Archive for January, 2008
I’m going to Las Vegas tomorrow! My husband, Tony & I are going to the Memory Trends scrapbook tradeshow and the Photo Marketing Association tradeshow in Vegas. I’m so excited! Both of us have been to Vegas before, but never together. We have tickets to Le Reve on Friday night and it’s going to be so nice to have some time to just be a couple. Thanks Grandma for watching the kids!
The Photo Marketing Association (PMA) show is all about what’s going on in the photo industry and we’d have a hard time scrappin’ without any photos, so I’m going to check it out. I can’t wait to find out all about the cool advances in photography, digital imaging, digital scrapbooking, etc. I’ll give you a full report next week when I get back.
Speaking of digital scrapbooking, it’s all I hear about these days. I’ve never done it myself, but I know it’s very popular. What about you? Are you a paper scrapbooker, a digital scrapbooker or a “hybrid” scrapbooker. Do you want to learn more about it? Let me know your thoughts on the blog so I know what to look for when I go.
We have over 100 new products this week in a lot of different categories. We have the French Kitchen collection from Reminsce, Cheerleading, Paintball, New Orleans and Mardi Gras. We have new die cuts for the well-traveled mountain ranges and Great Lakes and a Nutcracker to enhance your page about that holiday tradition (I’ve been taking my daughter, Lauren, since she was two). In honor of SuperBowl weekend, we have football items, including a football die cut you can customize with your favorite player’s name. There are lots more things to look at, so click here to see them all:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/13008.html.
Don’t forget to let me know your thoughts on digital scrapbooking on the blog. Just click “add comment” below. Thanks for your input!
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com/
January 30th, 2008
Glad so many of you like Eric’s performance! Now he’s busy thinking up his next one!
As so many of you have requested, here are the song lyrics:
Now this a story all about why
I didn’t stop scrappin’ just because I’m a guy
So I’d like to take a minute just sit on down
I’ll tell you how I came to scrap in a place called O-Town
In the south side of Florida born and raised
Scrappin’ is how I spent most of my days
Chilling out, maxing, relaxing all cool
And all scrappin’ my book outside of the school
When a couple of guys who were up to no good
Didn’t like scrappin’ in the neighborhood
I got in one little fight and my mom got scared
She said you shouldn’t be scrappin’
You’re a guy and it’s weird!
So I whistled for a cab, and when it came near,
the license plate said “scrap” and it had a die cut in the mirror.
If anything I could say it came just for me
But I thought “Nah forget it, Yo home to SYT”
I pulled up to Scrap Your Trip about seven or eight,
and I yelled to the cabby “Yo homes, scrap ya later.”
Looked at the store, I was finally there,
To scrap all I want and no one will care!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
www.blog.scrapyourtrip.com
January 23rd, 2008
One of the things that has been very important to me as I’ve built Scrap Your Trip is that it’s a great place to work. The corporate job I was “merged” out of right before I started the company was a phenomonal workplace and I had a terrific boss. I’ve always strived to make Scrap Your Trip the kind of place where people can’t wait to get out of bed in the morning and get to work (myself included). I think I’ve been pretty successful at creating that culture, as is evidenced by a video I want to share with you. Eric is the only guy who works in the office and has been here for over 2 years. He’s very quiet with a hysterical sense of humor – one of those types who doesn’t say much, but when they do – look out! The video is a song he wrote to perform for us at our Christmas party (but he got really sick that day and had to go home). Rhonda captured it on her camera and I wanted to give you a glimpse into the “life” of Scrap Your Trip. Click here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vHzsmCm_3Bs to see the video on YouTube. If you like it, please rate it, leave comments and forward to your scrapbook friends. Maybe we can make Eric the next YouTube star!
We have over 100 new scrapbooking supplies this week. The dog line from Cloud 9 has been so popular that we added all the rest of the items. Based on your requests, we’ve also added nine different dog breed titles. We also made dog bowls and cat bowls that can be customized with your pet’s name! We have Elvis scrapbooking supplies in honor of his birthday, Hockey, Track & Field, lots of new travel tags from Reminsce and more destination title cuts from Scrap Your Trip. We’ve also added the “Amazing Grace” line from Flair. Click here to see all the items:
http://scrapyourtrip.com/12308.html
Thanks for all the things to look for at the CHA show posts on the blog. We have quite a list of new things to keep an eye out for. Our goal is to find the unique scrapbooking supplies you need to “scrap your trip” through life and if we can’t find it – we’ll make it!
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com/
January 23rd, 2008
We have two new additions in the Swatek household…Tiger and Panther. We decided to get the kids kittens for Christmas. It has been an adventure, to say the least! We adopted them from the humane society and they have been to the vet four times already! They were in pretty poor shape when we got them, but they are almost better now. It’s funny because they already have such distinct personalities already. However, the kitten Lauren picked out as “hers” is much more suited to Logan (both rough and tumble troublemakers
, so we’re gently trying to steer her in the direction of the more laid-back kitten. It’s been five years since we last had cats and I had forgotten how much joy they can bring.
