Wednesday, March 29, 2006

pottery barn...


i will admit i LOVE looking at pottery barn catalogs. at times it is for inspiration - colors, styles, etc and at other times it is to say "who lives in this house?" i have scanned a page of the latest catalog to share with you all. first of all i LOVE LOVE LOVE the way the things are arranged in this room but what really cracks me up

are the things listed on the bulletin boards and on to-do lists. in case you can't see the one on the blackboards, here is what some of the "to-do" things say:

  1. surf camp july 2-11
  2. clam dinner at murphy's
  3. comfirm flight
  4. sunset picnic with so-and-so

so where are the lists for:

  1. do laundry
  2. pay the bills that are late!
  3. pick up after the kiddos

why is it seem like the PB life is just full of country club dining, golf lessons and windsail cruises?but i guess that is the "life" they are trying to sell - none the less it works doesn't it b/c i am reading it. but i also like to sneak looks at what DVDs they have on the DVD racks they ar selling and what books they have on their book shelves and i will say the books they show do not match the same lifestyle as the DVDs on the racks - so the next time you get a PB catalog - check it out!

Monday, March 27, 2006

sweet things in life

...The Good Lord was looking out for me (and Deb) when i was led into this Maya Road opportunity - i am often reminded of my blessings and loves in life. One small thing we got this weekend for the office was the SWEETEST heavy duty paper shredder EVER. We had fooled around with the 6 sheet or 8 sheet shredders and after 2 years had burned through 3 of them. Well NO MORE! We got ourselves a heavy duty 18 sheet mega monster truck shredder! Yahoo!
The 3 weeks of shredding that i hadn't had a chance to get caught up on was complete in 15 mins. Wowizers.

And my DH knew before we started this biz - my love of paper supplies (b/c you should see the kawaii japanese stationery i collect BEFORE this whole SBing hobby began!) - he now is starting at more paper than he ever imagined and the only way i could describe this to him is a feeling of bliss when i have all these papers in my hands and nearby.

A paper shredder and paper - what more can a gal ask for? I am truly blessed.

Saturday, March 25, 2006

well lookie here...

... i am not the old person in the family anymore. my DH is 31 today! haha! i just finished up this card for him. sweetie, have a great day. i love you (and i KNOW you stalk my blog).

Thursday, March 23, 2006

...it is nice...


to be creating again! this is a class i am working on and i will be for my baby boy when he arrives!

Tuesday, March 21, 2006

showing some skin...

my DH can't stand when i let my baby belly gut hang out but as you can see from this picture, i totally have no problems with it as i am comfortable in my own skin:



deb and i took this picture last thursday on her 3 hour layover to italy (lucky dog). and i guess she probably may not know that she won HM in the HOF contest... she has been having problems with her email. i have tried her alternative emails but don't know how good her connection is in italy. heck, she is in italy while i am slaving away here, she can find out when she gets back (LOL!)

but seriously, she is one serious scrapbooker and her win is much deserved. our styles are totally different. hers is very precise, worded eloquently, titles are hand cut and minimal embellishments with large clear photos and mine are well, sorta the opposite. i slap whatever i see on my table on my page and if the photo is blurry, so be it. but that is the awesome thing about this hobby is that you can do it any way you want too and it is still cool! but in things like knitting, you really can't do that i think.

so to deb, congrats but look out - you might have competition next year if i decide to enter (wink wink).

Sunday, March 19, 2006

it's all about technique...

...so riddle me this, what do this project....



























