I’ve always wondered something…On what part of the female DNA strand does the “I’m not good enough” gene come from? Why is it that we can do something 98% right, but we focus on the 2% we didn’t?. This was really evident to me in a conversation I was having with my mom yesterday. We were talking about my memories from my childhood. She said she’s always amazed when I send her Hallmark cards about what a great mom she’s been to me. She said she felt like she was always too busy and wasn’t around much. “Are you kidding me?” I asked. “I have so many memories of us together!” They usually involved some sort of craft – my Mom is very crafty (must have skipped a generation!) I told her I felt like I wasn’t being as good of a mom to my kids as she was to me because I don’t feel like I do enough with my kids and that 30 years from now they are going to be sitting in a therapist’s office saying “She was so unavailable – she was always working!” “You do so much with your kids!” she said. “They have traveled all over the place, you take them to Disney World, out to restaurants…It seems like you are always going somewhere with them. Any child would be lucky to have you two as parents!” It really struck me that we both thought the other one did such a good job, but we didn’t extend that same kindness to ourselves. That’s what it really boils down to for me…kindness. We should treat ourselves with the same (or more) kindness that we extend to people we don’t even know.
Speaking of people I don’t know, I got to meet a wonderful customer yesterday. One of the things that I don’t like about being an online store is that we don’t get to meet our customers face-to-face and learn about why they scrapbook. It’s always so nice when people stop by the warehouse. She is a pilot and had a layover in Orlando and came to visit! (Our picture is on the blog). She was telling me about the scrapbooks she has made and the things she has used some of our products for. Her daugher is in the Air Force and she makes her homemade cards with the Memories In Uniform die cuts when she graduates from training on a certain type of aircraft. As I sift through the thousands of scrapbook products available, looking for unique things for our store, it’s always a challenge to choose things that will help people with their scrapbooks. Thank you Karen for inspiring me!
We have over 160 new products this week. We have lots of travel, including some international, some USA and laser die cuts inspired by our long plane ride to California for CHA. We made a large title page die cut that says “The Travels of Julie Swatek.” (Of course, we will customize with your name instead of mine!). We have some new cruise from Sandylion, along with some “Muster Drill” die cuts, inspired by my recent cruise. There are 3 new lines from Reminisce: Family, Jungle Safari and Dance. We also have a Tiffany designed SYT kit for ballet dancers. Click on the link to check them out: http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/22708.html.
I downloaded a bunch of pictures from my camera this weekend and thought I’d share a few – scroll down to see them.
As always, thanks for your business! Be kind to yourself today
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
Our customer Karen from Colorado who came to visit on a layover!
Tony & I at the “Sponge Docks” in Tarpon Springs
Mommy Loves Logan
This fishing boat was cleaning fish and throwing the scraps to the pelicans. I’ve never seen so many pelicans before!
I took Lauren to see the Hannah Montana Concert Movie. Can you tell how excited she was?
Our newest family addtions at 4 months old – Panther and Tiger. They are very sweet when they are not clawing everything in sight!
How I felt when I had the flu
Me, Becca, Tiffany and Lani at I at the Creative Imaginations Sneek Peek Party at CHA
Tony & I went to the Hoover Dam when we were in Vegas for PMA.
It was REALLY windy!
Thank you all for your well wishes! After a week-long battle with the flu, I am finally feeling better. After I got home from California, I spent the next 4 days in bed. I can’t even remember the last time I was that sick. I got tons of rest and was able to get caught up on all the Oprah’s I had recorded!
I hope you had a nice Valentine’s Day. Last year, Tony & I started a tradition of going out on a “date” with the kids. He takes Lauren to a fancy, grown-up restaurant and I take Logan. Logan and I were in the car on the way to Sweet Tomatoes (his favorite) and he was telling me all about some TV show he had been watching. After 5 minutes or so of a minute-by-minute recount of the show, I said “When you’re finished telling me about this show, let’s talk about something else.” He replied “You’re right – it’s not very romantic.” He was so cute! Here was my little 5-year old man, all concerned with having a “romantic dinner” with Mommy. It’s moments like these that make you wish they would stay little forever.
