I know many of you have heard bits and pieces and some rumours so I thought I had better let you all know what is happening in our shop.

Yes, the doors of our shop on Flores Road are officially closing this week, although we will still have a couple of days open for our clearance items. These are:

Tuesday 1st April: 9.30 – 1.00pm
Wednesday 2nd April: Closed
Thursday 3rd April: 9.30 – 1pm
Friday 4th April: Closed
Saturday 5th April: 9-12pm (to be confirmed as it is also election day!)

But contrary to some rumours – we are not closing our business but rather moving forwards in a big way!

As you know times change, peoples needs and wants change and we like to accommodate as many people as we can!

So what are we doing now?

1. We will be primarily stocking new releases + the basics (adhesives, mediums, selected embellishments)

2. Our online store and blog are currently receiving a major overhaul (this has involved a lot of hard work behind the scenes!!) and this will be live in about 3 weeks.

3. We travel and teach in various locations. (Dongara, Morowa and a few places around town)

4. There will still be workshops available to everyone for cardmaking, scrapbooking, project life and mixed media / art journal.

5. Our prices will be lower and more competitive with the rest of the internet world as we won’t have the same overheads as we do now – but you will still have the opportunity to look and touch before purchase as you do now.

6. We will continue bringing in big name tutors! On the 26th July we will be hosting Jamie Dougherty from the USA and due to very popular demand Janine Koczwara is coming back to teach again too.

7. We have a HUGE multi craft weekend planned later in the year – so stay tuned!

8. Freeing myself from working daily will also give me a chance to help in our community a bit more. I have been asked to be involved in a couple of craft projects to help raise much needed funds. (I can’t give more details at the moment)

Why the changes now? Honestly, I need more family time. I have been having a hard time juggling family commitments, appointments, teaching in various places, running a household and spending the much needed time my kids need with them. Something had to give – so for me my family comes first :), and the shop was actually growing out of itself too.

So we are definitely not closing, Amber and I love what we do too much!

Wishing you all a great weekend!!

Marijke and Amber

P.S.: we have ALL the new prima collections in our hands! LOVE them!! They are not available in store – but will be online in a couple of days. 🙂

After having nearly a 4 week break I am back at work again. The shop was open last week – but I was slowly easing back in!

Have you enjoyed your school holidays? We have, nice lazy mornings (yes still up at 5am but no rushing!) And I don’t know what I was thinking when I did it…. but I booked my kids in to 2 lots of vacswim. I have now spent 15 afternoons at the pool – only 5 to go! Yeah! It has been good for the kids with them going up another level but I will be glad when I have my late afternoons back….

Even though we where enjoying our holidays Amber and I did sit down during our break to plan out this coming year and we have some truly wonderful classes planned. This year we will also have weekly night classes in scrapbooking, journaling and card making.

To start it all off with a bang – today we are having a New Years Party in the shop. You can sit down and complete a challenge to be in the running for a prize, there is a raffle, a table with below cost priced items, as well as 10% off store wide! (even from already marked down items!!!)

Stay tuned for our class schedule which will be up this morning as well as the kids classes for the remainder of the school holidays.

Wishing everyone a wonderful weekend!

Marijke

My last post (which is still in drafts) was written when I was travelling to Melbourne for 2 days of retailer training. Boy that seems so long ago!! Better get that one finished this weekend and I have a lot more to share with you too!

But firstly I would like to apologise for my absence a bit for the past 4 months and for the delay in posting orders etc.

In March my Dad was diagnosed with bowel cancer and our family went through the whole upheaval as you do when a family member is seriously ill. He had major surgery to remove the tumour and as you can imagine a 70 year old doesn’t just spring back.

There where a number of complications after the surgery which resulted in more surgery… what it comes down to for the past 4 months there have been a lot of appointments (specialist, Doctors, cancer specialists, blood tests, MRI’s, CT scans etc etc etc). There has also been a  LOT of waiting for results, lots of stress for all involved.

While dad was recovering my mum got sick as well and had 5 hour surgery 2 weeks ago. (supposed to be a 1 hour surgery but it seems my parents like to add a bit off drama and stress in!!)

So now the best news? My dad has no secondary cancer and Geoff Menezes is such a wonderful surgeon that he removed the original tumour so perfectly that there is none left. He is very fortunate to not even need chemo now. Things always happen for a reason, and if he hadn’t had those major complications after surgery he would have started Chemo 3 months ago….and it turns out its not even needed. And my mum is fine now too (just recovering still from the operation).

Now the big catch up has started and all those projects that have been on the waiting list are now getting started…

I would just like to say a quick thanks to my friends who knew what was going on and helped me. Thank you for asking how my dad was all the time, thank you for all your prayers and just Thank you for doing my work when I had slacked off!

That’s it for a personal post from me 🙂 I only posted all this to let you all know why I have seemed a bit (ok VERY!) absent for the past 4 months.

 

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* 3 speciality papers
* 2 1/2 sheets of paper
* 1 pack of rub ons
* 7 epoxy stickers
* 8 pre-cut pinwheels

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