... and this project have in common?



















well besides being on canvas, i dabbled with something known as acrylic texture paint on both of them. someone had asked me what kind of techniques / hints could i suggest for using this kewl stuff so i decided to put together a short "how to" technique thing on my blog today.

the acrylic texture paint i use come in a whole slew of colors from cream to rich red to black. i have 3 tubes of it that i bought in colors i use (hint, the sand color one is very easy to turn into a different color by mixing with acrylic paints!). the pricing on the tubes are about $5 - $6 a tube (but as you can see from the pic, i snagged one for $3!) . i am also have 2 things i use for spreading - a popcicle stick, an art "spatula" and in many cases i just use a finger.





today, i am going to show you what you can do with this on a transparency! the reason i like doing this on a transparency is that this way you won't ruin a canvas project if you are scared to try this technique if you try it on a transparency. but if you like what you did on the transparency, you can so easily TACK it to your canvas or cut it out to make an embellishmnent.

so take a transparency and squirt a tablespoon of the well kneaded texture paint on it like so:



then all you do is go crazy with the spatula and spread the gooey stuff around! don't be afraid to experiment. mix some of the colors together and see what happens - it is like when you are a kid and you start mixing play dough together although at some point, you end up with this ashen grey play dough but hey don't be afraid!



you can even add a little acrylic paint for more color! but start spreading the acrylic texture paint around. make it look like spackling. smooth it out.



some things i have tried include stamping in it. for this, i would suggest a stamp with a large image (so nothing really detailed) but foam stamps work well. you can see how i have stamped in the texture medium in my first two pictures. one hint is to let the acrylic texture paint get some "body" before stamping (or you will get a big mess). to let it get some body, let the texture medium dry a bit - say 20-30 mins. then try your stamping. your images will be much crisper and hold better!

for this project though, i decided to add some clear micro beads to the texture:


then i allowed it to dry...

afterwards, i didn't know what project i wanted to create with it but the color and texture reminded me of a city so i decided to make an accordion album of my home town NYC - so with my transparency, i cut it into the size i needed, then on the cardstock background, i wrote on it with a white sharpie so it would show through the transparency and peek out from some of the the texture paint to give me this result:





as you can also see, i just directly applied some of the texture paint to the cardstock corners and edges and allowed them to dry to keep with that "concrete" feel.



that's it! creating is all about trying new stuff and expanding your horizons.

LMK if you have any comments or questions about this technique!

Tuesday, March 14, 2006

a beautiful day...


... as you can see it is a beautiful day here in Texas! the sun is shining, birds are chirping, weeds are growing. too bad i was indoors for most of the day working (insert sad face). hopefully tomorrow i will be able to go out and get some sunshing and a run in...

i am happy to report that we can almost see the end in sight of our CHA orders - HEAVY emphasis on the ALMOST. our new warehouse is working out fabulously and we are getting stuff out as fast as we can. the good news is that almost everything from CHA is here. the bad news (or good news, depending on which side you are on) we are sold out on some of our things already!

... so for all of our retailers thank you again for your patience as we experience these good growing pains! we love to support our customers and we do so when we can with donations for crops, anniversary events, etc but it somewhat surprises me the number of cold calls we get for extreme things.

i will give you 2 examples - we got an invitation to participate in an event and donate up to $2000 to sponsor an event that was for about 50 people. hmmm... let me do the math here - so you want us to sponsor something which will cost us in advertising $40 a person with no guarantee of anything but our name on a board? how is that a smart business move for us? and the second one is equally as quirky - we had a request from a store to come and teach a class at their location - and they don't even carry our products! that one made me laugh. so you want us to teach a class on our products but yet you don't want to carry our products? how does that benefit either you or me? needless to say, we had to turn these two opportunities down b/c in the end, it doesn't make good business sense.

Sunday, March 12, 2006

what a beautiful sunday...


... and it feels so nice to be able to create!

i made this as a challenge to myself and some online friends to use 4 old things on a LO and also to use 1 new techniqute! my 4 old things are (the twistel, cardstock, button and tin) and my new technique is cutting free hand with a coluzzle!

i am really excited b/c i have agreed to teach a class at a special weekend in the fall. i can't say what it is right now but i my mind is racing. teaching is not something new to me but it is something i haven't had a chance to do in a long time. due to the time contraints of running a business, i have taught online classes for a while but i am looking forward to the interaction of people! when i used to work in the chemical industry, i started teaching some ladies from work how to make paper punch animals, etc (back when that was popular - LOL!). even now as i approach this i can feel my mind racing at 100 miles an hour dreaming up things i can teach!


but for today, it is time for a walk with my DH and then back to catch up on paper work but i did make something today and that makes me happy.

