Archive for April, 2008
I have to be a “braggy mom” for a minute. My 5-year old son, Logan, learned to read last week! My kids were on spring break and they spent lots of time in the “fort” of their playset with my daughter, Lauren playing teacher and reading to him (guess she missed school!). At bedtime story one night, it just clicked. I love it when kids learn to read. You can almost see the light bulb go off over their head when all the letters magically make sense.
National Scrapbook Day is almost here! Do you have plans to scrapbook this Saturday? If not, at least try to create some “scrapbookable” memories. Scrap Your Trip is offering a 20% coupon on your entire order to help you with the supplies you need. Just enter “nsd2008″ at checkout and hit the apply button. (Fine print – this offer cannot be applied to previous purchases or used in conjunction with other discounts. The coupon is good until 11:59 pm Sunday, May 4th. Turnaround time on NSD orders will be 4-5 business days).
I got an e-mail from a customer this week that really made me think about how we preserve our memories and I wanted to share it with you.
The elderly parking lot attendant wasn’t in a good mood!
Neither was Sam Bierstock. It was around 1 a.m., and Bierstock, a Delray Beach , FL , eye doctor, business consultant, corporate speaker, and musician was bone-tired after appearing at an event. He pulled up in his car and the parking attendant began to speak. “I took two bullets for this country and look what I’m doing,” he said bitterly. At first, Bierstock didn’t know what to say to the World War II veteran. But he rolled down his window and told the man, “Sir”, he said, ” I have had a wonderful life in this country, and I want to thank you sincerely for what you did to preserve our way of life in this country.” Saying nothing in response, the man began to cry.
“That really got to me,” Bierstock says.
Cut to today.
Bierstock, 58, and John Melnick, 54, of Pompano Beach – a member of Bierstock’s band, “Dr. Sam and the Managed Care Band” – have written a song inspired by that old soldier in the airport parking lot. The mournful “Before You Go” does more than salute those who fought in WWII. It encourages people to go out of their way to thank the aging warriors before they die. “If we had lost that particular war, our whole way of life would have been shot,” says Bierstock, who plays harmonica. “The WW II soldiers are now dying at the rate of about 2,000 every day. I thought we needed to thank them.”
The song is striking a chord. Within four days of Bierstock placing it on the Web, the song and accompanying photo essay have bounced around nine countries, producing tears and heartfelt thanks from veterans, their sons and daughters and grandchildren.
“It made me cry,” wrote one veteran’s son. Another sent an e-mail saying that only after his father consumed several glasses of wine would he discuss “the unspeakable horrors” he and other soldiers had witnessed in places such as Anzio , Iwo Jima, Bataan and Omaha Beach . “I can never thank them enough,” the son wrote. “Thank you for thinking about them.”
Bierstock and Melnick thought about shipping it off to a professional singer, maybe a Lee Greenwood type, but because time was running out for so many veterans, they decided it was best to release it quickly, for free, on the Web.
The song can be viewed by clicking here:
Before You Go. In honor of the World War II veterans, we have made several die cuts to help you with these heritage scrapbooks. Click here to see our WWII supplies:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/worldwarii.html. We will be donating 50% of the revenue from the Scrap Your Trip WWII title cuts to the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars).
The song made me think about my grandparents, most of whose history I don’t know. It makes me sad to think that once these veterans are gone, their memories go with them and if someone hasn’t preserved those memories, then an important piece of history dies along with them. What I wouldn’t give to know what life was like for my grandparents back in those days. It’s one of the reasons one of my first scrapbooks was about 9/11. Once I had children, I became much more aware of how our lives are just one in a long chain…many links before us and many to come after us. So make sure you do something to preserve your own family history…your future grandchildren and great-grandchildren will love to hear about things like your Starbucks addiction, what the heck an iPod was and what life was like after the turn of the century.
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
April 30th, 2008
Happy Adminstrative Professionals Day®! If you work in this field, I hope your boss appreciates you as much as I appreciate my new assistant, Leslie.
She’s only been here a little over a week, but she’s getting things organized already. Administrative people fill such an important role in making sure companies run smoothly and I hope everyone gets the recognition they deserve today.
