Guess who's coming to Windy City Scrapbooking...

MELODEE LANGWORTHY!!!!

Can you tell I am a little bit excited! I have wanted to take a class with her FOREVER! And guess what-I know who this scrapbooking celebrity is!!! :) Yep,this is how I got myself into trouble with the whole Ali Edwards situation(Hi Ali :)! She is an amazing instructor and she is such a talented person. I can't just say a scrapbooker because her projects can work for just about anyone. Her classes are fun and she is so stinking sweet! She is going to be teaching THREE different classes at Windy City Scrapbooking March 15th and March 16th, 2008! Two classes on Saturday and Two classes on Sunday. And the really, really, really good news--she is debuting a brand new class here at Windy City Scrapbooking. Be one of the first to take her new class that is not even available online yet.

If you are coming in that weekend for CKU you might want to come and take a class from Melodee as well! Call the store and we can get you registered this weekend!

If you want to check out a little bit more about Melodee her is the link to her blog! http://melodeelangworthy.typepad.com/

And I will post pictures this weekend of the classes she is going to be teaching!

I hope to see you the weekend of March 15th and 16th! And don't forget Friday February 29th is our LEAP YEAR sale! Everything in the store is 29% off with a few exclusions--check the website for all the details!

Have a wonderful Friday and a terrific weekend!
Susan

Scrapping On Sundays...

Oh my...it is time
Who opened the flood gates...I just want to say...let them stay open
So new product has started to come in from Christina and Susan's CHA orders from a couple of weeks ago
Scrappers...look out now
This is what is new to Windy City Scrapbooking this week...

Prima "Say It In Crystals" swirls and frames in a variety of colors and "Paintables Paper" in a variety of styles

Theresa Collins NEW LINE...for those of you remember Theresa, she came to Windy City Scrapbooking a few years ago when she was a designer for JUNKITZ and now...she has went out on her own and started her own line of scrapbooking products and guess what...It is at Windy City Scrapbooking

ClearScraps has come into the store with some clear acrylic albums in various shapes such as scalloped and crown shaped (perfect for that Princess in your life)

I have even spotted a few boxes from American Crafts with new product in it.
What else is going on @ Windy City Scrapbooking...

Well this week...Jen is teaching Basics and Tools of the Trade, Michealene is teaching her Birthday Rolodex and we have a few Happy Hours scheduled this week.
We are also having our Friday night crop this Friday and there are a few seats left where you can just call and have us reserve your spot over the phone
I have saved the best for last...
With this being LEAP YEAR...Windy City Scrapbooking is having a

LEAP YEAR SALE...
February 29th, 2008!!!
Leap Year!
We have an extra day in February!
And we are going to do something BIG about it!
On Friday, February 29th, 2008 only -- receive a 29% discount on EVERYTHING* you purchase that is not already on sale!
*Cannot be combined with any other discount or coupon. Leap Year discount cannot be applied towards Silhouette, Limited Edition, or Exclusive QuicKutz dies. Other restrictions apply. Offer valid one day only!

So, on that note...I want to share with you a few photos that I took with Susan's camera (since mine is broken) of what is new in the store...Run...do not Walk to Windy City Scrapbooking

Enjoy Scrappers

PRIMA SAY IT IN CRYSTALS

PRIMA PAINTABLES PAPERS

THERESA COLLINS NEW LINE

TTFN

Alraynita

http://www.inspiring2be.blogspot.com/

Have a Heart..

Happy Friday to everyone!

I wanted to let you know a few things that we have going on in store this weekend. Crop for the Heart is this Saturday, February 23rd, 2008 for 11 hours of Cropping time and help out a worthy cause! $10 of every cropper's fee goes to the American Heart Association as well as 10% of our sales for the day! This is so simple to help out such a worthy cause!

As well we are doing something really exciting! We have hearts placed throughout the store on the ground and on the 15th and the 45th of the hour we will be pulling a prize and a number -- if you happen to be standing on the number we call, you win that prize! Come join the fun! I mean how cool is that! You just have to find a heart stand on it and you COULD be a winner! I can't wait to start calling out those numbers! (from 10:15 am until 5:45 pm!)

Also don't forget the really cool Happy Hour on Saturday from 1:00 -2:00 pm! This is a picture of the Happy Hour and it only cost $6.00! I am telling you this is a bargain!

Stay tuned for more pictures from CHA and to see more pictures of items we are getting in at Windy City Scrapbooking!

Happy Weekend and I hope to see you this weekend!
-Susan

Quickutz! We all want it now!

Hello everyone!

