I don't normally put pictures of our club kits on the Scrapbook Generation blog, but I'll have to admit that I think the June kits are some of our best work! Allison and I have a "trash-talking mother-daughter my-kit-is-better-than-your-kit" conversation each month. This month, my favorite of all the kits is her Boy Crazy (second from the top). The stitched car, train, and airplane are totally cute, and everyone in the club gets an entire canister of Crate Paper chipboard letters to use for the title!

Since we have new people signing up each month, we always make extra kits. If you want to get in on the June kits pictured above, just stop by or call. If you are in more than one club, you pay the full price for the first club, then only $12 for each $14.99 club, and only $10 for each $12.99 club!

From the top...
-- Girl Crazy Page Kit Club: uses girl themes and colors, and includes an extra like die-cuts, stickers, chipboard, rub-ons, etc. -- $14.99;
-- Boy Crazy Page Kit Club: uses boy themes and colors, and includes an extra like die-cuts, stickers, chipboard, rub-ons, etc. -- $14.99;
-- Allison Davis Hall of Fame Page Kit Club: general theme or topic, includes an extra like die-cuts, stickers, chipboard, rub-ons, etc. -- $14.99;
-- Generation Page Kit Club: season, holiday, or theme -- $12.99.

Start thinking red, white, and blue! The newest Reminisce Freedom collection arrived at Scrapbook Generation today, and it's beautiful...double-sided shimmer papers, die-cut papers, and lots of matching embellishments. We also restocked two of the company's past patriotic groups. The newest group is at the left of the photo.

And in case you didn't notice, I've been playing around with this blog the last couple of days, adding new features (a Scrap-a-Palooza countdown, a calendar of our June events, and more) and changing the format to a new style. You can also sign up to be a Scrapbook Generation blog follower! That's near the bottom of the page.

The three new BoBunny collections arrived today at Scrapbook Generation! They are Calypso, Popsicle, and Mango Luau...so bright and summery!

Scrap-a-Palooza update...
Just checked with Chris at the radio station, and almost 125 people are already registered for our second mega-crop at Remington's event center. This is way ahead of the number we had 17 days before the last Scrap-a-Palooza, which sold out with 200 people! The Midwest Family Broadcast Group radio stations just started running ads for the event this weekend, and our newsletter, with a huge story about the mega-crop, just went out today.

Fall retreats update...
If you attended one of the spring retreats, you have less than a week to register before we open up the remaining spots to anyone else who wants to attend. Dates for the retreats in Branson are Oct. 16-18 and Oct. 23-25.

Product updates...
-- BoBunny: all three new collections will be here Wednesday, including Calypso, Popsicle, and Mango Luau;
-- Reminisce: new patriotic collection should be here Wednesday, but that's not definite;
-- Prima: a huge order of flowers and other goodies will arrive in the next few days.

Just a reminder that Scrapbook Generation will be open from 10 am until 5 pm on Monday, Memorial Day.

Quick update on new products...
-- Reminisce: A new patriotic-themed group of shimmer papers and matching goodies should arrive Tuesday or Wednesday;
-- BoBunny: Three new collections will arrive on Wednesday, and you can tell by the names that they are loaded with fun -- Calypso, Popsicle, and Mango Luau! Papers, stickers, cut-out pages, flowers, brads, and more!
-- Jenni Bowlin Studios: Don't know for sure, but I think this may arrive sometime next week as well. Extremely cute stuff.

Have a safe and happy holiday weekend with those you love!

Jillibean Soup has arrived at Scrapbook Generation! We have the Cream of Mushroom, White Bean, and Minestrone collections, plus matching cardstock letter stickers and really cute journaling and accent circles in six colors each.

