June Kits. . .

Still not sure when these will be up. It could be a little later tonight (its 1:30am my time), but it will be soon! I will try to post an exact time, but I have a feeling they will just be there when I wake up myself! We have more kits this month (again) so I don't expect to sell out the first day again. We shall see! More tomorrow. . .

Sneak Peak. . .

Things have been so crazy that I haven't had a chance to do any sneak peaks for June!! With the holiday, all of the website behind-the-scenes stuff I've been working on and a birthday party for my big man (just cleaned up the house after 17 children) time has slipped away. So, just for fun, here are a couple of hints:

The title was made using the stamp below. I'm so excited about this!!! Stampotique Originals (high quality rubber stamps by the way) made this stamp for me. It is only currently available in this kit. Your friends will be envious! Ha! It is double sided (one side for "Name" and one side for "Date"). I have been wanting something like this - you know, something you can use over and over again (and therefore worth the investment) but could never find exactly what I wanted. So I made it myself (and added the star, because afterall, it is my stamp)! You are getting more of these little crystal stars this month that fit perfectly into the star image. I couldn't get enough of them in April. You are also getting these great circle stickers.

And, because I love to include the exclusive chipboard shapes, I had these great swirls made for June:

We are still working on some final testing etc. on the site and just to make sure we can meet the deadline, I am not going to have the new product available until the morning of the 1st (instead of midnight). I will post an exact time tomorrow once I get a clearer picture of where we are.

For now I need to get back to sweeping up chocolate cake from my kitchen floor!

Changes in store. . .

Hope everyone is having a great holiday weekend! We are in Greenville right now visiting Jared's parents awaiting a surprise birthday party for Uncle Jim tomorrow. It was such a beautiful day today - we went up to Bay Mountain park with the kids and had a fabulous time (and took some fun pictures of course)!

I wanted to finally let you know about some of the changes coming to the site. You will not visually notice alot right off the bat as most of the changes have to do with the navigation and checkout. Here are a few highlights that may be of interest:

My Account - You will notice this option at the bottom of the home page (and any page you click on). You will be able to log in to your account and see what memberships you have existing, your billing history, make changes to your billing information or shipping information, see when your membership ends, etc. I believe this will help with the accidental duplicate memberships we experience each month (some of you like the kits so you much, you buy a membership each month! ha!) There will also be an option here for you to sign up for a membership indefinitely!! All you have to do is check the box and you will have a membership billed each month until you come in and uncheck the box (at which point you will just finish out that 3 month cycle). I'm really excited about this section! We will be sending out e-mails to all current members in the next few days (I'm not sure if it will actually be by the 1st unfortunately) with your user name (your e-mail address) and an assigned password. The e-mail will include a link that will take you to your account, at which point you will be able to change this password immediately to whatever you like.

Project Kit Subscription and Add-On - By popular demand, we are going to offer the Project Kit on Subscription as well. This kit will vary in price between $16 and $20 each month. There will not be a price break however for this option. It just gives you the option to know this will be billed and sent automatically each month without you having to go to the site and do anything. If you would like to add the Project Kit on a monthly basis (not on subscription) to be shipped with your Papercrafting Kit subscription, you will still have to purchase it through the site and check out. If you do it by the 7th of the month, you will be able to enjoy the reduced shipping. It is a little different from before in that the cart will charge for full shipping with your Project kit at checkout, but it will reduce the shipping when your Papercrafting Kit is billed.

Duplicate Memberships - I talked about this a little above, but if you try to purchase a membership and you already have one, the cart will know this and will ask if you are sure you want to purchase another! This will really help out on some of the confusion here.

Anyhow, these are just some of the highlights I wanted to share as we get closer to the 1st. I will keep you posted on other things you may need to know as we get through the first few days. I know there will be glitches as it is a new process, but the in the end, I know we will be left with a site like none other of it's kind! I'm excited to get the changes underway!

Have a good night!

Membership Renewal

I have a meeting tomorrow about some of the changes that will be taking place at the site next week, and will post about those once I have a clearer idea of how everything will work. But in the meantime, if your membership was up with the May kit, my webteam will be sending out an e-mail to you simply asking if you would like to renew or not (I believe it will have a simple link attached). These will be sent out individually, so that should solve some of the junk folder problems we were having (in fact, all of our e-mails will go out this way in the future). If you believe your membership is up and would like to renew, but do not receive an e-mail by Tuesday night, please send me a note and I will get you taken care of.

I will post again tomorrow!

So do I look relaxed?