I hope this cold weather does not have you down in the dumps! If so come on in to Windy City Scrapbooking and get the new releases from Quickutz!! Did you know if you pre order your platform now you can get the heart die to go with it for FREE! No, that is not a typo-just preorder your platform and you will also get the border heart die for free! I am so excited about the new platform to come for the revolution to come I can hardly wait for Mid March to get here! I guess the new dies that were just released will just have to do! I know I am getting the baseball and the magetic wand for sure...and I think I am going to get Rockstar as well just because I love the name!

Speaking of Rockstars… I have another story to tell you about from CHA! Let's see how much we can embarrass Susan this trip (that would be me talking about myself in third person :) Our rep from Quickutz, Spencer, took Christina and me out to dinner last Monday night with some other stores from around the country as well. We of course were having a good time and did not cause too much trouble (I know define trouble to me and then I will tell the truth.) Well Christina told the guys it was my birthday and they decided to sing to me. The men of Quickutz serenaded me with the Happy Birthday song and I don't think I stop blushing for two hours afterwards.( I felt like I was in college again being serenaded from my husband's fraternity and that was a long time ago!) This had to be the best birthday present in a long time(in fact, my husband said "Does that mean I don't have to get you a present now? wink, wink?) .Thanks Christina for opening your big mouth!! LOL! And if you haven't heard I have a slight crush on a certain someone at Quickutz! And let me tell you-all your dreams can come true at Disneyland!!!! :) I thought I would share a few pictures from the evening and tell you to stay posted because the rockstar men of Quickutz will be visiting Windy City Scrapbooking this summer and I have a few tricks up my sleeves before then!





TTFN!Susan(Don’t laugh too much at how silly I look!)

SCRAPPIN' ON SUNDAYS...

Hello everyone,

I hope you had a great weekend and looking forward to a great week. I had a great week until yesterday.
I BROKE MY CAMERA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I am not in the market to purchase a new one so I am going to try to call Olympus to see if they can repair it by using my warranty...I will keep you posted.
With that being said, I could not take photos of the new items that are starting to come into the store that I had the pleasure of putting out today...guess you are going to have to come in (devilish grin)
So this week, we have a few things going on at the store:

Monday, February 18th is President's Day
We are having a teacher's discount day..a ll teachers and school staff with ID get 18% off all regularly priced merchandise! You MUST present your ID (something that shows that you are a teacher this school year --even a current lesson plan book works as ID!)

Tuesday, February 19th is Double Points Day
On Double points days you earn 2 points for every pre-tax dollar you spend on merchandise. This will bring you closer to earning points for our customer loyalty program

For classes this week...Angela will be teaching her Calendar and Altered Envelope class this week, Michaelene will be doing her Baby Journal Album class, and Melissa will be doing her Monogram class next Sunday. I will be teaching a Basics class this week and we have a couple of Happy Hours scheduled so stop by if you can and join in on the fun. Alot of people always ask how do get our ideas for our pages and such and I always say...Take Classes...you will spark more of your creativity and come up with great ideas for gift giving and also your scrapbook pages and projects.

Saturday, February 23rd we are having our All Day Crop For The Heart Crop which is 10am-11pm. A portion of your crop fee along with a percentage of purchases made on that day will go to the American Heart Association and I do believe there are a few seats available so just give us a call to register for the crop or any of our classes.

Okay...so on to our Valentine's Day Giveaway...our first one of the year
So I asked you, our Blog readers to post what you did for Valentine's day and it seems as though love was definetly in the air.
So I took the names of the people who posted (yes...even some employees took part of the action) and I placed them in a red tumbler and let my hubby draw the name of the winner.
And the winner of our VALENTINE'S DAY GIVEAWAY is PATTY!!!!

Patty...please email me your mailing address or you may come into the store anytime after this Wednesday, February 20th to pick up your prize pack

Thank you so much for playing and look out for more contests hosted by me this year

This is your SOS for this week
TTFN
Alraynita
http://www.inspiring2be.blogspot.com/

Valentine's Day Giveaway...

Now that I have your attention, do not forget to post what you did for Valentine's Day so that you may be entered into a drawing for some neat scrapbooking items...it may be something that you can use for your Valentine's Day layout or it maybe something that Christina and Susan brouht back from CHA
Do not forget to post your Valentine's Day outing or event so that you may be considered....
I will even extend the deadline to Sunday by 5pm...for I will post SOS on Sunday along with the winner from our 1st drawing of the New Year

TTFN
Alraynita
http://www.inspiring2be.blogspot.com

Do you know who this is?

