Krazy KT

CHA Winter Recap!!!

I could spend days bloggin about my trip, but I figure a quick re-cap would be the best way to go about it. I spent a lot of my down time at the Creative Imaginations booth and Fontwerks! I just love Teri! She's so funny! And Christine is so sweet!! I LOVE her new releases, and I'm sure you will too.

I'd have to say that there was two things I saw at the show that I REALLY freaked out about. I let out a

sound that ... well let's just say I was a little excited! I could not be more excited about Elsie's releases, but one in particular! Love, Elsie's Daisy Collection is without a doubt a favorite of mine!! I mean I am so loving dog stuff these days but that's not the only thing that made me fall in love with it! The colors!! I couldn't even begin to tell you the love I have for this collection!

The second release I'm oh so excited about.. Sassafrass Lass!!! I mean do I even need to say anything?!? How could you not love this stuff?!? Its even more awesome in person!!

I met lots of people I've never had the pleasure of meeting before. I did manage to pull out my camera for a picture when I met Ali Edwards and Jessica Sprague. I am so excited I got a copy of Computer Tricks for Scrapbooking 2 by Jessica. I can't wait to read it! I really liked the first one. I was hoping to read on on the plane ride home, but that didn't happen. I saw Kitty and Wendy. I haven't talked to Kitty in quite sometime so it was good to see her!

I can't forget my Fontwerks girls!!! I just LOVE Laura and Grace!!! And Kah-mei is just awesome!! Who doesn't love some fontwerks?!? I love Karen's Narratives butterfly stamp set she did with them too!! I'm all over the fontwerks release!!  

Back from California!!

  I am back from California and full of tons of ideas and inspiration! The week went by so fast! I saw and did so much while in CA for CHA I don't even know where to begin! I intended to blog every night, but the Internet connection at my hotel was HORRIBLE!

I had a rough day of travel back home to say the least! My shuttle, which was already paid for, was suppose to pick me up at 5:20 AM so I would get to the airport with plenty of time. I somehow managed to sleep through the wake up call, the shuttle, and the shuttle company calling. I woke up at 6:30 only to realize what time it was and the panic began. I also hadn't packed. I started to last night before I went out but I guess I threw it all on the floor when I got in because it was EVERYWHERE when I woke up. I called the front desk had them get me a cab.. literally threw everything in my suitcases and threw on some clean clothes. I managed to get packed, dressed and wait for my cab, which was already out front in 20 mins.

At that point I had 50 minutes until my plane took off. Fifty dollars later and what felt like a never ending cab ride, I managed to make my plane. And the security took so long, I so didn't think I was going to make it!

I was good for the next 2 hours after that, until I got to Denver, where my connecting flight was. I had 20 minutes to catch my connecting flight once I got off the plane from CA. Of course my gate was literally at the other end of the airport. I don't think I ran so fast in my life. I made it practically to the gate and looked at my phone and was like oh I have 15 mins. till the doors close, I'll give Mandy a call real fast. I was a little out of it I guess, because I have no idea why I didn't realize sooner I had to be wrong about the time. Needless to say I got off the phone with Mandy as soon as I realized I was in front of my gate and they were closing it. I managed to get on the plane, thank goodness!

I don't think I have ever actually flown into Baltimore during the day so I never get to see the view from the plane. I managed to get in right as the sun was setting! I ended up getting in a little after 5:30 PM eastern time. Jeremy and my dad picked me up from the airport. There was a nice steak dinner and ice cream cake waiting for me when I got home. As well as two overly excited pups that were oh so happy to see me! It feels so good to be home! Now off to bed!!

Creative Imaginations Parties!

I could spend days bloggin about my trip, but I figure a quick re-cap would be the best way to go about it for each day.

Saturday, was the Creative Imaginations pre-party, as well as the Creative Cafe one. I had a great time! I enjoyed myself and did quite a few make and takes! Creative Imaginations never disappoints! I cannot wait to get ALL the new products, as well as their ones from the last release that I didn't get since the site was down.

Here are some of the photos from the party. I wish I would have taken more photos, but I have to say I didn't even think about pulling my camera out most of the time. I had a great time just catching up with everyone from CI I haven't see in awhile! I got to see the aftermath of the party, while waiting for Chris to give me a lift back. I can only imagine how much goes into just one show! I've only seen some of the process!

My Journey to beautiful CA!