We are back from a quick 4 days in Destin. It was short but so very nice! Beautiful blue skies everyday and 80+ degrees. The water was still a little chilly for me, but the boys didn't seem to mind. We all definitely got hot enough for a shaved ice on the beach. . .

Still trying to catch up and get geared up for June 1st. I have alot to share this week and hope to blog everyday, but realistically I know that probably won't happen! I will try to at least do something short each day with a couple of June teasers. I will also be sharing some information about some changes coming to the site (good ones) for June, including how to re-up your subscription if it was up in May.

Cool Breezes and Palm Trees. . .

are calling my name! I will post when I get back and share a few photos. In the meantime, if you e-mail or order between now and Sunday, I will be unable to answer until Monday, May 21. All orders will go out that day as well. Orders received through 12:00 noon today have already left the building!

If you do not receive a kit by Friday (Domestic) and believe that you should have, please send me a note and I will check on it when I get back on Monday.

Also, if your membership expired with this month's kit, we will be sending an e-mail to you about renewal in the next 10 days.

Have a great weekend!

My Secret

So there is a new, cool scrapbooking show that is coming out (I am going to be bold and say that it will no doubt make it on the air)! I was the guest for the pilot episode and filmed with Jeanette Herdman, the beautiful hostess, last week at my most favorite antique store in downtown Franklin, TN (this is really my bigger secret)! Can you see the coral, old windows and ironstone in the background? The store is owned by (and named) Scarlett Scales. Here is a link to her website http://www.scarlettscales.com/index.htm. I love this place so much. Jeanette's premise for this show was Inspiration and I can't imagine a better place for it! I had so much fun, although Jeanette had her teeth whitened and her nails done (see how I have a fist?? Yep, I got the pedicure, but didn't seem to think about my hands!) - so unfair. She even has some performing under her belt and a couple of acting classes. See my pasted smile? Anyway, I muddled through and hopefully they edited out the twenty "um's" I said. Here is a link to Jeanette's blog where you can find out more. . . www.jeanetteherdman.typepad.com

And in the Scarlett Scale's bag in my husband's car? An ironstone tureen and bone dish to add to my collection. He is a good man!

***Forgot to coment on the "sister" thing. Jeanette said her son was with her at Scrap It awhile back and pointed to a layout that had a photo of me on it and said "Mommy, there you are"! Other than the fact that I have at least 10 pounds on her, we have very similar looks!***

May Gallery is up!!!

Check it out: http://www.jennibowlin.com/content.aspx?type=marchgalleryfront

So sorry for the delay. April is back up too (but now March and Feb. images are missing)

I guess you can't have it all! We will fix this soon.

Have a great weekend!!

P.S. - I found a bag from my favorite antique store in the front seat of my husband's car. Wonder who that's for??? I will let you know how he did!

Hanging on by a thread

Do you remember this? This was my beautiful new welcome sign that I purchased about the time we launched the site. I called my husband at work this morning (after having a major breakdown yesterday) and told him that my sign was a metaphor for my "web" life.

Here is the story. About two month's ago Jared walked past it and ripped the "e" almost off (bull in a china shop- that's him). I tried to fix it by adding a popsicle stick to the back with glue dots for support. This lasted about another month until it worked its way completely off. Then, a few days ago, Christian pulled the center of the ribbon off of the hook and brought it down to where it is hanging now. This is about how I have felt the last few days. (I'm making it sound worse than it is - we actually got a good laugh out of it).

I can see the light at the end of the tunnel. We are working on the new site and have so many changes in store that will make my life and yours easier. This was supposed to have been done for this month, but it didn't make it. Instead, our new webteam (and Jared and I) have had the challenge of fixing the mess that our former webguy left us in the database. The truth of the matter is that we managed to bill and ship 90% of our customer base correctly, on time, and with no further issue. But I don't like having a 10% (and those of you who are a part of it woud rather not be in it either!) I'm learning to cope with this better each day - mostly because it is impossible for me to be responsible for every detail.

Case in point - the Inspiration Gallery. I knew it would be delayed slightly, but was told it would be up tonight. It still is not up though. I am going to investigate this tomorrow and will post most images here directly if it is still not going to be up. I will let you know. . .

I also have to let you in on a fun "secret" I did last week - I just got the picture yesterday so now I'm ready to post about it ( I will do it this weekend - you know how I like to tell you I "know" something and then leave you hanging)!

May Gallery

Just a quick note to let you know that the gallery will not be up tonight as I had hoped. I will keep you posted on it though. It could take a day or two, but I promise we will get it up about the time you start to get your kits!!