I am sure most you do! But low and behold I had no idea! Now before you start giving me a hard time let me tell you how the story begins...Christina and me we at a private party for Creative Imaginations on Saturday evening and we were hanging out with our friends Danelle Johnson, Melodee Langworthy and Alison Wong having dinner. The next thing I know a few more ladies join us at the table but I am really not paying attention because we were looking through the catalog trying to order NEW things for the store. Well the next thing you know Danelle comes up and asks me if Ali left? I thought she was talking about Alison Wong from Creative Cafe--oh no it was not that simple. Ali comes back with her plate and Danelle says I thought you said Ali left and I said I don't know where she went and then Danelle said "I mean this Ali-do you know who she is Susan?" Like a fool I said no-well for goodness sakes it was ALI EDWARS! The WHOLE table is laughing, Danelle is laughing so hard and I was as red as a tomato! Ali Edwards loved it--she said it was so nice to sit down and just relax. There is more to this story but I think you had to be there. But as I am trying to back pedal and say yeah I know who she is (I mean I have read a book or two! :), but I never really looked at her face. Basically I made the biggest fool out of myself and I just keep laughing (as did Christina!!!). Ali was so nice and she really did not care at all, it was VERY refreshing to hear that from her. So of course I had to call Alraynita and tell her my story and she told me I was fired from Windy City Scrapbooking...again in my defense I may not be up on all that but I was trying to order more goodies for the store! I think Al will forgive me when I show her a few more pictures.


Hopefully someday when I meet Ali again she will just laugh if she remembers me-I know she had to be the sweetest person I meet all show!


To make matters worse who is the first person I see the next morning at Basicgrey-yep, you guessed it! Ali Edwards! So of course the joker I am said"Hey who are you again?" and thankfully she just laughed and gave me a hug. I think my face was still red from the day before! So that was the first time I made a fool of myself but of course it was not the last time! I don't know what it was about this show that my head was not on straight. As I post more pictures remember my job while I am there is to help order product(I feel like I am being defensive :) but sometimes to have a good time you just have to Simplify(meaning not worrying what other people are thinking) and go with it!




Here are a few more pictures from that evening at Creative Imaginations! The new Creative Cafe stuff is awesome! I really hope you all come in to a Happy Hour and check them out! They are pretty simple to do and you have a project already done! We do have kits available to buy if you can't stick around for the actual Happy Hour but they are so much fun you will want to!

Have a great day! Happy Birthday to me(the 15th) and later today I will share more photos and more stories!

-Susan

Happy Valentine's Day!! And more from CHA!

Hello everyone! It is so nice to be back home in Chicago (yes cold weather and all, but I missed my family!). And boy oh boy are the boxes going to be rolling in pretty soon! Our UPS man Mr. Harold is not going to be very happy with us with all of our boxes!

I wanted to say Happy Valentine's Day to all of you! Don't forget we have our lollipop tree on Valentines Day which is either a prize pack or a discount between 10 and 50% off! Come have a treat on us!

Christina and I did make it home safely and all in once piece! I have lots of pictures to share with you so I will be doing that as well! Plus we have a contest we are going to need LOTS of people to vote on so be watching the blog for that. As Christina said earlier I do have some funny pictures to show you as well-pretty much me making a fool out of myself! Nothing new right?! :)

I have to share a few photos from a new company we will be carrying here at Windy City Scrapbooking-Clear Scraps! They have awesome acrylic albums in a variety of shapes and sizes. Be watching for Alraynita to be using some of these in her upcoming classes (I know she is going to be doing a birthday album soon!). The pictures at the top of this are from Clear Scraps.

Also one of my FAVORITE booths to go to is Technique Tuesday. They have the most AMAZING samples. Each and every time I go to their booth I want to take a picture of every single sample they have! I mean it! So you will see several photos from Technique Tuesday. Don't forget we have a promotion with them that if you buy $50 worth of Technique Tuesday you can choose a collector set for free. If you don't know about this program or who this company is-just ask!

I am going to post more tomorrow to keep you hanging on but we do have some funny stories to tell!

Until next time-Susan

Back in Chicago -- WAY over budget

So, I wanted to be able to post on the blog each day from CHA, but it didn't quite happen that way. We had a free but SLOW internet connection in our hotel room, so posting and downloading photos was a challenge. Now I will try & inundate you with lots of great stuff we ordered for Windy City! Of course, I tried to stick to my husband-created budget, but I went "a bit" over that {you know how that goes with SB supplies} so the store will SOON be stocked again with TONS of great stuff like patterned transparent sheets, new Basicgrey, new birthday items, new specialty papers, new QuicKutz, etc. However, I am SOOOOOO tired today since the pane was delayed and I didn't get home until after midnight and was still too pumped up to sleep! So, I have not organized myself enough to create a list for you of all that is coming, but I can post a few more photos. These are photos from the beginning of the trip. Susan has the rest on her camera, and I never had the chance to download them onto my computer so she PROMISES to download them to the blog soon. until she does, I will post what I can, and I will also try and find a funny or slightly embarrassing photo of Susan to post on the site until she starts posting photos for you! (We had a REALLY good time out there as you will see!) Hope you enjoy & thanks for reading our blog! -- Christina

Scrappin On Sundays...SOS

Well...