We have a terrific variety of new scrapbooking supplies this week! We have snow and winter sports papers and embellishments, the red, black & white Magic Meals collection and lots of new Jolee’s by You stickers for travel. We added the Karen Foster 2008 Calendar, along with matching papers, rub-ons and SYT designed cuts. We have National Park and Alaska stickers from Stamping Station. We have hunting and fishing, along with an awesome SYT designed fishing tropy that you can customize with a name, date and fish weight. Where else are you going to find something like that?!? And for all of you who have been requesting these items, we added supplies for farming, New Zealand and Thailand. Check out the elephant – Jill did an awesome job with the design! We even have a few items for you “500″ racing fans. Click on the link to see all the items: http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/22008.html
As always, thanks for your business. Also, thanks again for all your e-mails and comments about me being sick. It’s nice to know I have so many friends that care
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
We are in Anaheim, California attending the CHA Tradeshow and we’re headed home in a few hours. I wanted today’s e-mail to be all about all the cool new things we’ve seen…sneak peek pictures of new products and industry celebs we met. However, just like the saying goes, “life is what happens when you’re busy making other plans”, this show did not turn out like I had planned!
I wasn’t feeling well before we left, but I’m one of those “I don’t have time to be sick” type of people. I slept a little later the morning we left, took some extra vitamins and hopped on the plane. It takes all day to fly from Florida to California and we had a stop in San Antonio and a layover in Phoenix before we landed in California. By the time we landed in San Antonio, I knew something was wrong. The pressure in my ears was excrutiating and they wouldn’t “pop”. Southwest Airlines was nice enough to let me off the plane at our stop to run into the terminal and get some medicine.
After the first day of the show, I was feeling REALLY bad, so the wonderful desk clerk at the Holiday Inn Express spent about 20 minutes trying to find an Urgent Care Clinic open on a Sunday night (let me tell you, Disneyland is not a good place to get sick!). We had to drive about 45 minutes and got there about an hour before they closed. Turns out I had been sick with the flu for 4 days…had a lung infection…ear infection…and the excrutiating pain on the plane was when my ear drum burst. By this time, Tiffany was also starting to get sick with the same symptoms I had, so she saw the doctor too. She got Tamiflu, but it was too late and spent the whole next day in bed in the hotel room. So, instead of spending our nights up until 2 am pouring over new catalogs and writing up purchase orders, we’ve been trying to rest.
So, Valentine’s Day is about “love” and what does all this have to do with love, you ask? This whole experience has been a reminder to me about why I love the scrapbook industry and the people in it. As you know, I was in Vegas at the Photo Marketing Association Tradeshow last weekend. It was huge and cool and flashy and it was all business. Male business. Very few of the people (men) I talked to talked back to me. I would ask a question and they would answer my husband, Tony. That doesn’t happen in the scrapbook industry and I had forgotten what it felt like. The contrast between the two industries is so stark and I much prefer the warm, fuzzy one. All of our vendors except one extended their show specials until next week since we didn’t have much time to figure out what we wanted to buy while we were here. “It’s you guys…take as much time as you need!” Greg from Creative Imaginations called his sister, who lives in Anaheim, to try to help me find a doctor. Everyone has been kind and genuinely concerned about us. I know it’s such a cliche’, but this industry is like a family. “Where’s Tony?”…”How are your kids?”…”Did you get better shoes for this tradeshow after the 19,000 step Vegas fiasco?”
The other thing I love about this industry is that it has given so many women a chance to create a business that might never have been possible in a male-dominated industry. Our industry is filled with strong, creative women who knew they had something special to offer the world. I firmly believe our world is a better place because scrapbooking and memory preservation is in it. That wouldn’t have been possible without all the women who founded these companies, who just like mine, aren’t so little any more. It has given all of us a chance to connect with so many wonderful people and I, for one, am incredibly grateful.
Since Valentine’s Day is really about the “one” love in your life, we made a special customizeable diecut. The example is for me and the love of my life, but we can make it for you and your sweetie. Click here to see the example: http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/whatsnew.html.
Since Scrap Your Trip and my customers are the other love of my life, I wanted to say thank you for the opportunity you’ve given me to be in such a wonderful industry by offering a 15% coupon off your entire order through February 15th. Just type coupon code “Love2008″ in the coupon code field and click the apply button.
As always, thanks for all your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip,com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’
I just came back from the Photo Marketing Association Tradshow in Las Vegas. You know how sometimes you find out about a whole world that you never knew existed? It was kind of like that. I’ve never seen so many cameras and lenses and accessories in my life. The show was the biggest I’ve ever been to – two stories! I wore my pedometer and the second day we took over 19,000 steps (you’re supposed to shoot for 10,000 per day but I’m lucky if I get 4,000). By the end of the day, I was sitting on a staircase at the Bellagio hotel, pretty much in tears, because my feet hurt so bad they were numb and I couldn’t take another step! All in all, I’m glad I went because I found about a lot of awesome things going on in the photography industry that I didn’t know about. Our laser company was there and we saw tons of creative things we could do with photographs with the laser. As I research all the ideas for “ScrapYourTrip worthiness”, I will keep you posted. Some of the ideas are listed in a poll on the blog so I know which direction to look in first. I also posted pictures from the show on the blog – scroll down to take a look.
