

M-C