Cut 'n Paste

Thank you!

I'm so happy to report that little baby Noah has been released from the hospital and is now back at home. He came home on Tuesday. Understandably his mother in particular is emotionally spent. Between recovering from her c-section, having two others (the the oldest being 4) and Noah's hospital stay, she is pretty worn out. But as a family we're all trying to help and ease the burden for her. I spent a fun mid-morning and afternoon with her and the boys yesterday. Thank you so much to each of you who took a moment to say a little prayer and send well wishes.

I returned home from CHA and my girlfriends weekend Saturday afternoon. All I can say is that if Pam or Amy ever invite you to a party, say yes as quickly as possible. It was magical. We're working on a way to share it with you...hopefully there will be more info on that in the coming days. Without question we missed our bella sister Kim, hopefully you're doing well sweet girl! Shopping with the girls was a dangerous experience...I'm sure that far too much $$ was spent, but our art and home will be beautifully adorned in the coming months (wink). Big thanks to Pam and Suzi who planned a fabulous escape for us. xoxo

Upon returning home Saturday afternoon Rick and I went out for dinner (at a yummy Italian restaurant that was a new discovery for us) before heading to The Ten Tenors concert in Vancouver. It was a belated Birthday gift for Rick (who had his birthday while I was working at CHA) and Valentine's Day gift. If popera is your kind of music, I would highly recommend going to this concert tour. It was very enjoyable.

This week I'm trying to get caught up on emails and contacts made at CHA. I'm beyond excited about an exciting international teaching trip that was approved by Melissa earlier this week that I'll be taking with a Bella friend, and I'm working hard to finalize some other class details so that I can update the class calender on the sidebar. Within the next few weeks I should have events in Vancouver, Phoenix and Boston up with dates and store info. I hope to meet many of you this coming year, and if you are a scrapbook store or have one near you who would like me to come teach, please feel free to email me and we can talk!

As I sign off the picture of the doll head is a recent acquisition from an antique store near me, and the other photo contains treasures that I found antiquing with Melissa in Orange, CA, shopping with the bella girls, and some new stamps that I bought at CHA and am looking forward to using.

Time with friends

CHA Winter is now over for another year...we at Melissa Frances had a wonderful show and are very pleased with the feedback our new releases received. I'm dead tired and looking forward to a good sleep tonight.

Tomorrow begins the adventures with my sweet friends Teresa, Pam, Charlotte, and Rebecca. I'm also looking forward to meeting the oh-so-talented Amy, she of glittered jewelery fame! I hear that there will also be some fun planned with this lady of many talents. So you probably won't hear from me until Monday.

In the meantime, I would covet your prayers for my newest little nephew Noah. The little guy has been admitted to the hospital with bronchitis (there is a very strong strain going around the Vancouver area right now, and lots of people are getting quiet ill from it). His parents are understandably upset and worried as Noah is having difficulty breathing. Thank you! 

Blogging along...

Today began the CHA trade show for us at Melissa Frances as we taught 2 sessions of retailer classes this morning. We were amazed at the positive and overwhelming reaction to our new products, most particularly the 'Thankful' line. As you can well imagine, this line is super important to us as a company, so to see the early reaction in person through the students was wonderful. We were joined later in the afternoon by the remainder of our booth worker team and passed a few hours antiquing in old Orange. Melissa and I found some great things.

As I close, I wanted to share with you an exciting happening in the world of Melissa Frances, we are joining the blogging world. Our blog goes live on Sunday, so please visit us here. Our fabulous design team member Sherelle Christensen will be our hostess and she's got some wonderful things in store. You'll want to visit right away as there is a wonderful prize being given away with our inaugural post. Here's a hint...a small part of the prize can be seen on the following card:

Hopefully as time permits I'll check in during the show with you.

Another preview

Hi there! Day one of booth set up went well. Before I go to bed I wanted to show you another 'Thankful' layout. This one features another of Holly's wonderful photos. I love how this layout shows how the line can be used for non-breast cancer layouts. The layout also features new crystal clear stamps (the flower, the fancy circle that the glitter chipboard is nestled in, and the pink lacy border along the bottom of the layout). Enjoy!