Where to begin?!? I am here in beautiful California! Safe & Sound. Friday I left about 6-6:30 am for the airport. I was suppose to depart at 8:15 AM. Well, you know nothing every goes how it's suppose to for me! The flight ended up being delayed 30 mins. because they were one flight attendent short. Never fails! We couldn't even board the plane until she arrived. I was of course then going into a panic because I only had 51 mins. in between my connecting flight. I finally got to board the plane. 4 and a half hours later I arrived at the Denver airport. Of course my connecting flight was literally on the other side of the airport. I booked it to the gate. I managed to get there 15 minutes after my flight was suppose to leave. Someone was watching over me because that flight was delayed! I don't think I could of handled missing my connecting flight again like last year and spending 6+ hours at the airport.

I slept for 4 hours on my first flight and somehow I managed to fall asleep for an hour on the second one. I was exhausted! That left me with an hour on my flight anxiously waiting to arrive in CA. I ended up talking to the guy sitting next to me that seemed to be so interested in the fact that I'm so young and have my own store and everything. It turns out he has an on line business also, Bamboo Buddy! You should check it out. It's pretty cool and I'm always up for anything environmentally friendly! And the best part.. he just came out with bamboo skateboards. They aren't up on the site yet, but he's going to send me one! I love skateboarding.. I just use Brandon's board though. I don't do any fancy tricks.. I only know two but I'm content with just cruzin' along on it!

I arrived at my hotel and just hung out in the room. I did walk to McDonald's for some dinner. I'm not exactly close to anything. I love how they said I was 3 blocks from the convention center. Well what they failed to mention was I'm 3 main street blocks.. sigh.. oh well.

I have a lot of back bloggin to do for everyday I've been here so far but I have to get going. I was waiting for my hair to dry.. the hairdryer is HORRIBLE here and I forgot to pack mine. I told Cheryl I promised I'd go to here Accut make and take at 9:30.. I'm hoping I can still make it over there! I have plenty to share with all of you later when I get back! Make sure you check back!!

And because a post without a picture is .. well.. just boring.. here's the hotel.. I don't really recommend staying here is you in CA. I somehow managed to delete the totally awesome pictures I took from the plane of the mountains :-(

 

Cha-Cha-Changes!

I am over due on blogging to say the least! I have a LOT of back blogging to do, but we'll worry about that later! So much has been going on I don't even know where to begin! I have lots of surprises up my sleeve but you'll have to wait for those! I can let you in on a couple changes already though involving the KTDT!

Over the next month you will be seeing LOTS of changes at Scrap Happy KT. I can't wait for you all to see!! In the mean time I figured I would give you a little sneak peek of what's to come! Scrap Happy KT has two, yes you read right, TWO new design team members joining us. I think that both of them will be bringing something different to the team! I am excited to announce our two newest members of KTDT! Please welcome Wendy Reed & Shelley Haganman.

Although Scrap Happy KT has lots of great things in the works, we are regretful to say that Shelly Brewer will be leaving the KTDT. She will be stepping down from the design team at the end of the month. We are sad to see her go, but we wish her nothing but the best in her future endeavors. She promises to stick around, and we are going to hold her to it!

I am as speechless now as I was the day I received Shelly's email resigning from the team. I told Mandy that since I have no idea how to tell everyone about Shelly's departure from us.. she just can't leave! I understand though that's not how it work .. or at least that's what she told me!  I am lucky to of had Shelly be apart of my first design team for almost a year now. She will always have a home here and still hope to see her fun and carefree layouts in the gallery and her smiling face posting on the boards! Thanks Shelly for all you have done for me, the team and the store!

I've got a fun Love/Valentine's Day contest going on right now until the end of February. You can check out all the details HERE!

CHA is quickly approaching! I have been posting lots of sneak peeks, as well as the KTDT girls. Check them all out Here on the sneak peek message board. I will be attending, by myself, which I'm a little scared about! LOL! I will be helping at the Creative Imaginations booth. Make sure you stop by and say hi! I'd love to meet up with anyone going! If your going to be attending drop me and email and we can hook up.

If your on a design team and have CHA peeks to share, if you upload them to my gallery I will send you a little something as a thank you! Just drop me an email with your address at [email protected]

I have had a lot of good and bad going on this past week and I don't want to be a downer so I'm just sharing the good. I do ask that you keep my father in your prayers. He's been worrying me to say the least. That's all for now!

 

Online Crop!!

I have a million things that I need to do but I just wanted to post a quick update. LOTS going on this weekend at the site!! The KTDT has put together an awesome online crop that is going on all weekend! You won't want to miss it! I am going to try to check in when I can. Hopefully tomorrow during the day I'll be able to check in. I'm waiting for a conference call and then need to get in the shower. Brandon is taking me to dinner and a movie. I don't really feel like going to the movies, so we'll see about that.