Another Gallery Sneak Peak

So we are headed to the beach next week for a long weekend. I HAVE to get away for a few days. So much so, I decided to pull the oldest out of school. Things have been so crazy, website issues still springing up daily - I swear I can hear the sound of the ocean already! I have been listening to a Kenny Chesney CD all weekend (I don't really listen to country music either), but this one is all about island life. It just puts me in my happy place!

I'm not sure what happened to the Monthly Inspiration Gallery, but all of the month's will be back up and archived soon (as well as the new May gallery). There is a chance that the new May gallery will be delayed a day, but I will post here if it is.

Everyone signed up on the waiting list to start a membership with the June kit will actually get a May kit. We will e-mail you about this soon. We had so many people in the database more than once that we ended up having more kits available than we thought. We will have this ironed out in the next couple of days.

So, in the meantime, here is a preview of the highlighted technique this month. You will LOVE this foam stamp! It is mounted on a clear background and makes it easier to do so many cool techniques!

Project Kit Add-On

We got most things worked out today (I believe!), but there are few people that we have on the May pre-sign up list whose e-mail is not being recognized in the system to get your reduced shipping for the Project kit. It has something to do with the coding - it doesn't mean that you are not in there. So, lets just do this. If you would like to add on the Project kit to ship with your membership and the cart doesn't recognize your e-mail, go ahead and check out and pay full shipping. Shoot me an e-mail (jbowlin7@comcast.net) after you do this and I will refund you for the difference in what you paid and the flat rate.

The contact link is still not working. My webguy is working with the hosting company on it.

I have a few more e-mails to get to, but it probably will not be until late tonight, but I will respond!

Have I mentioned how much I hate the computer (I suppose it's a love/hate relationship)! Ugggh!

And Jenn in MA . . . I am soooooo going to Brimfield soon! The owner of my favorite local antique store is going next week. I can't wait to hit the store when she gets back! I bought a HUGE window from her yesterday that was from an old Catholic girls school that she had mirrors added to. It was my birthday present to myself!

Website Issues

It seems that the storms caused a delay for my webteam. The kits finally went up for sale around 1:30a.m. So sorry for those of you who stayed up and then gave up! We still have both kits available this morning for any of you that went to bed!

For the most post things are processing normally, but here are a few items that I know about and have alerted my team to. I expect all of these things to be fixed by this evening:

1.- the May descriptions are not there (it is still showing the April descriptions). I have alerted the team about this.

2.- for the membership add-on for the Project kit - it is not recognizing some of the people who did the pre-sign up for May (even though you are on this list, so no worries!). They are working on this and it should be fixed by tonight. We have plenty of the Project kits left, so if you could check back tonight that would be great!

3.- the contact link at the site is not working. If you have an issue that doesn't pertain to #'s 1 and 2, please just send me a note to jbowlin7@comcast.net.

I will keep posting throughout the day as we get some of these things resolved. Thanks so much for everyone's patience!

May Kit night!

Keeping this short as we are in for some awful storms tonight and I need to shut the computer down!

May kits will go on sale tonight at 12:00a.m. (central time). I suppose the storms could cause trouble for my webteam, but I don't expect that to happen. I was hoping we would be able to implement some of the changes to the site by this time, but it looks like these won't happen until next month. I will keep you posted. In the meantime, all is the same (unfortunately, if you are a member and would like to add on a Project Kit, you will have to do it the same as last month. Look for the box under the cart at checkout where you can add your cart contents to your membership shipping for a flat rate shipping fee).

I will post here again if we experience any problems!

Gallery Preview

So here is a little preview of the May gallery (actually, a preview of the May Papercrafting Kit itself). I loved using this flower foam stamp from Teresa Collins. It gives the cleanest impression and it is mounted on a clear plastic panel so it is easy to use. Teresa also designed some ADORABLE polka dot bookplates especially for this month's kit!! I used a tiny one here. These will be available through Junkitz in a few months, but for now, they are all mine! (and yours) Ha! I enjoyed using the gameboard alphabets from Making Memories in the past and wanted to find a place for them one month. They are super thin chipboard and have a shabby look to them. I sanded mine here to rough them up even more! I plan to add some hidden journaling here (behind the photo). Still looks like it needs something???

And speaking of Teresa. . . she is our guest designer this month!

And, here are a few photos of my new nephew. Isn't he a doll!

Don't forget that tomorrow night at 12:00a.m., the new kits will be available for sale. I'm so sorry for the delay in this. As you can imagine, it drives me crazy because I can't control all of the variables. Maybe its just a good lesson about life in general? Have a great night!