We’ve added 50 new scrapbooking items for Valentine’s Day and New Year’s this week. We have two Valentine’s collections – the “Flirt” line from Reminisce and the “Be Loved” collection from Cloud 9 Design. They are two very different looks, but I’m sure one of them will help you to scrapbook the love of your life. Click here to see them all:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/11608.html.
Are you ready for BLOWOUT Part 2? We are! I’m so happy to see so many empty spots in the warehouse, because I’m getting sneak peaks of new scrapbooking products from CHA and we’re going to need lots of room! So…this week there are an additional 950+ items on clearance. We have over 150 items at 75% off , over 100 items at 50% off and over 690 items at 25% off. It was a wild ride last week because we sold out of over 600 items the first day of the clearance – we couldn’t get them off the website fast enough! So, hop on over to the clearance and “get while the gettin’s good”! Click here to start:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/clearance.html.
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
January 16th, 2008
It’s hard to believe, but it’s almost time to go to the tradeshow again. The Craft & Hobby Association (CHA) show is in Anaheim in a little over a month and we’re starting all our preparations. This is the largest tradeshow of the year and it’s always a lot of fun (also a lot of hard work and a LOT of walking). To make room in the warehouse, we are having a 2-week BLOWOUT sale. We have over 130 items at 75% off (paper for $.17 per sheet!), over 140 items at 50% off and over 530 items at 25% off. Click here to see them all:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/clearance.html Whatever is left from the 25% clearance will drop to 50% off next week, but we have less than 12 of each item on 25% clearance, so they are going to go quick! We also have an additional 600+ items to add to 25% clearance next week, so take inventory of your scrapbook stash, figure out what’s missing and get ready!
What would you like us to look for at the show? New items… new categories… new vendors…Let us know! Please leave a comment on this post on the blog – we’ll print it out and take it with us. Click here and scroll down to the bottom to leave your requests:
“http://site.scrapyourtrip.com/blog2/2008/01/09/scrap-your-trip-blowout-part-1/”
Last, but certainly not least, I am proud to say that Scrap Your Trip is becoming a wholesaler! Click here:
http://www.scrapyourtrip-wholesale.com to visit our wholesale site. Just provide us with a sales tax exemption certificate and we’ll send your login information right away.
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
January 9th, 2008
I know it doesn’t compare to what the rest of you are going through, but this is how cold it was in my neighborhood this morning. It actually snowed near Daytona Beach!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
January 3rd, 2008
Happy New Year! I love January – it’s my favorite month of the year. All the hectic craziness of the holidays is over and it’s a whole month with nothing special to do and nowhere special to go! Like most of you, I use this time to reflect on the past year. I am grateful for everything that happened in 2007, both good and bad, because I have learned from all of it. I’m looking forward to 2008 because it seems like everything in my life is settling down. I’m going to focus on trying to do the things I “should”, instead of the things I do. I “should” get more sleep, exercise more, eat more vegetables and less potato chips. I should eat more at-home dinners instead of restaurant dinners. I should stop eating when I am full. I should take better care of myself because this is the only body I get and it’s starting to show a bit of wear and tear. I should show kindess to everyone, even if they annoy me. I should always tell the truth, even when it’s not easy and I should always take time to let the people in my life know what a difference they have made in my life. I should not have over 175 e-mails in my inbox to answer
What are your “New Year’s Resolutions? Post them on the blog so that we can all inspire each other!
http://site.scrapyourtrip.com/blog2/.
We have scrapbook products to go along with New Year’s this week. We have lots of drink related papers and stickers, along with products that say “2008″ so that you can scrapbook your New Year’s Eve. We also have diet and exercise products to help document your progress and help you stay on track. Click here to see them all:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/10208.html.
Have a great week! As always, thanks for your business
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
January 2nd, 2008
I wanted to like it, I really did! Based on how many of you absolutely loved it, I envisioned myself going on cruise after cruise. However, until we go on an Alaskan cruise, I will not be on another cruise ship. I might consider it again if we were on a bigger ship without the kids.
Let me tell you how it started. The night before we left, Logan comes in while I’m packing (I’m a late packer!) and tells me his thumb hurts. It looked like it had a mark on his nail from a green marker. However, he was really whining about how much it hurt. He took me to the playroom to show me what he had done to hurt himself. Well…he had gone to a birthday party on Saturday and got a really cheap race car in the goody bag. He decided that he wanted to take out the windshield and was picking at the metal with his thumb. You guessed it – green metal race car. A piece of the metal broke off and jammed underneath his thumbnail. It was so far under there I couldn’t even tell at first glance that was what it was. So, at 9:00 the night before we left, I was in the after hours pediatric place with him getting his thumb x-rayed (because of course the car was made in China and we’re thinking he probably now has a chip of lead paint under his thumb). They told me to just leave it and it would grow out on it’s own (it had grown out enough by yesterday that I was able to get it out). We were off with a bang!
Now before I tell you about the cruise, understand that we’ve always said we weren’t cruising people. It seems to be a type of vacation that people either love or hate and we didn’t think we would love it. But when this one popped up as a special deal on TravelZoo, we thought it would be the perfect “test cruise” to see how we felt about it. It was cheap and short so it was a good trial run.