Doodlebug is here! There are nine collections, and the names say it all...tutti frutti, strawberry parfait, cherries jubilee, key lime, sugar plum, confection...get the picture? There are also groups called zoofari and seaside! Each of the nine groups has three "regular" papers and a coordinating glitter dot cardstock. Then there are embellishments! Glitter stickers, glitter alpha, glitter border frills, shaped brads (frogs, turtles, butterflies, birds, ice cream cones, cupcakes, strawberries, cherries, and more, many with jewel accents), and brad sets, and embellishment sets (brads, buttons, jewels, ribbon, and more)!

The June "Super-Saver Scrapbooking" free class sessions are going to be bright and lively! I've loved this group of papers by ANW/Crestwood since I first saw them, especially the die-cut page shaped like a present. I can't wait to start working with this set of materials!

In case you don't know what the sessions are all about, I design three 12x12 double-page layouts using 6-7 sheets of cardstock, 3-4 sheets of patterned paper, 1 sheet of letter stickers or die-cuts, and a few embellishments like jewels, brads, buttons, and ribbon. We put together packets of the supplies. When you register for the free class, just pre-pay $9 (plus tax) to cover the cost of your materials (unlike sketch sessions, substitutions in papers are not available).

Using our classic designs, you'll be able to create three photo-ready double-page layouts in less than an hour and a half, all for under $10!

Like usual, the two morning sessions are getting close to being full. Please call 417-886-0440 to register and pre-pay for the 10, 11:30, 1, or 2:30 sessions. We'd love to have you join us on Saturday, June 6!

Updates on other stuff...
-- Stacey has a really cute "Creative Cards" class coming up Thursday night. The group of three cards uses a spring theme and has some fun touches like transparencies. Cost is just $10!
-- The Midnight Madness crop this Friday night just has a few spots left.
-- Since this is a holiday weekend, we have a "Saturday Crop" scheduled for this Saturday, instead of the usual classes. Cost is $8 (VIP Club members can attend for free!) and includes snacks, drinks, and 10% off all purchases (for a paid crop). We have several people signed up, but still have room for more!
-- We are open on Memorial Day from 10 am until 5 pm.
-- Allison has an awesome class coming up on Thursday, May 28. It's a "My Wishes" layout similar to the layout of hers that was published in Creating Keepsakes magazine a couple of months ago. You'll use beautiful glittered paper by My Mind's Eye. Cost is only $15!
-- The June/July newsletter will be available soon!

Updates on new products...
-- Doodlebug: We'll have nine new mini-groups out on the shelves by early afternoon tomorrow (Thursday). The papers arrived a few days ago, then the cuter-than-cute brads, and now we're just waiting for the glitter stickers and glitter alphabet sets and glitter frills! These are bright and summery groups with several themes. I'll put pics on the blog Thursday.
-- Jillibean Soup: The three paper collections and matching goodies will arrive Friday. We'll be getting Cream of Mushroom Soup, Minestrone, and White Bean!
-- I've also recently ordered new and fun stuff from Best Creations, Graphic 45, Prima, KI Memories, Crafters Workshop, SugarTree, Melissa Frances, SEI, Creative Imaginations, and Jenni Bowlin Studio. Some of the groups will debut at Scrap-a-Palooza, and others will be here in the store first. I'll keep you updated on when everything is arriving as soon as I have definite ship dates.

Updates on events...
-- Scrap-a-Palooza is filling up fast. We had such a great time in January! Hope you can join us for this affordable June 13 mega-crop filled with mega-fun. Go to scrapbookgeneration.com for more info and for a link to the registration page.
-- Fall retreats in Branson (weekends of Oct. 16 and Oct. 23): A reminder that in just a couple of weeks, registration is opened up to everyone. If you attended in the spring, you still have 10 days to make sure you get the date you want before the remaining spots are up for grabs. We've already had lots of inquiries from new people wanting to get in, including a group of eight!

In our continuing effort to always bring you the brightest and best the scrapbooking world has to offer, Scrapbook Generation will be getting a shipment soon from a new company called, of all things, Jillibean Soup! Cute papers, all named after soups, of course, plus matching alphas and journaling circles. The goodies may arrive by Thursday or Friday!

