I just thought I’d pop into today and share a picture of my new Stampin’ Up! Goodies from the new catalogue (released June 1st) which were just delivered last night.  As you can probably tell, I went a little hog wild.  And in case you’re wondering – no I’m not an SU demonstrator any more, I had to resign in early 2011 – but I have a great demonstrator that I order from. I’m excited to dive in and start creating – so you will be seeing some of my projects here and of course in Paper Crafter’s Library for those of you that are members.

Just an FYI – I am having a 50% membership sale to Paper Crafter’s Library for the entire month of June.  The monthly special price is $9.95 (regular $19.95) and the annual special price is $99 (regular $200).  I launched the new location of the site at the very beginning of June.  With the move to our new “home” I’ve amalgamated all levels of membership into one level – so for one monthly or annual price you get access to over 1600 video tutorials on all different forms of paper crafting (card making, scrapbooking etc.).  New to the site is a complete Stampin’ Up! Library – I’ve included snapshots below so you can see what the SU portion of our member side looks like – right now we have over 300 videos in that section of our library.

Members also receive all the Creative Inspiration Collection – we have 9 right now and put out two a month – these are normally sold for $5 each  (you can see a snapshot of them from the library below)

…..soooooo if you were to buy the two Creative Inspiration Collections we sell each month that would be $10 – our membership special right now is $9.95 a month (locked in for the duration of your membership)…..AND you get the whole SU library…..AND the whole PCL library…….AND the contents of Club 52 (a year long technique club we ran in 2011/2012……..as you can see, our membership special is an absolute steal.  It’s on until July 5th and then gone forever – as in, we are never ever going to offer that price again. Soooooo, if you’ve been thinking about it, now’s your chance.  You can get the details and sign up directly from HERE.

So that’s it for today….I’m off to play with my new SU goodies and see what I can come up with!…..Oh, but before I go – what’s YOUR favorite product from the new SU catalogue?

The biggest upside of having a blog is that you are able to reach out to so many more people than you can on a one-to-one level.  The downside is the anonymity – you only get to know what your readers share about themselves in the comments.  Often times when I’m sitting in front of my computer trying to figure out which aspect of me and  my life I’m going to share, I wonder about you all – who you are,  what interests you and what we have in common.  These are all things that I usually discover about people as I get to know them better.  Of course with blogging – the conversation can often be “one-sided” if you know what I mean – me talking and you listening (hopefully LOL).

That’s why I wanted to dedicate today’s post to finding out more about you. I would love it if you would share a bit about yourself – where you live, your family, how young or old(ish) you are, your hobbies, how long you’ve been reading my blog, why you come to my blog, and what you’d love to learn here or what one thing I could help you with here – whatever you care to share. I know in today’s day and age everybody is busy and this is probably asking a lot.  I really don’t expect a full biography, but I’d love to be able to at least know enough about you to be able to post and share about things that are relevant to you.

I wanted to start today’s post by first of all thanking all of you for your heartfelt sentiments and support.  It’s wonderful to know that I’m not alone and that many of you either have been or are where I am now.  

I also want to reassure you all that neither I nor this blog are going anywhere.  I am deeply committed to getting this blog up and running again, and following my vision for this blog which I posted a few months ago.  

I think one of the things that’s been holding me back is the fact that I’ve been feeling as though I need to wait for everything to be “ready” – new banner, new buttons, new design….blah, blah, blah…….so that I could launch with a bang LOL! Well, with the way life has been I just hadn’t gotten to the re-design. I kept telling myself: “next week – next week I’ll finish my designs and then get the blog up and running and then write a great post, and then keep sharing great content….and then we’ll all live happily every after.”  For those of you with blogs, I’m sure you know what I mean. 

Of course things rarely go exactly the way we envision, and when they don’t we get stuck.

Well, I’ve decided that I’m going to do something quite revolutionary……for me that is…….and take it one post at a time.  And I have to say, it’s heartwarming to know that as I work on re-connecting, there are actually readers (aka friends) that are willing and happy to reconnect.

So, for today I wanted to share with you some fun news. About 6-8 months ago, in one of my posts I shared one of my goals which was to get published. Now I’ve been wanting to get published for awhile, but I’ve never actually gotten around to submitting anything for publication. The rules of publication are pretty stringent in that what you submit cannot be posted publicly anywhere – not on a blog, not behind the password protection of Paper Crafter’s Library, nowhere.  So of course that was a pretty big deterrent for me since I would say 99% of what I create is for either the Paper Crafter’s Library blog or the member area.  