Sometimes I feel like I sound like a broken record every week when I talk about the “great new products we have this week”, but it’s always true! I am continually amazed at the level of artistic talent that exists in our industry. (I have to admit, I’m also a little jealous because I can barely draw a straight line)! The artists that create products make it so easy to have beautiful scrapbooks.
Our featured collection this week is the “Sea Glass” collection by K&Co. It is a very weathered, natural looking collection with a muted color palette. I just love the album because the front of it is actually wood. We have all the pieces in the collection and we also put together a matching Bazzill pack. We also have a lot of new Jolee’s by You. EK Success really did a great job on these designs. They are back to being the high quality that Jolee’s was in the very beginning. We have several new Paper House papers and die cuts too.
(Broken record again)…The SYT Design Room has done a fantastic job, as usual! This week’s focus was on California, Disney, Band/Choir, and Wedding/Anniversary. They are really branching out with all the Bazzill colors they have to work with and Jill made a beautiful pillow with wedding rings that we will customized with your wedding date. She used the shimmery wedding white stripe and the metallic gold paper and it’s gorgeous! We also worked on a lot of product requests this week. Several of the California die cuts were special requests, along with cuts for girlfriends, autism awareness and Red Hat. If you have a specific request, let us know on the blog. Click here to see all 204 new items:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/42308.html.
We also added Fancy Pants Designs as a pre-order this week. They have six new collections and we have them all. I have really enjoyed all these new lines that we have been featuring as pre-orders. It gives me a chance to see some products that we don’t normally see and these papers are so much fun! They made me happy just to look at them.
They will be available for pre-order until April 30 and we hope to start shipping by May 14th. Click here to see all the new Fancy Pants:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/fancypants.html. Today is also the last day for Blue Awning and Mira from K&Co:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/kacpreorder.html. If there are other companies or lines you would like to see us offer as a pre-order, just let us know on the blog.
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
April 23rd, 2008
Like many of you, as a parent, I try to shelter my kids from a lot that goes on in the world. I know they will have to grow up and learn about it eventually, but while they are 8 and 5, I want to try to protect their innocence as long as I can. Unfortunately, they are about to learn a tough life lesson this week that makes me very sad. We adopted two kittens from the humane society as Christmas presents for them. Today, we are going to have to put Panther to sleep. He has a fatal cat disease called FIP. More than likely Tiger has it too, but we’re not 100% sure yet. They were both sick when we adopted them as 8 week old kittens and we have spent countless hours and LOTS of money getting them healthy. Looking back, I think the “kitty colds” we thought they had when we got them was really the early symptoms of the disease. Most cats that have been in “catteries” are exposed to the virus, but only about 5% get the disease. Statistics were not on our side this time. Logan has never been exposed to death at all and he really doesn’t understand. Both of Lauren’s fish have died, so she understands, but she has gotten so attached to this cat and she is heartbroken. I know they have to learn about life and death, but I was hoping they had a few more years.
On a happier note, my favorite new collection of all time is here! K&Co released a collection at CHA called “Blue Awning” and I think it’s the most beautiful collection I’ve ever seen in the entire time I’ve been scrapbooking. It’s such a classic look and I just love it! We have the entire collection available for pre-order. It has just been released from K&Co and will be shipping to us in about 2 weeks. We also have another collection from K&Co available for pre-order called the “Mira” collection. It’s almost the opposite of the Blue Awning collection – very bright, vibrant colors. I think you’ll like both of them. We matched Bazzill colors to both collections and they are available in individual sheets or by the pack. Click here to see:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/kacpreorder.html.
We also have over 190 new products this week in lots of very specific categories. We’ve added the entire John Deere line from Creative Imaginations, along with a new line of FFA papers and embellishments. They have also created some new Sea World products, along with a 8X8 Instant scrapbook. They have a new Busted! line which is adorable and a line from Marah Johnson called “Intentions”. I just love Marah’s style – it’s very unique. We have a new line of graduation papers, along with SYT designed cuts. As usual, I have to brag on our designers, Tiffany and Jill.
