I hope you survived!
Newsletter
Hello all!
I hope you survived the holiday season. Maybe it is just me, but every year it seems to get a bit more stressful.......and I really don't have a lot to do! I don't know what I would be like if I had a big family and lots of shopping and entertaining to do. Somehow I am pretty sure "they" shoved Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year's celebrations all into one week! (Note to self......definitely start your Christmas cards earlier this year. You cannot send the dreaded letter..... ever again!)
So now we are off to a new year and a new decade! I hope you all have a healthy and prosperous year ahead. It was so nice hearing from so many of our customers over the holidays. We are very grateful that you think of us even though you may not live close by. We have the greatest "crafting family" there is!
We are excited to see what our favorite companies have in store. Some companies are releasing their new product as early as next week. This is actually the Spring release even though we are in winter, and most of the product will not be shipped until February or March at the earliest.
We are participating in Hero Arts Shop Box which just arrived. This is a sight-unseen purchase for us so it is fun to see what Hero has put together! We cannot show the product until the 13th, so watch for an email then. I am sure there will be some fun new spring-y images and dies that you will need to add to your stash!
We have already heard that Foundations Decor will be releasing their latest product on Monday, January 7th. We love their product and Melissa's wood classes are full every month. We will soon finish the Welcome sign 12 months projects so we are excited to see what new projects they have in store for us. Their projects are so much fun and something anyone can do. If you have not already added their wood pieces to your home decor, now is the time to start. We will send photos of the new release as soon as we have it.
We are wondering if any companies will have "spring gnomes". Of course, everyone has fallen in love with gnomes. Here at The Cat's Meow, we are kind of gnome snobs! I think it began when I brought Melissa a gnome from my trip to Norway. That was Olaf and he is adorable and quite mischevious. We believe that not all gnomes are created equally, so we are always looking for the very cutest ones. We now see them everywhere.......we are wondering who will have St.Patty's Day gnomes and Easter gnomes. Those little buggers really get around!
I need to give kudos to Melissa for cleaning the stockroom. When people thought the entrance to the stockroom was the entrance to the thrift shop next door we knew something had to be done. Probably everyone has their drawer, closet or room that collects stuff, and when you actually start organizing, you never know what you will find......and our stockroom is interesting. It contains my personal stamp collection....and yes, we found my old stamp 'inventory" book, there is SPCA stuff...everything from microchips to building material samples and building plans. Of course, there are fixtures waiting to be used.....some may wait forever but I think it is bad karma to throw a fixture away! And.....our paper and product back stock it there, too. That is where the stock part of the stockroom comes in! Oh yes, can't forget paperwork dating back to 2004....I think we can dump some of that! One day we will have to go through catalogs again....undoubtedly there are catalogs from many companies that no longer exist. So...the moral of this story is that purging is good (not that we really purged, mostly organized), and is a good way to start the new year. Thanks, Melissa!
As I mentioned, when we receive notice of new releases, we will email them to you. We are finding that more companies are sending e-catalogs which makes it easy for us to share. We are always happy to include your wants and needs in our orders. Please keep in mind that even though we may receive a catalog in January, the product may not be shipped until a month, or sometimes months later. If we know shipping dates, we will pass that information along to you, but unfortunately, that information is not always shared by the vendors.
Be sure to check out the classes for this month. Unfortunately, the Stamp of the Month board and the product was shipped late, so I had to cancel that class for 1/4. It features stamps from Verses, a company we haven't carried in a long time. We will reschedule that class, probably for the first Saturday in February. To see classes, click here
FYI, final payment for Stamp Escape 2020 will be due March 1. If for any reason you have signed up and are unable to attend, we do have people on the waiting list so let us know as soon as you can if you need to drop out.
I will not include the What's New section this month but will send out information all during the month of January as we receive it. You can expect Foundations Decor next week, Hero Arts Monday (the 13th) and I think we will have Impression Obsession soon, too......We usually get e-catalogs from Memory Box/Poppystamps and Penny Black. Once I have a collection of catalogs ( the real thing) in the store, I will let you know so you can stop by and look through them.
Happy New Year!