I see that Christina and Susan took a little time out from placing orders at CHA in Anaheim to post on the blog...I am so glad that they are there and can not wait for them to get back to tell us about all of the great new things that are coming in to Windy City Scrapbooking (and to share the bitter cold with us)

With that being said...The WCS staff decided to have a little fun while Christina and Susan are gone...

Yes...we are having a SALE!!!
In the spirit of CHA...with Christina and Susan being away...we are going to play!!!
So to help us make even more room for new merchandise coming in soon, we are having a SALE. You will receive 15% OFF all regularly priced merchandise. There are some exclusions, like on previously purchased merchandise, Quickutz Limited Edition, Quickutz Revolution, QuicKutz Silhouette and it must be on items that are in stock (no special orders) and there is also an online store coupon for Basic Grey...make sure to check the website for information on that special...I hear it is a good one

I just wanted to share a couple of photos to support what was posted early about the store looking alittle empty...I hope Susan and Christina are running out of ink as they write orders...we are making the room for, so please make sure to join us to help out...the sale ends this Tuesday, February 12th at 9pm.






















There are other cool things happening at Windy City Scrapbooking this week...
1st...We have a lot of Happy Hours scheduled this week at our Creative Cafe Art Bar and they are really cute projects, such as a scrapbook page, a card and even a trifold card... just in time for Valentine's Day...you can keep it for yourself or give it as a gift.
2nd...We have some great classes this week too. There is the CARD CLUB with Grace and she has some great cards for this month (remember with this class, there are different cards made each month and Grace is so creative with her cards). There is the Birthday Rolodex with Michaelene, which is a really cute way to keep up with birthdays and a great way to use your scraps. There is a Paper Dolls class which is great Mommy and Me class and there is a Stitchery class where you can learn how to create stitches on your pages and both classes are taught by Angie. Finally, there are our Basic classes, which are FREE...Sesil is teaching one this week and next Sunday, the 17th, I am teaching both Basics and Beyond the Basics classes, where you can not only learn the fundamentals but also take it a step beyond with more techniques and tips.
3rd...We are having a Quickutz club meeting on Wednesday...February 13th and I am sure there will some great things to share and discuss and if you are interested in joining the Quickutz club, it is never too late...you may either call us at the store or check the website for more details about the Quickutz QTs
Keep in mind that we will be closing early on Valentine's Day...5pm to be exact
Does anyone have any special plans for Valentine's Day? Please feel free to share, and post on the blog what you are doing on the LOVE DAY or what you did. I will be doing a drawing for some blog candy so make sure to post so you may be entered into the drawing. You have until February 16th, midnight to post your response.
Speaking of Valentine's Day...I love what Melissa did with the window for this month and here is Sesil sending me her heart as I came to work this past Friday...I worked the CROP this past Friday with Cheryl (one of our newest employees) and we had a great time with the croppers...we had a full crop too. Make sure to call in and register for your spot for the last two crops for this month...on Saturday, February 23rd, we are having an ALL DAY CROP FOR THE HEART CROP (10am-11pm) and we are having a LEAP DAY CROP on Friday, February 29th (5:30pm-11:30pm)
Our Creation Table is still keeping with the Valentine's Day theme as I did change it to some of the new My Mind's Eye Papers called Adore and this week's Design Team creations featured on our Creation Table are courtesy of Angie...make sure to stop by and see our table in person and get inspired to create.
Well...this is your SOS for this Sunday, February 10th...
Stay warm
TTFN
Alraynita
http://www.inspiring2be.blogspot.com/

New stuff! New Stuff! New Stuff!

It's been awhile since we last posted, and we PROMISE to not let that happen! For those of you who have seen the store recently, it is looking a little (and I stress "a little") "empty", but now all that is changing! Inventory is over (for the most part) and the manufacturers are beginning to ship NEW products to us. As I write this, Susan and I are in Anaheim on our yearly buying trip to CHA (our industry's winter trade show) and by, are we buying some great stuff. We are going to try and post a bunch of photos so, please bear with us as you receive a lot of feeds this week. If you see anything you like, let us know and we'll give you a call when it comes in! :)

Have a great day!
Christina


Here are some photos -- look on with envy, but realize that you will soon be able to find all of these goodies at Windy City Scrapbooking!

Crown clear album (should be here real soon!)
New glitter glue from Hampton Art for Creative Cafe (April)



And perhaps Christina's favorite find -- from 7gypsies, the revolving clear stamp holder! :) Gotta love the organizational stuff!