Also, more donations have arrived!!! I'm sorry that I haven't posted pictures of what the prizes for challenges and things like that actually are but I promise they'll be good ones!! anyway.. here's some more companies who's donations have arrived!!!

• American Crafts
• Doodlebug
• Scrapworks
• 3 Bugs in a Rug

No news, good news??

Not with me it's not! Nope, never.. I usually get quite when things are crazy and I'm loosing my mind. A lot's been going on with the site of course..

November is suppose to be the BIG GRAND RE-OPENING of the site, but needless to say it's not going quite as planned. I sent out the newsletter announcing the site was up on the 1st. Things started out good.. lots of orders, big orders. Fast forward to today.. umm.. not really any. After 3 or 4 days of sending out the newsletter I noticed the orders kind of stopping. I thought to myself.. well maybe people are filling up their cart, after all everyone's saved carts were gone now since the site had to be re-built. I thought it was odd but I figured maybe it's because I don't have all the new stuff in the store I normally do. Well, Thursday I received an email from a customer informing me that they couldn't place their order. They had tried several times and got to the last step where you confirm your order, but there was no confirm order button. I ended up walking through it with her on the phone only to see the error message on the confirm order page. I said I had to call my web company to see what's going on. I actually had to call them anyway because they had called why I was out to dinner for Tracy's birthday. They needed to discuss why the site went down on Monday for almost 24 hours. Turns out, the amount of traffic that hits my site they were not anticipating. The site went down because it slowed down everyone on the server's site. Long story short, for a whopping hefty monthly fee I will need to be placed on my own server. I could get rid of my message board and idea gallery to reduce the traffic, and the cost but to me that's not even an option. I wouldn't take those away if my life depended on it.

The fun part.. the reason the customers order couldn't go through was because for security reason's if the page takes longer to load then 30 seconds it times out. Because of the amount of products in the order and the amount of traffic hitting the site it was taking longer than 30 seconds for the page to load. It's ALWAYS something!!! ALWAYS!! The site is being transfered to the new server this week and should be done by Wed. at the latest. The site will go down for 6-8 hours the day the transfer is complete. That is all though, I have been assured of this. The site will be on the new server in time for the weekend crop! No worries there! The grand re-opening celebration will carry on into December since obviously not much can be done as far as orders now. Any questions at all.. feel free to post and I will answer them as soon as possible.

I'm going to take Chopper outside and hopefully work on some back blogging when I come back in. 

Store is up and other fun stuff..

I am at a point where I feel like screaming. I feel like I'm being pulled in all directions and don't even know where to begin. I'm trying to get everything done, but I have a long way to go. On the plus side, the store is now up and you can shop!

Chopper loves sitting in the foyer in the morning when the sun is shining in. I thought this morning would be a good time to try out some more fun stuff with my camera. I got some really great shots and LOVE playing with my camera and the settings. Chopper even let Princess out this morning so she could join us for the photo shoot.. LOL

One the upside today.. the good thing that happened to me today was a box of Basic Grey arrived! More product donations for the grand re-opening!! I am totally blown away by the amount of companies that have sent donations and sent me emails with such kind words of encouragement. I know of a few companies that have things still on the way. So far here's the companies that have generously donated goodies already!

• Around the Block
• Fancy Pants Designs
• Basic Grey
• Cosmo Cricket
• Crate Paper
• Dream Street Papers
• KI Memories
• My Mind's Eye
• Prima
• Sassafras Lass
• Scrapbook Trends
• SEI

I think I got them all so far! I have TONS of goodies to give away too, that haven't been donated. I am going to be giving away goodies like you don't even know!!

Yesterday I got a few boxes of new goodies!! The Autumn Leaves Designing with 2008 Calendars have arried, as well as the Designing with Details. I Also received the Scrapbook Trends Home for the Holidays. I have received other new goodies over the past several weeks that I have to upload too still. The Queen and Company has been sitting in the store waiting for a new home for almost a month now! I got ALL of the new Queen & Co. for the store!! I LOVE it all!! I am going to have to get working on uploading it soon. I've still got plenty to upload!!! You won't be disapointed!!

Well back to work! Here's some photos from earlier!

 

Message Board is up!

  Quick update. The message board is up. When you go to the site click on forum. That will take you to the new message board! You will need to re-register. The rest of the site should be up next week. Keep your fingers crossed.