Well this past fall, I decided to take the plunge and set aside time to create for the express purpose of submitting it for publication. I submitted different projects to two different magazines….and…….I got accepted for both first time round!  Isn’t that exciting?  

So the first magazine I got accepted into is the Paper Crafts Card Creations Volume 11 (released in late winter/early spring):

I had the following cards published in that magazine: “Happy Birthday, Ace” on page 25

 And “Ouch Feel Better” on page 63

 I also got accepted for the Paper Crafts May/June 2013 magazine, but the projects I submitted were put in the online digital version rather than the print version

The first project is a Father’s Day Card:

 You can see a snapshot of the digital page here:

The second project I had was a gift bag I created using some May Arts Ribbons I’m absolutely in love with (ruffled gingham):

You can see the magazine page here:

The second magazine I got published in is the Summer 2013 Cardmaker magazine:

 And I had the following cards published: “Make a Wish” on Page 17

 {Reely} in Love on page 32

 “Live Out Loud” on page 97

Pretty cool eh?  Now unfortunately I haven’t had the time to create for submitting for publication since then, but now I know it’s not as bad as I had thought it would be. So I’m making sure that I make some time this summer to try and create for submission some more.

So that’s all for today!

Have you ever felt like you just didn’t know what to say? That’s what I’ve been feeling lately. I’ve had so much going on in my life and so much on my mind and in my heart……but I just haven’t been able to find the words to post.

For the last few weeks I have been finding myself thinking about this poor lonely little blog and how neglected it’s been for the last year or so. It’s like a dear friend that you’ve lost touch with. When I was a fairly new mom living in Toronto I had a very dear friend that I met at a play group at church. We got together almost every week-day – we would talk over coffee, taking our kids to the park, going for walks, going to the children’s museum, just enjoying each other’s company – sharing our hearts, sharing laughs, encouraging each other in our struggles with parenting……after about 2 years of this, we moved to St. Catharines because my husband had been transferred for his job. Intially, we talked every day. Then as we each started to develop a new routine, we talked every week…then every few weeks…..then every few months……a few times a year…each time we talked the silences became longer, it somehow felt harder to connect…..until eventually we lost touch when they moved out east. I’ve often thought of her over the years since then, wondering where she is, what she is doing. I miss her and I miss her friendship.

It may sound silly to say this, but that’s how I’ve been feeling about this blog. At one time this blog was such a big part of my life. I was posting frequently and engaging with you all daily – and I loved it. Then as my life & my direction changed, I started spending less and less time here. Each time finding it harder to come back. Not because I don’t want to, but I guess because I feel like I’ve lost our connection and I feel like I’ve lost my rhythm and my flow…which makes it hard to sit down in front of the keyboard and type. I really want to change that and need to change that. I want to re-connect with you all.

Have you ever felt this way? Disconnected from someone or something that means a lot to you? If yes, what did you do to re-connect?

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Amongst all the different projects I’ve been undertaking over the last 6 months – one of them has been cleaning and organizing my studio. The sheer amount of stuff I’ve accumulated over the last 5 years since I started running my online business is absolutely astounding – both supplies I accumulated as a former Stampin’ Up! demonstrator, as well as from my current business – Paper Crafter’s Library. That’s why I decided that it was high time I “cleaned house”.  

The photo above is the back of my van with all the seats down – what you’re looking at is over 20 boxes of paper crafting supplies – stamps, inks, paper, punches etc!

In past years (typically every couple of years) I would have a massive craft sale.  This year I thought I would do something different – so I donated ALL of these paper crafting supplies to Cambridge Christian School (CCS) to be sold in their upcoming Mom-to-Mom sale.  Cambridge Christian School is near and dear to my hear – my oldest just graduated from there last year and my other 4 kids currently attend the school.  As a private Christian School they receive NO funding from any level of government – they are dependent on tuition and fundraising. Our children, and we as a family have been SO blessed by CCS so we want to do what we can to help.

ALL (and I mean 100%) of the proceeds of the sale of my paper crafting supplies will go to Cambridge Christian School to help them purchase new sports equipment for the school. 

Along with all the paper crafting supplies they will also be selling gently used children’s clothes, toys and accessories as well as a plant sale with an assortment of annuals, perennials and hanging baskets.

Here are the details – so please be sure to mark your calendar:

Date: Saturday May 25, 2013

Time: 8 am – 12 pm

Where: Cambridge Christian School
229 Myers Road, Cambridge, Ontario, Canada

Hope you can make it!