Clipper Street Appreciate Day and the Storm

Last Saturday I was invited to attend a fun "Customer Appreciation Day" event being held at Clipper Street in Langley. 

This Langley scrapbooking company was nominated and won awards for being the "BEST" in 2015 for:

• Specialty Gift Store 
• FUN Place to Shop and 
• Crafts and Hobby store 

When my friend Ethel and I met pre-class for breakfast at a local restaurant it was overcast and raining so we were excited about being inside for our class.  Little did we know what was in store for us later in the day.


We joined a wonderful group of ladies and our instructor Deanna to make two cards.  Here's a shot of the group:

Ethel in Wisteria Wonder and I'm wearing the Calypso Coral top.

  Here are the two cards we made:

It was a great fast paced class taught by Deanna and we really enjoyed making these multi-layered, happy cards.  We were a bit worried we wouldn't be able to finish as throughout the class the lights were flickering and a couple of times the power actually went out.  

We finished on time though, and after touring this great store and sampling
some of the lovely cake and punch we headed out to our cars. The moment we walked outside we were almost blown off our feet by the pineapple express winds that were wreaking havoc around us.  We had just walked into the worst storm since 2006 to hit the lower mainland.

We yelled hasty goodbyes and ran to our cars to get out of the wind and rain.  My car was literally rocking from the buffeting winds. Needless to say it took me a long time to drive the 34klms to my home and it was one of the most frightening driving experiences I've ever been through.  Trees were falling everywhere and the rain was so heavy at times you couldn't see out the windshield.  Power lines were down and debris and flying objects were everywhere.

I eventually made it home to safety.  When I arrived our power was out for about four hours, but we were some of the lucky ones, as over a half a million people were without power, some as much as three days, and there was so much damage and destruction. 

This was an experience I won't forget for a long time.



Happy Stamping!
Penny Tokens

Reorganizing - Out With The Old In With the New!

All That Stuff:
I love all my stamp sets, tools and accessories that I've accumulated over the past few years as a Stampin' Up! Demonstrator.  But, once I acquire something, I'm not very good at letting it go.  

Every year as the retirement lists are released and I separate the retired stamps and accessories from the ones that remain current, I realize that I just have way too much stuff and all that clutter is killing my creativity. I know I have to stop procrastinating, but somehow I manage to continue.

Every time I try and start stamping, I'm  wasting endless amounts of time digging through "my stuff", moving "my stuff", and of course trying to find "the right stuff".  Well, you know the story........by the time I find what I'm looking for and settle in to stamp I'm just way too tired or I've lost the desire. 

The Decision:

So this year I decided to do something about "my stuff" and I'm trying to turn over a new leaf with the procrastination problem.  

With the release of the new catalogue and new products in June, I decided to grab the opportunity to not only "Refresh" all my "Colour Collections", but to "refresh and reorganize my stamping space and prepare to sell things I'm no longer using.  It was a tough decision but one that had to be made! 

The Process:

1. First things first. I began by scrutinizing my space and drafting a plan of attack.  
2. I scheduled a full day (without interruptions) for room cleanup and reorganization of my studio and prep room areas. 
3. I got three empty bins and put a sign on each bin indicating its purpose:
1. Things I couldn't part with were put in the "Keep" bin
2. Things I could part with were put in the "Sell" bin
3. Things that I couldn't make up my mind about went into the
   "Undecided" bin for further review.
   
4. After looking at pictures of organized stamp rooms on line and in a few magazines, I decided I needed to purchase some smaller sized storage bins to hold my tools and accessories. With that in mind  I bought two sizes of lidded plastic storage bins from Walmart, that were open stock. They came in bright green, pink and/or white and I opted for the bright green to give my room some pizzazz. 
5. I began organizing my prep room first by simply putting all the retired and no longer in use items into the appropriate marked storage bins, and moving them out of the area when I was finished.
6. Once the shelving in my prep room was bare I began the process of cleaning the shelves and repositioning my tools and accessories.

The following are pictures of my new "clean" and organized prep area. 

This is the back wall in my prep room area.  I would eventually like to get a four-drawer legal filing cabinet to replace all these stacking storage containers.  But for now, they hold all my envelopes and paper supplies and other crafting materials.

This shelving unit displays some of my current projects.  The file boxes on the upper shelf are used for storing cards and to separate projects during my workshops. I keep all my reference magazines and books on the lower shelves.

The next shelf area holds  all my Clear Mount Stamps and MDS Studio disk.  It's easy to reach them from my desk area when I want to grab a new stamp set in a hurry.  The bottom shelves hold all my previous Stampin' Up Catalogues.  I plan to keep only one catalogue for each year for reference information and before the end of the year get rid of all the other out of date catalogues.  It will free up a couple of more shelves.

This desk was an old one I salvaged from our move and it works perfectly for prepping card stock and working on projects when I'm by my self.  My wonderful brother-in-law Ken built the shelving unit that fits on top of the desk and it holds all my markers, dauber cases, adhesives, clear block, stamp scrubber and scissors.  The lower shelves hold my Stamp-a-ma-jig, spritzer, heat gun and cutting boards. 

Here you can see some of the green plastic storage bins I bought at Walmart.  The large ones hold all my ribbon, while the shoebox size were perfect for stashing other accessories and supplies for projects.  I keep all my punches on a small shelving unit at the back of the room. 

 

All my inks and re-inkers past and present are together on this shelf along with my embossing powders (in a Keurig holder).   On the lower shelf I have all my Sizzix and  Big Shot  Die Cuts in more of the green plastic bins.  I also have my embossing folders in a bin.  It's so easy now to just carry the bin to the Big Shot station in the studio and everything is at hand. 

The Sale:
Once I had my prep room tidy I tackled the studio area.  I followed the same principle and purged the area of things I wanted removed.  The result was a cleaner fresher room with updated samples and work station areas.  I'm sure my customers will like it a lot better.  

The one thing this area desperately needs is adequate lighting.  Right now I am functioning with a number of lamps which is okay but installation of overhead lighting will free up some more floor space (it's in the future development plan).  I also want to paint both areas and begin adding some display boards.....stay tuned for those pictures!  

Just look at all these stamp sets and accessories I wound up having for sale. Once my rooms were cleaned up I put everything from the sale bins onto my pool table priced everything,in preparation for the garage sale.

 

On Sunday the 9th of June, I joined my two downlines, Ethel and Sheri in Langley for an outdoor garage sale event held by Clipper Street a local paper crafting and scrapbooking store.  Despite the inclement weather it was a successful sale.  We'll be doing it again on Sunday July 7th.  

Tarps to the rescue.  It just poured and everything was soaked. 

Sheri and Ethel waiting for the rain to die down.

Sheri's booth was right next to ours and she saw lots of action throughout the day.

Despite the inclement weather lots of folks showed up for the sale.

Ethel, hoping for a sale. 

Sheri had this great apron from a breast cancer fund raiser and it worked so well for collecting her sales money.