Tomorrow at this time I will be at the race in Dover! Brandon's dad got us tickets to the NASCAR race!! WHOOO HOO!! I am so excited!! I can't wait to see  my man Jimmie Johnson!! Well, I've got lots to do so I'll leave you with these photos of Chop and Princess in the pool! Princess is the one not to happy in the pool. Chopper just jumps right on in!

It gets worse before it gets better, right?

I am over due on blogging. My email box never seems to get below 300 emails the past couple weeks. I've received email after email asking about the site and so many with "just wanted you to know I'm thinking of you and you'll get through it." First let me say thank you for all of those email and comments on my blog. I really have to be honest and say that those are what is really helping me get through all of this.  I know the saying goes, "It gets worse before it gets better" but how much worse does it really have to get. I have some blog entries I typed up but didnt post. I will do that later. I could make this post 10 pages long but I'll just give you the basics.

The web site is obviously still down. It is suppose to be up this week. What a nightmare! All of the products in the store were successfully moved over except for 700, so they are working on that. I'm going to have to figure out which ones weren't moved over and input them in a spread sheet so they can get them up. The message board and idea gallery are set up, they are just having issues with the design. I ended up having to buy  new message board and idea gallery, so that's where the bad news comes in for all of you. You will have to create a new user account and start fresh with your gallery and post count. I will be working on uploading everyone's layouts once it gets up so that you do not have to be inconvenienced by doing it. I am so sorry. I feel like I really let a lot of you down by having to do it, but there was no other option.

The Creative Imaginations contest is still going on. Once the site goes up you will have time to get the stuff you need for it at the store and enter. WHOO HOO!! CI has been amazing with all of this. And Cheryl, let me just say has been beyond awesome with everything. Thank you soo much!

I have lots of stuff on ebay again, and will be listing a LOT more this evening. Please check them out. Lots of really good deals. sk8rgrlykt A lot of them start out at my cost, or even less. LOTS of Technique Tuesday, Autumn Leaves Clear stamps, Paper kits, even some Love, Elsie Stamp Sets. Make sure you check them out tomorrow morning because I'm going to be listing A LOT of stuff!!! I have a lot of stuff I just want to get rid of so I can buy all the new!!! :-) So check it out and tell all your scrappin' friends!!!

Here's a quick re-cap of what's going on with me.

• My ac adaptor went up, spent at least an hour on the phone with dell getting them to send me a new one. Of course it happened on a Friday, so I couldn't get it until Monday. I get it Monday, open the box. Guess what? Wrong part! Spent plenty of time on the phone with them trying to explain why it wasn't the right thing, only for them to talk to me like I'm an idiot. I ended getting it the next day.
• I had a message on my computer about my  battery, so I called Dell. Well, what happened next was not expected at all. I turned on my computer to tell them what the battery message said only to get a message I've never seen before. Turns out my computer was crashing. Totally nothing to do with my battery. Total coincidence that I was on the phone with Phillip, from Dell, who I could tell you anything about, when it happened. Why can I tell you practically anything about Phillip from Dell? Because I spent 9 1/2 hours on the phone with him. Phillip was awesome, especially since I was having a melt down while talking to him. He helped me save almost everything on my computer. Thank goodness I had a lot of things already backed up or it would have been much worse.
• While driving to get Brandon's birthday gift my car started acting up. It wouldn't go above 20 and would have the occasional jolt to 40, and drop back down to 20 miles an hour. Talk about scary, driving home on 70, which is 65 miles an hour and I'm doing 20, trying to make it home. My cell phone died so I had no choice but to try to make it home. Needless to say I didn't get Brandon's gift. I did make it home thank God! My car wasn't shifting when I was driving. After over a week of it sitting at the bottom of the driveway it was towed. The outcome? My transmission went up and it's going to cost at least $5300 to fix. My extended warranty doesn't cover it. Who knows what I'm going to do.
• I've been pretty much trying to get everything set up in the store while the sites down. It's coming together.
• Chopper now has a playmate! My mom rescued a sweet pit bull, Princess. Her and Chopper are getting along great! He's loves having a playmate. I have a lot more to tell you about all that but it'll have to wait.
• I went to the doctors with Annie and Max yesterday! So cool!! You could hear baby Lucie's heart beat clear as day. The ultra sound was so cool!! You could see her in there moving around!! I'll post about that later too!

I've got to pack up my ebay stuff and get to the store. Hopefully my next blog entry won't be such a long wait.