Wednesday, December 20, 2006

Winter Wonderland


I wish everyone the happiest holiday season.

Here's a pic of one of our trees this morning. It's cold!!! No what you see is NOT snow, it is freezing fog. It's been like this for 3 days straight now. The thing is we are not used to this here in the Rogue Valley. It's quite unusual for us to have cold weather like this. But is sure is pretty.

Too bad there is no heat in the warehouse.

Saturday, December 02, 2006

EK Extravaganza

I just got back from 2 fun-filled days in Las Vegas at the "EK Extravaganza". This is an event put on by EK Success where we take classes making projects, learn about the new products they have coming out, place our orders and generally have some fun.

EK Success has lots of exciting new product coming out in the next few months:

December: a new lightbox called the Merry Glo-Round (I think that's the name, LOL), which is a lightbox that rotates so you can move your work to more easily see what you are doing without have to reposition everything. Price is $49.99. I'll have more details on my website within the next few days.
There are also lots of new stickers, accordion albums, baby items, etc

For January, they are introducing new punches. Four of them are pop-up punches (paw print, teddy bear, present, and rose..... two more punches are the Retro Flower in a medium size and a medium size support ribbon (punch it out of any color to coordinate with the cause).

Also in January, we are looking at many many new stickers including Phrase Café epoxies, metal signs, lots of new beautiful Jolee's, great papers in bright colors, a line of cap & gown dimensional embellishments including tassels in many school colors, and the cutest baby gift packs consisting of a newborn size jumper that baby can wear for real packed with a miniature size matching replica so you can scrap baby's picture with the matching embellishment!

In March, EK is releasing some GREAT new tools. I am really excited about the March release. We got to try a few of the new tools and also were able to see others demoed.
First is the Cutterfly, which basically looks like a Swiss army knife, but instead of "manly tools", it folds out to unveil scissors, a paper piercing tool, tiny tweezers, a file for distressing, etc.
Next is the Circle Scissors Plus, which is used to both DRAW and CUT circles of any size. The tool is very easy to use. It has a blade which adjusts with a screw type mechanism so you control the exact size of your circle. Or, you can replace the blade with a unit that holds ANY pen/pencil/marker like a drill holds a drill bit, and you can draw circles. A neat idea is to draw a circle with a marker, then cut your circle slightly bigger for a faux matting effect without the bulk.
But that's not all, they also have a cute little tool called the Piercing bug. This is SOOO fun. Comes as a set of both piercing bugs. One has a wheel that makes a single row of holes, and the other is a double row. The holes are tiny, just big enough for doing paper embroidery or placing a brad. So you can simply make a line of evenly spaced holes by rolling the tool along your paper, then you can stitch using the holes and your stitching will be straight.

What, you want more? OK, also in March, the most exiting tool I have seen in years: The 1-2-3-D Paper Crafter. OMG, this is neat!!! It's a set of templates/mats to create basically any size/shape of box you can imagine. It will come with an instruction booklet AND a DVD. Some of the boxes they had on display were made from old greeting cards, pictures, calander pages, and of course patterned paper. The boxes ranged from your normal square and rectangles (in many sizes, totally adjustable) to mini purses, a "shoe" box (shaped like a shoe), pillow boxes, reverse pillow boxes, octagon boxes, and cards that open to pop-up paper cutting. The possibilities with this tool are endless, and the price point is great at only $39.99. I think this will be a must have tool for every paper crafter.

Of course, in March we will also be seeing more new papers, more new stickers, and some wonderful chipboard coin albums, gift bags and boxes, and more.
(hint: if you love Muppets, stay tuned!!!!!)

Happy Crafting!

-Fran

Friday, November 24, 2006

Happy Thanksgiving!!


Happy Turkey Day everyone!

We're gearing up for a busy busy season. This week, we uploaded all kinds of cool gift ideas to the site. See www.franticstamper.com/gift.htm. We're also awaiting some exciting new products.
As usual, I've been so gosh darn busy that I've not taken the time to update this blog in a while. Maybe some day I will get the hang of doing it every morning, LOL! We shall see.

Thought I would share another card with you. This one was made with one of my stamp which you can find at www.franticstamper.com/stamps.htm. The stamp is #138-02P.

Enjoy!!!
-Fran

Wednesday, October 25, 2006

Fun weekend (Oct 14)






Spent a fun little weekend in Bend, Oregon recently. Here are a few pictures of a project we did. I'll post a few more pictures later (the other 2 tins, and some other items we made)

There were 5 of us there: Char (black shirt/Red hair), Aleta (in the black & white shirt), Jo (in the dark gray shirt), Cindy (in blue) and myself.


Gotta get back to work now!

Hugs,
-Fran

Wednesday, October 11, 2006

Long time no write

I haven't been very good at updating this blog..... so a quick note today.

We're again SUPER SUPER busy here at Frantic Stamper. Last week, the Carol Duval TV show re-ran an old program showing projects using a Silhouette Heart punch which we stock. We had over 150 orders for it, and of course not enough of the product to ship out to everyone... but that has sure kept us hopping!!!

Then, this Monday, the 12 new colors of Twinkling H2O's arrived... Needless to say, I'm up to my eyeballs in Twinkling H2O orders. :-)

There are so many new products arriving almost daily. I find every minute of spare time (spare time? what's that?) adding stuff to the site, e-mailing vendors for images (some are NOT very responsive). I resolve NOT to buy anything where the vendor won't provide website images!!!!! That's my NEW rule!!! LOL!!!