They have designed some great die cuts this week to coordinate with the graduation and Sea World lines and they also focused on Mexico, Las Vegas and pets. They designed a really cute dog house and dog collar tag that we can customize with the name of your pooch. They even designed die cuts for birds, ferrets and iguanas! Click here to see them all:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/41608.html.
I hope you are have a wonderful week! As always, thanks for your business.
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
April 16th, 2008
It’s markdown time! I’m always sad when I decide to discontinue products. “But that’s so cute!” and “But I love that product!” However, there’s no room for the steady stream of new products if we don’t get rid of some of the old. Lots of the items are holiday related – you can get prepared ahead of time.
Click here to see all the items marked down by 25%:
http://www.scrapyourtrip.com/clearance25.html.
On a completely unrelated note, have your heard of Eckhart Tolle? He is the man who wrote “A New Earth” that is Oprah’s current Book Club Selection. It is #1 on the New York Times Best Seller list. If you have an opportunity to watch, he is going to be on her show today and I cannot recommend him highly enough. I am listening to the book on my iPod and I’m about two hours into it (it’s over six hours). You know how sometimes you can read something or listen to someone and they will have one or two profound things to say? Every other sentence he says is like that. I can only listen for 20-30 minutes at a time because it’s so intense it makes by brain hurt. Both my husband Tony & I are listening to him and when we were talking about it over the weekend, I said that I don’t think it’s possible to read the book and not change as a human being. I’m only two hours into it and it’s already made me a better person. His theory is that it’s time for humans to make an evolutionary leap before we all destroy ourselves and the planet. We can do this by losing our egos. I always knew I had a big one, but wow! I never knew it was this big
I’m a confessed self-help junkie, but this book is SO good, I had to bring it up. Hope you have the chance to watch today.
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
April 9th, 2008
Just another wild and crazy week in Scrap Your Trip world! We celebrated our 100,000 order…Rhonda was gone but now she is back…Becca was here and now she is gone…Eric has been out with the flu…One thing we can all say is we are never bored! No hum-ho mundane office life around here. Of course, I guess I shouldn’t expect anything different in an office that is 90% female.
On your Scrap Your Trip wishlist has been a wishlist and…your wish is our command! The programmers are putting the final touches on it and we hope to have it functional in a week or so. You might see it come and go while they are working on it. Not only is it a wishlist, but you will be able to create a login with your name and address so you don’t have to type it everytime. You will also be able to view your order history. I’ll let you know for sure when it’s up & running.
The K&Co preorders have been shipped out and BasicGrey is still on schedule. We’ve gotten great feedback on expanding our product selection with things we wouldn’t normally offer, so we’re going to keep it up. This week we have the Birthday Bash Boy and Girl Collection by Barb Tourtillotte for Creative Imaginations. The papers are glittery and shiny and lots of fun! It will be available for sale until April 9th and we hope to have it all shipped out by the end of April. As with our other pre-orders, we will hold the entire order until it is complete, so if you need your other items quicker, please place two seperate orders. Click here to take a look:
www.scrapyourtrip.com/cipreorder.html
I feel like every week I say what great things the SYT designers, Tiffany and Jill have come up with, but it’s true! It seems like every week they get better and better and this week is no exception. Spring is in the air here in Florida and it’s inspired us. The spring diecuts are brightly colored and flowery and they make me happy just looking at them! We also focused on Germany and Hawaii this week, along with a customizable road trip plaque. We have a graduation collection and the Tropical Elements collection from Reminisce (we’re working on SYT graduation diecuts – we should have them week after next). We also have a new Day at the Zoo collection from Carol Wilson. Karen Foster has a new dance collection and we have the tuxedo paper back along with it. Karen Foster also has over 30 new license plate designs. Click here to see all the new goodies:
www.scrapyourtrip.com/40208.html.
I hope no one got you for April Fool’s yesterday and I hope you have a great weekend. Grandma is taking the kids and I’m going shopping. I won’t even know what to do without chasing the kids out from underneath the clothes racks and keeping them from crawling underneath the dressing room door
As always, thanks for your business!
Julie Swatek, President
Scrap Your Trip®
www.ScrapYourTrip.com
http://blog.scrapyourtrip.com
‘cuz life is a trip worth scrappin’®
April 2nd, 2008
