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Newsletter
Ding, ding, ding...that was the sound of my cell phone all night Thursday after we opened registration for The Great Yosemite Stamp Escape 2020! Every time a payment was made through Paypal, I heard a ding. I think I should have turned that feature off on my phone!
Then, of course, we had an interesting couple of days with the power outage. Those of you who live in California know how serious the winds can be and how devastating wildfires are. We have had more than our share of fires locally in the past few years. Other areas of California have been devastated. As I write this the Santa Ana winds (winds that come from the east) are fierce in the southern half of the state. We are hoping the winds subside today so the firefighters can do their jobs.
We lost power Sunday so the store was closed Monday. All of us who live in the foothills were under a mandatory power shut-down to prevent fires from starting if trees hit power lines. Melissa came in for a while Monday to get the mail and get our Stamp Escape lists up to date as we knew we were getting close to our limit of 100. It takes a trooper to do that with a flashlight between your ear and shoulder. As I was leaving home Monday afternoon for an appointment, I discovered a large pine tree had fallen, blocking my driveway. An oak tree had fallen across a small road behind my property, taking down a power line, and also blocking that road. Although some areas of the power outage did not seem to have wind, my area had very high winds. As inconvenient as it is, I was happy the power was out when the neighbors' tree took out the power line.
The power was back on in the store by late Monday, so Tuesday Melissa and I went through the mail and emails and found Stamp Escape was FULL! Wow, 100 spots filled within 5 days! We are now taking names for our waitlist. We understand that with Stamp Escape six months away, things will happen and some of those who have signed up may have to cancel. Please feel free to get your name on the waitlist. Generally, we see people drop out around March as they find they have a conflicting event. Then we also have those who drop out at the last minute due to illness or emergency. Just because we are full doesn't mean you might not get in even if it is last minute! Call us to get on the waitlist, 559-642-6611. (My power came back on Tuesday afternoon......and my wonderful tree guy came within an hour of receiving my call and freed me from my prison!)
As you all know, I am leaving November 8th for Africa. I have heard rumors that Melissa plans to party while I am gone. Since I assume I will be out of contact, I will rely on all of you to keep her somewhat under control and not give away the whole store :) I know that will be a challenge! I plan to be back in the store on November 20th. Hopefully, after about 30 hours of travel, I will be semi-conscious by then. If I do get cell service I plan to post photos to the store facebook page and my personal page so if you are interested, you can check up on me!
I will see you when I get back.....
What's New?
We have good news about Copics. As you may know, the manufacturer in Japan no longer does business with its previous US distributor. We have had trouble getting pens and especially refills. This morning I had a chat with one of my smaller distributors and he said he has a great relationship with the manufacturer and is now up to 97% fill rate on pens, and the fill rate on refills is improving. This is great news for all of our Copic fans! We will be reviewing our stock and ordering fill-ins soon.
We received our order from Penny Black. Most of the items in the order are from the online catalog we had sent out a few weeks ago. We do not have our Memory Box/Poppystamps order yet but expect it soon.
We also received an order from LDRS. This is a new vendor for us. Robin is teaching her November class using some of their adorable stamps. The company has a variety of styles. When you stop in, you might want to look through the catalog.
We received an order from Taylored Expressions and have another order on the way. Melissa also emailed them with ideas for their Sentiment Strips stamps....we will see if they like her idea!
We are planning our Annual Cookie Exchange for Saturday, December 21st. It will be at 11:30 am. Plan to bring four dozen cookies (your favorite recipe). We will have soup and cider and you can even eat some of the cookies we swap. Just bring cookies on a platter so that once we know how many people we have we can figure out how many each person gets...basically you will go home with the same number you brought, but will have a nice variety! This is a fun time to unwind and visit with friends.
We are also thinking about starting a Stamp Club again. We would love your input. How often should it be? Possibly the fifth Saturday in the months with five Saturdays? Should we do a card swap? Should it be like Shoebox where everyone designs and teaches how to make their card? Should there be food? Let us know what you think and if you would like to participate.
Check out the November classes and follow us on facebook!
