Happy Spring from Quill and Doodlebug!
Newsletter
Happy Spring!
We are enjoying the beautiful weather here and hope you are too! It feels good to get out in the sunshine. Many of you have asked whether the store is open and whether we are able to have classes. We are a bit different (no joke) here in the foothills! Our county finally entered the "Red Tier" which allows restaurants to have indoor seating. It is no secret that most, if not all, of the restaurants had already begun to offer indoor seating......or close their doors. Being in a tourist area where our restaurants rely heavily on traffic to Yosemite National Park, the restaurants were hit very hard while the park was closed or limited admission. Fortunately, our infection rate has been relatively low and we are seeing a high rate of vaccinations being given. We are hoping to see other businesses open back up soon. Even during the six-week period last year when we had to lock our doors, we were here every day talking to you on the phone and shipping. It was surely not the same, though. We are so happy to have our customers back in the store and at classes. We still try to take extra precautions to keep things clean and safe. Melissa and I have been fully vaccinated for some time now. More of our regular customers are being vaccinated every day. We have helped many of them navigate the crazy vaccine appointment mess......Melissa has been named the "Vaccine Hunter". We both know that if we want to continue to travel, we will need proof of vaccination. We also want to protect ourselves and our customers so we were happy to get our "jab" and really had no adverse reactions to the vaccine.
We had to make the tough decision to not have The Great Yosemite Stamp Escape again this year. As we got into February we had to face the fact that we would not be able to have 100+ people indoors at The Pines in April. I was unwilling to try for October as there is still so much uncertainty. We just gave up on 2021 totally and have our dates set for 2022. Thanks to everyone who moved their registration over AGAIN....... We are grateful for your support and faith in us. We know The GREAT Yosemite Stamp Escape 2022 will be the best ever! We are taking names on a waitlist since it is pretty far out and we know things can come up. If you are not registered and would like to get on the list in case space becomes available, just call or email. If you already asked to be on the waitlist, don't worry...we know who you are. To answer another question I know you have, we may have to make some teacher changes depending on their schedules. If we do have to make changes, we will still have great, talented teachers!
Some of you may remember that we used to do something called "Shoebox". We scheduled Shoebox on a Saturday in months that had 5 Saturdays, in lieu of a regular class. If you came to Shoebox, you got to be the teacher! Each participant created a card, made kits for the other attendees, and taught the others how to make their cards! Some of our class "regulars" thought it would be fun to do that again. We are planning ahead so everyone would have plenty of time to get creative! We have set aside Saturday, May 1st for Shoebox......why is it called Shoebox, you ask? Because you can bring your supplies and kits in a shoebox! In the past each person created one card to teach, however, we are open to having a longer day with a lunch break if there is interest in each attendee teaching two cards. If you want to participate, let us know so we can mark it on the calendar in INK! Call 559-642-6611 or reply to this email. We are still limiting class seating, so don't miss out.
I was hoping to have exciting news about the Virtual Trade Show that I attended in March. This is the AFCI show that we always attended in person in January. I know it was a challenge to put together an online event to replace the opportunity for everyone to walk into a booth and touch everything. I think because our products are so tactile it is especially difficult. I must say I was extremely disappointed! There were only a handful of the many vendors I usually visit. There may be some light at the end of the tunnel, though. There will be an event in June that is organized by Spellbinders. They had one a couple of months ago with just three vendors, Spellbinders, Altenew, and Waffle Flower, that was a lot of fun and gave us the opportunity to feel that we had "visited" their booths! The event in June will feature Spellbinders, Altenew, Echo Park Paper, Hero Arts, Lawn Fawn, and Pinkfresh. With any luck, 2022 will be getting back to normal. Luckily, our vendors have been good about keeping in touch so we can stay up to date! As you will see in the class section on the website, our classes this month all feature new products.
As usual, we will keep you posted on all of the new goodies we find! Take care......see you soon!
What's New?
We have lots of new paper.....a really cute new collection of "doggie" paper just arrived. We have the newest Lawn Fawn plaid collection in all colors, and new 6x6 pads as well.
New dies, a few stamps, and some really nice gem collections are here from Spellbinders. We also have our new Glimmer machines, Glimmer plates, and foils in stock. We will begin using the Glimmer machines and products in classes so you can learn all of the tricks of the trade. We love the look of foiled words and accents so keep an eye out for class projects with that special touch.
We are looking into carrying our own line of adhesives. We have samples from the manufacturer and are testing the products. We do have some samples in the store and the ladies in class last Saturday were the first to test them. Melissa thinks we should call the adhesive line "Sticky Paws"....what do you think?
For those of you who love Clair inks, we finally received most of the colors we had on order. If you have not tried these inks, you should! You can stamp a clear, crisp image with one try (perfect if you don't have a Misti), and they come in wonderful rich colors. Robin used them in her Lavinia class and the cards were just beautiful!
We are working on building our selection of stencils. There are more and more to choose from so we are being pretty picky about design and quality. If there are special styles you would like to see in the store, just let us know.
It seems like we went straight from winter to Easter this year. We are trying to stay far enough ahead of holidays for you to have some time to make special cards for your friends and family. We hope to find lots of new goodies over the next couple of months so we can really help you prepare for a "real" Halloween, Thanksgiving and Christmas!
Be sure to like us on Facebook, and check out the class schedule on our website.