This weekend, I'm off to a little stamping gathering in Bend (Eastern Oregon) with 4 friends from the Stamper's Life yahoo list. A much needed rest for sure!!!

See ya when I get back! (I'm taking my digital camera with me so I can take pics and post them here)

Hugs always,
-Fran

Wednesday, September 20, 2006

Back to work... busy busy busy!

It's been 10 days since my last blog entry.... sigh.... Sorry about that.
We had a wonderful scrapbooking weekend. Cindy and I made 12 pages and a few cards. I'll upload them here in the days to come, and probably also upload a few to the two peas gallery. Someday I might even have time to make a gallery on my site. LOL!!

So it was back to work Monday. Lots of orders to take care of. :-) It's a good thing, but it doesn't leave much time for fun stuff like uploading our creations! Well, that's what weekends are for, right?

Below is a scan of a card I made a year ago during a card making weekend in Washington with my friend Kathy (owner of Rubberstamp Avenue) and my friend Barbara whose house we stayed at. The card uses a paper from Provo Craft as the background. The column is one of my stamps (see www.franticstamper.com/stamps.htm). The "Explore" sticker is from the Junkitz Tim Holtz series (www.franticstamper.com/timholtz.htm). I first applied the sticker to gold cardstock and trimmed it close, then matted it with black. The round tags are Lalique tags found at www.franticstamper.com/collage.htm. The tags don't come with letters on them... those are rub ons. Oh, and the little tag that says "the" on it is actually a brad by Provo Craft (www.franticstamper.com/brads-provo.htm) on which I first sanded to take most of the paint off, then used a rub on over top.

Sunday, September 10, 2006

Getting ready for next weekend

What's going on next weekend? Glad you asked!!

I'm actually going to take 3 days off to go stamp and scrapbook!!!! Yes!!!
My friend Cindy and I (plus our football watching husbands) are going to the Oregon Coast. We've rented a house for the weekend, and we're going to stamp, scrap, and have a good time!

So in preparation, I've been gathering all kinds of goodies I've had my eye on. I'll tell ya... sometimes it's kind of a drag having all this cool stuff around, but no time to use any of it!!! So I hope we are proliffic this weekend!! I'll be sure to post some things here when we get home.

We leave early Friday morning. :-)

talk to you soon!

-Fran

Thursday, September 07, 2006

September 7, 2006 -- A quick hello

A quick little update.... it's been a busy week (*OK, when it is not*) . Last night, I added some new stuff to the site, including these great transparencies from Magic Scraps. I hear these are going to be discontinued, but I got a bunch of them. :-) I really like these a lot.

I still have sooo many new items to add to the site.... weekend is near.

Oh, I wanted to let you all know that NEXT weekend (Friday the 15th thru Sunday the 17th), I will be away. We are actually taking a couple days off AWAY from here. We're going to a beach house on the coast and taking LOTS of great new products with us. We're going to spend 2 days making scrapbook pages and cards for the website gallery.

Fun huh? I'm really looking forward to it.

See ya tomorrow!
Hugs,
-Fran

Saturday, September 02, 2006

Sept 2, 2006 --- new stuff, new stuff!!


I'm so excited.... last night, the UPS guy brought me 11 packages.

We received:
- the last bit of the new Queen & Co. stuff (cute chipboard letters, and little plastic alphabet letters).
-1 box of new stuff from Heidi Swapp (OK, not realllllly new stuff, stuff that's been on backorder... namely the roller stamps)
-4 boxes from Imagination Project (Gin-X, Chloe's Closet, etc).
-3 BIG boxes of new products from Maya Road (beautiful ribbons, great chipboards, and other neat embellishments)

So as you can see, I have my work cut out for me this weekend!! Lots of scanning and lots of adding to the site.

Now for something fun. I made the card above LAST superbowl Sunday. My friend took the time to scan a bunch of cards I made... and I'll share them with you here. They will eventually go into the planned "card gallery" on my site, with complete instructions. (when I have time, yeah... we know how that goes!!) . I'll give you some hints though... the stamp is of course from my line (www.franticstamper.com/stamps.htm), the pink background was created with Colorbox Fluid Chalk inks, the paper on the bottom layer is by Crafter's Workshop (www.franticstamper.com/craftersw.htm), and the stickers used to spell Milan as well as the postoid sticker are called "Crystal Stickers". They are epoxy stickers, and those are not on my site yet (but they WILL be this weekend, I promise!!!)

Ta ta for now!

-Fran

Friday, September 01, 2006

September 1, 2006 - Welcome to my blog

Welcome to my blog!

Can you believe it? I've finally joined the blog bandwagon.
It will be a challenge to find the time to write every day.... so I'm sure it won't happen every day! LOL!! But I'll do my best

Things have been very very busy at Frantic Stamper this week.

We received another HUGE shipment of EK Success stuff.... that means lots of work adding things to the site. We're now officially an Elite EK vendor, meaning we will have the opportunity to receive new items sooner than non-Elite stores. We'll also be able to do promotions on their great products, etc.

Also just in this week, a big shipment of new Making Memories items, and another BIG shipment of Creative Imaginations products.

I'll work as hard as I can to add stuff to the site this weekend, but please be patient!!! (I need to hire someone full time just to keep the site up to date, LOL!)

Oh, one more thing.... for all you dog and cat lovers, this morning I posted the September specials (see www.franticstamper.com/sale_page.htm) where you can see all sorts of great pet items. I've also posted a scrapbook page I made of my cat Hunter.

Soon, I will add a project gallery on my site..... soon.... sigh.....

Happy stamping and happy scrapping!
-Fran