Being thankful

Right now as I type this I’m sitting in the San Francisco airport waiting on my connecting flight to Orange County. Like many of you, I am super excited about the upcoming CHA trade show. We at Melissa Frances have so many things to be grateful for and are looking forward to a fabulous year. Before every show I am usually filled with excited energy. I get this feeling in my gut of anticipation and my brain just won’t ‘turn off’ it’s like its going 100 miles per hour. In fact, I get so excited and ‘pumped’ at these shows that my usual course of action is take a sleeping pill each evening…I just can’t shut off my brain otherwise. I can already feel my energy begin to kick into overdrive today and we’re still a few days out from the show! If you’re coming to CHA, please be sure to stop by the booth (#5361) to say hi and congratulate Melissa on overcoming her recent breast cancer battle.

So I’m betting that you’d like to see more previews of the product releases. Today’s peek is from the ‘Thankful’ line. While a portion of proceeds from this line are being donated to charity, the line isn’t solely a ‘breast cancer line’. There are no pink ribbons all over the paper (not that there is anything wrong with that!), instead these papers play strongly on the ‘pink’ theme, but are versatile and can be used for all kinds of layouts. The embellishments that were created for the line speak to thankfulness and the strength of women. This layout celebrates a Grandma who overcame a cancer battle. It also shows you some of our new chipboard flower shapes (combined with some of our classic antique white glitter chipboard embellishments).

Tomorrow I’ll post a different layout using the same line that shows how the line can be used to celebrate generally being thankful…

Lovin' me some Baby...

Today I finally got to meet the newest little one in our extended family. So without further delay, I present to you:

He's absolutely perfect. I can't wait to use the new Hush -A- Bye line to create some layouts featuring this little guy. Speaking of which, here are a few more Hush -A- Bye projects:

This card also features more new stamps...(isn't the elephant to die for cute?? Just wait until you see the whole set!)

Once again, this layout features Holly's family photos and journaling. Thanks again girl!! 

Hush -a- Bye

Today we begin introducing the Melissa Frances CHA product introductions to you. I thought I would begin by showing you a few peeks from our new baby line called 'Hush -A- Bye'. It's soft pretty and distinctive. I can't wait to use it to scrapb photos of my new nephew (who I will finally get to visit tomorrow!).

Here are 2 peeks:

This layout also features one of our new stamp sets. (Which I'll preview in more detail for you another day!) I also wanted to mention that the fab photos were taken by my friend Holly Brimhall. If you read here regularly, you know that Holly and I frequently collaborate on layouts. Without having children of my own, it is such a blessing to have a friend who shares her photos and journaling with me. Thanks Holly!

And here's another:

This layout also features two new stamp sets and the new baby date prompt stickers.

I hope you've enjoyed this preview. If you want to see more, you can chek out the blogs of several of our design team members: Amber, Ashley, Linda, Melissa, they all uploaded projects today.

Thanks for checking it out!

Sweet Baby

I'm so happy to share that my brother's third son arrived safely and healthy on Jan 30. Both mommy and baby are doing well and are now back home. Little Noah David weighed in at a rather large 8 lbs. 7 oz. My brother is a big (tall) guy and his wife is itty bitty, so it's always a bit interesting to see that these big babies have been 'baked' inside of such a small gal!

It's killing me that I still haven't seen Noah, but I'm crossing my fingers that I'll be able to see him before I go away. Yesterday I went to the doctor as although the rest of me was doing remarkably better I still have a persistent cough. The irritating thing is that the cough really manifests itself when I talk. I couldn't talk for more than a minute without the tickle in my throat getting so annoying that I'd have to cough. As you can image with leaving for the CHA trade show in a few days, I wanted to see if there was anything that could be done for me. So I've now been given a 'puffer' which the doctor is thinking should help.

In scrapbooking news, all the Melissa Frances design team members will begin showing sneak peeks of the new CHA product releases on Monday. In the meantime, if you check out the new homepage at the Melissa Frances  website, it will give you a sneak peek at the logos for each of the new collections...Can't wait to show you what we've got in store!