I didn’t even bother to put away the suitcase, because we are leaving Saturday to go to CHA in Anaheim to pick out new scrapbook products. We have lots of product requests to keep an eye out for – if you haven’t had a chance to put your request yet, time is running out! Lots of you have asked us to pick up some new companies. We also put a poll on the blog for this to help us decide. (I’ve gone poll happy today!)
We have 111 new items this week. Many of you requested the “Magic Meals” collection from Creative Imaginations to help scrapbook your Disney character meals. It’s here this week, along with matching SYT die cuts. We have a “Snow Days” collection from CI too. Celebrating a milestone birthday? Reminsce has a line of papers and stickers to celebrate the 16th, 21st, 30th, 40th, 50th, 60th and 70th. Just for me, Tiffany designed a die cut that says “40 is the new 30.” We also have the new State Patchwork stickers from Stamping Station for all 50 states. The SYT Design Room has been busy this week, creating die cuts for chess, general travel, road trips, Chinese New Year and martial arts. They even created a uniform that you can choose the custom belt color – they are so creative, those girls! Click here to see them all: http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/20608.html.
As always, thank you SO MUCH for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
www.ScrapYourTrip-Wholesale.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin®
Entrance into the show
The biggest photo printer I have ever seen in my life!
This is about a quarter of the Cannon Booth
Samsung Booth
Kodak Booth
Tony standing in front of the show directory/floorplan. Apparently, I should have borrowed someone’s flash!
I told her I felt like I wasn’t being as good of a mom to my kids as she was to me because I don’t feel like I do enough with my kids and that 30 years from now they are going to be sitting in a therapist’s office saying “She was so unavailable – she was always working!” “You do so much with your kids!” she said. “They have traveled all over the place, you take them to Disney World, out to restaurants…It seems like you are always going somewhere with them. Any child would be lucky to have you two as parents!” It really struck me that we both thought the other one did such a good job, but we didn’t extend that same kindness to ourselves. That’s what it really boils down to for me…kindness. We should treat ourselves with the same (or more) kindness that we extend to people we don’t even know.
Speaking of people I don’t know, I got to meet a wonderful customer yesterday. One of the things that I don’t like about being an online store is that we don’t get to meet our customers face-to-face and learn about why they scrapbook. It’s always so nice when people stop by the warehouse. She is a pilot and had a layover in Orlando and came to visit! (Our picture is on the blog). She was telling me about the scrapbooks she has made and the things she has used some of our products for. Her daugher is in the Air Force and she makes her homemade cards with the Memories In Uniform die cuts when she graduates from training on a certain type of aircraft. As I sift through the thousands of scrapbook products available, looking for unique things for our store, it’s always a challenge to choose things that will help people with their scrapbooks. Thank you Karen for inspiring me!
We have over 160 new products this week. We have lots of travel, including some international, some USA and laser die cuts inspired by our long plane ride to California for CHA. We made a large title page die cut that says “The Travels of Julie Swatek.” (Of course, we will customize with your name instead of mine!). We have some new cruise from Sandylion, along with some “Muster Drill” die cuts, inspired by my recent cruise. There are 3 new lines from Reminisce: Family, Jungle Safari and Dance. We also have a Tiffany designed SYT kit for ballet dancers. Click on the link to check them out: http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/22708.html.
I downloaded a bunch of pictures from my camera this weekend and thought I’d share a few – scroll down to see them.
As always, thanks for your business! Be kind to yourself today 
Tony & I at the “Sponge Docks” in Tarpon Springs
Mommy Loves Logan
This fishing boat was cleaning fish and throwing the scraps to the pelicans. I’ve never seen so many pelicans before!
I took Lauren to see the Hannah Montana Concert Movie. Can you tell how excited she was?
Our newest family addtions at 4 months old – Panther and Tiger. They are very sweet when they are not clawing everything in sight!
How I felt when I had the flu 
Me, Becca, Tiffany and Lani at I at the Creative Imaginations Sneek Peek Party at CHA
Tony & I went to the Hoover Dam when we were in Vegas for PMA.
It was REALLY windy!