Wednesday, March 08, 2006

back in the groove!


i think i might have done a record 3 LOs and a birthday album this past weekend. i still stare at my supplies during the weekday sadly and get back to the computer to work but at least my mojo is still hanging around!

i love love love to mix old products and new ones to see what i can come up with - the latest and the greatest isn't necessarily the best! in fact, i have been eyeing my jar of twistel and have some plans tonight to make some cool stuff (insert evil laugh)!

deb and i want to thank all of the customers and retailers that have been so supportive of our company. just *wait* til you see what we have planned for summer! i think your socks will be knocked off! we are really trying to get ahead of the trade show curve and i think we might have some products HERE before the next trade show (which is an amazing feat but the kudos go to deb) - some days it is hard for me to think about the next one when i look at our stack of orders from the last one but such is the trade shows.

the good news are that the CHA orders are flying out the door as fast as we can pack 'em and ship 'em! so be on the look out for our stuff at your favorite LSS soon! i have been eyeing some of our items as i plan on making 2 mini brag books for our baby's two grandmas (and grandpas) - something they can carry around with pics of their first grandbaby...

Monday, March 06, 2006

growing...


i love this pic - you can see that i took out my belly ring and the scar/hole is still there. and my hands and veins - proof of my working woman lifestyle. my trusty ironman watch. my wedding ring - the little jewelry i wear. my belly - almost 7 months down...

Saturday, March 04, 2006

announcing...


... well it is a big surprise to me that i have been able to stay up til MIDNIGHT tonight. usually by this time, the baby is saying "dude, we need to be in bed and asleep" - ahh the joys of being almost 7 months pregnant! but we planned ahead today and i took a nap to get me to now. because i have two things to announce - guess who is 30 now on march 4th? it is DEB! it is hard to believe my little sis is 30 (though she has been harassing me about being 30 for the last 2 years. in honor of her BD, i made her this LO tonight wishing her a happy 30!

Happy Birthday MAY MAY!

lots of easy to do ideas including drawing on a transparency and making transparency flowers!

and that brings me to our second announcement - deb and i are proud to announce our very first MAYA ROAD 2006 JOURNEY OF A LIFETIME CONTEST!!! we are super super excited about this b/c the wonderful people at SBA magazine have agreed to help us judge this contest!

if you want to find out more about it, click here: http://www.mayaroad.com/2006contest.htm

we are very excited about this contest. i do have a couple of comments to make on this contest - we really really wish we could open this contest up to everyone who loves to use our stuff but after a long long discussion with our legal counsel, we cannot due to the contest rules in different countries. so right now, we can offer this contest for the US and Canada residents but not including Puerto Rico or Quebec. there are just a lot of legal ramifications which we cannot get through in order to open this up to more people.

we are also excited about this contest b/c we really want to see how people interpret "journey of a lifetime" - our requirements for using Maya Road products is small - only 10-15% of your total project (heck my LO i posted here would qualify but since i am an immediate family member of MR i can't enter) - but again, it is your interpretation of YOUR journey so tell us all about it.

and we want to thank everyone who has supported us along the way - many many people have come up to us and said " we remember back in 2004 when you were this super tiny company with about 20 sets of fibers and 20 sets of embellishments and LOOK AT YOU NOW" - yeah look at us now - with close to 300 items in our inventory and more to come. we just want to take it all in and say thank you!!!

and to all the pubsters who were trying to guess which company this annoucement was for, well i hope that you are not disappointed it is us - Maya Road - Caroline and Deb . smaller companies can be capable of BIG things - b/c we are all small once.

good night!

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

found them!

... here are some pics from my "scrapbook" of my backpacking trip to europe. LOL, i was so young then, look at my sweet blonde highlights - so ahead of the times!