We got on the ship Monday and we were all excited. We checked into our postage stamp sized cabin, set down our stuff, had our “Muster Drill” and then explored the ship deck by deck. We found a little cafe and got some pasta as a snack for the kids. We didn’t sit outside because it was absolutely freezing! We were all wearing long sleeves and jackets. We went to a “First-Time Cruisers” gathering which was basically someone telling us where everything on the ship was and to explore for ourselves. Then we went to the orientation for the kids “Adventure Ocean” program, signed them in and went to dinner by ourselves (thank goodness for the earlier pasta snack – turned into dinner!). We had the second seating and the food the first night was really good. Then it was pick up the kids and time for bed. The kids thought the berth beds coming out of the ceiling were really cool. I didn’t like it because I could barely get out of bed without climbing around the ladder. We filled out our room service breakfast order, hung it on the door and went to sleep.
Let me tell you, when you put four chronically sleep deprived people in an interior cabin with no sunlight, there is not a chance in the world of getting up before 11:00
We were relying on room service to wake us up, but they never came (we heard later that the college kids on board had removed all the room service orders hanging on doors as a prank). So, we woke up around 11:00 and everyone was starving. We then had the pleasure of trying to get ready in the smallest bathroom I have ever been in (thanks for the clothespin on the shower curtain advice – that worked wonders)! The room was so small that we couldn’t walk past each other without turning sideways. It takes about 1 1/2 hours to get us all showered, dressed and ready and the kids were on top of each other and ready to kill each other by the time we left for lunch. We walked around a bit after lunch and played a game of putt-putt golf. The kids really wanted to go swimming (even though it was only about 70 degrees), so Tony watched them in the pool while I took a yoga class. We didn’t have much else to do until dinner time, so the kids played a few games of shuffleboard. The kids had a special dinner night at the kids club and Tony and I went to Portofino – one of the specialty restaurants – for dinner.
We were in Key West the next morning. We had planned on getting up early, but there was that no sun thing again (and it just seems wrong to set the alarm clock on vacation), so by the time we got off the boat, we only had time to have lunch and walk around for awhile before we had to get back on the boat. I had forgotten what “colorful characters” are walking around Key West and thankfully I didn’t have to explain anything to the kids I wasnt’ ready to explain yet! This night was “Pirate Night” for the kids and they had a lot of fun “taking over the ship”. They came through the dining room and did a little song and dance which was really cute! Here are my pirates, Lauren and Logan:
At dinner, our table mates were telling us that you could order room service through the TV and get a late-night snack. We thought that would be fun for the kids, especially since they had eaten so early before the Pirate Night. We picked them up from the Ocean Adventure Kids Club and headed back to the room. We ordered hot chocolate and chips and dip and got ready for bed. After 1 1/2 hours of waiting, Tony was just getting ready to call room service to tell them never mind (I had already fallen asleep) when they called to say they had run out of hot chocolate. He told them not to bother since it was so late, but they said she was already on her way. When she got there, the dip was ice cold and the chips consisted of a handful of what looked like all the broken pieces from the bottom of the bag. The kids had fallen asleep by that time too, so we just left it sitting there.
We had also placed a room service order for breakfast the next morning. Since we had slept so late and missed most of our time on Key West, we had room service scheduled for 9:30. In the morning, Lauren calls down “Mommy, I can’t fall asleep. What time is it?” Tony looked at the clock and it was 10:57. We tell her it’s almost 11:00 and she says “But I can’t fall asleep”. Then we told her it was 10:57 in the morning! So much for our room service breakfast wake-up call at 9:30. They didn’t show up until 11:30. Everything that was supposed to be hot was cold and vice-versa. So, we headed off the ship to Coco Cay for lunch.
The kids had a lot of fun playing in the water and collecting shells. Tony enjoyed the breeze, but I was freezing! It’s too cold to have a bathing suit on when it’s only 70 degrees! We went back to the boat so the kids could go in the swimming pool and let Tony have an hour to himself enjoying the ocean breezes.
The kids wanted to have dinner with us in the main dining room for the last night, so they got to eat with the grown-ups. Lauren thought it was cool that she got to order whatever she wanted from the menu – she had them bring her two shrimp cocktails! (She has good taste in food)
Since we were on Deck 2, we were going to be the last ones off in the morning, so we decided to do the Express Walk-Off, where you carry your own luggage off the ship. We had to be out of our stateroom and in line to disembark by 6:30 am, which we actually accomplished. However, the majority of the ship seemed to have the same idea. There were so many people in line waiting to get off that the line wrapped all the way around the lobby. They started calling groups to get off, but no one from the Express line had really moved yet. So, people started arguing about where the end of the line were and people started getting upset about other people cutting in line and it was right then and there that I said “Okay, this experience ENSURES that I will NEVER step foot on another cruise ship again!”
The ironic part is that several people who had been on cruises told us when we got back that they didn’t think we would like it. So, now I can say “Been there, done that”, but give us a rental car with unlimited miles, a map and a state to explore and we’ll be a lot happier!
January 2nd, 2008