...i wanted to make a comment on MR that i was thinking today. i am so happy to report that we have already started shipping from CHA a bunch of items! the problem is it seems like everyone wants everything now. we are working our tails off and while i wish we could ship 200 orders a day...well i know we can't. and as we have always said, how we try to ship out orders is "first come, first serve" that means if you placed your order at the first day of the show, you will get your orders first (unless there is a special circumstance which we have worked out before). we have always tried our best to adhere to this policy to make things fair for our customers - especially when it comes to new products. now, if for some reason you are ordering some older stuff and there is a break in our shipping and we can get it out, we will. i know that not everyone likes our policy but this is the FIFO (first in first out) way to keep things organized....

so if you are a customer of ours and you placed an order the first day of CHA, and you told us it was ok to split your order, you should be seeing stuff from us soon! now if you are a customer who ordered the first day but you wanted everything shipped together from CHA, since not everything is in, then it might be a couple of weeks... and also i personally look at each and every order - that way hopefully we can best determine what is ready to go or not. we try not to ship backorders less than $40 b/c that costs our retailers money in freight and we try our best to optimize how we ship for our customers...

... and secondly, we strive and try 110% to not make committments we cannot adhere to. if a monthly club kit asks us for X number of product Y by time frame Z, i will not promise it unless Y product is already here in X numbers so that i can get it out by time frame Z. we have seen so many cases where we are expecting a container full of our stuff and it is delayed by shipping schedules, port traffic, rail congestion, LTL (less than truckload) availability and more. but again we are human and we can fail sometimes but it is better to commit to things that we can adhere to - saves both us and our customers headaches in the end.

... and finally - a couple of comments on our website (and i know we have retailers reading my blog - smile) - as i mentioned in a couple of posts below, we are working our butts off to get things ready for a special announcement. and we do plan on having all of our retailers listed on the site. in fact, deb has been working hard on this - i have seen the drafts and it looks good - we just had to do a lot of revamping so we had to turn off our online ordering also but we are working hard to fix it all. we do have some IT people helping us but when it comes down to the details of the site, it is all in deb's hand with my help - so be patient! we are working on it. soon we will have a list of our US retailers, INTERNATIONAL retailers, online retailers on our site. but in the meantime, if you are looking for our stuft, email me at info@mayaroad.com and we will try our best to help you!

that's enough talking for today! time to get more orders ready to go!

feeling the wanderlust spirit...

... i was thinking today and wondering if our baby will love to travel like i do. i have always loved to travel. from visiting family in asia to relaxing on the beaches in maui, give me a suitcase and watch me go!!!

... i was also thinking back to the times i have traveled alone - i actually lived in belgium and worked in an awesome flemish city called Ghent (or Gant depending where you are from) for about 10 weeks. it was an opportunity i couldn't pass up in college- a co-op job that i pushed for and got and the non-worry of youth to get me through. i didn't know a soul except for the guy i was going to work for and i didn't speak a lick of flemish or french (the 2 official languages of belgium) but i learned a lot about myself and who i wanted to be. i was telling david about the experience and how i really enjoyed it as a person - i could go a whole weekend without speaking to a soul if i wanted to and i loved it. i loved traveling by train, going to museums and eating foreign foods... that brought me also to my second experience of backpacking through europe - 7 countries in 21 days and lots and lots of hostels... could i do the hostel life again? probably but i am now officially too old (lots of hostels have cut-off ages of who can stay) but i miss following the train schedules and the 50 lb backpack on my back and fighting other hostel ppl for a pan to cook breakfast on...

i have some funny scrapbooks from way back then (1997) and i need to dig them out! lots of "photo croppin" and funny captions. i don't think i will redo them b/c they capture that moment in my life - to redo them is to sort of redo what i thought and jades them with my experiences from NOW...

so i am off to see if i can find my scrapbooks from my europe experience. i am sure my baby will one day say "mom, you weren't ever THAT young or brave were you???" LOL.