Last weekend was crazy...
-- Friday, it stormed. We lost four huge trees, had no power all day, and all the food in the fridge spoiled. I know that what happened to many, many others was much, much worse, but that's what happened in my world. I had taken the day off from work and planned to spend the day resting up, cleaning up, and glamming up for my 40th high school reunion the next day. I couldn't iron my new clothes, re-charge my camera battery, or do much else.

-- Saturday started off great. I was tense about seeing my old classmates and having to hold in my stomach all day. Couldn't find the camera battery. Couldn't find a ring I intended to wear to the reunion that afternoon. Was at the critical hair-drying stage when I realized that the toilet was flowing over, and it was time for me to leave to get to the store on time for the sketch classes that morning. Couldn't find the plunger, and wasn't smart enough to know how to turn the water off. While I was bailing out the toilet, I could feel my hair drying flat and frizzy. Finally found the plunger. It made such a cool sound when I used it, and the way the water splashed all over my feet and the walls was totally refreshing. That's why I was 30 minutes late getting to Scrapbook Generation that day. I stayed an hour and a half, then headed back home to get ready for the big hoopla.

-- The reunion was fun. We were a small class of 30-something, and we had almost 20 people attending our three-hour get-together at the community center. My five best high school girlfriends were all there, and we had tons of fun. At one point, when I was busy organizing everyone for photos and lining them up the way that looked best, one of my friends said "you act just like you always acted." I'm assuming she meant bossy. Anyway, we were quite a group back in the late 60s. We called ourselves the Psychedelic Six because it sounded cool, and I swear that we were so sheltered and naive that it wasn't until many years later that we realized that psychedelic had something to do with drugs.

-- The girls. All six of us went to all 12 years of school together. Debbie (it was always a pain having two of us with the same name) is a high school librarian and has been coming to Scrapbook Generation and taking classes. She was the idealist of the group, and also the one who tied my shoelaces and zipped up my coat before I learned how. We walked home from school together and sang duets at church. It's been awesome to reconnect with her as adults. Tanya, a polio survivor, is a recently retired school counselor. We never considered her handicapped, and always held her crutches or helped her up and down stairs. It was just what we did. Her sunny disposition and gorgeous singing voice were legend. Donna works for the University of Missouri Extension, and was always the tomboy of the group. If girls' sports had been available back then, she would have been awesome. Patty is a bank vice president, and we always envied her height and slenderness and sweet nature. Vickie's family owns and operates the "milk in the bottle" dairy, Memory Lane, and her business had just been walloped by the storm the day before, with part of the roof being torn off, and a truck blown down in a valley. Vickie was always petite and popular and full of energy. Like all high school gals, we laughed, argued, and laughed some more. It was great to spend some time with them again -- with only the laughing part!

-- A scrapbook moment. Naturally, I was thinking scrapbooking when I was at the reunion. I have a photo of five of the six of us when we were seniors. We were dressed up for yearbook pictures, and we're sitting in a row on the bleachers. I made the rest of the bunch line up the exact same way as the old photo, and we took new ones. I'm going to make a scrapbook layout of then and now!

Here's a preview of the three layouts we'll be making in the "All Boy" Super-Saver Scrapbooking sessions this Saturday. We'll be using Bo Bunny papers and cut-outs, plus Doodlebug mini-brads and some "boyish" twine. Your cost for all three layouts -- only $9! The 10 am session is full, but there are still a few spots at 11:30, 1, and 2:30. Just call 417-886-0440 to register and pre-pay, or stop by Scrapbook Generation.

I'm having lots of fun creating these "Super-Saver" layouts. It's like a puzzle for me to figure out how to best use a limited amount of supplies to come up with the cutest projects possible!

Other news...
-- I've talked to Chris Louzader at Star 105.1 radio station, and Scrap-a-Palooza is already well-past the halfway mark for registration! More than 100 people are already signed up, just from publicity in our newsletter and on our blog, and the event is a month away (on June 13). The radio stations will start promoting the event on May 20, and we expect it to sell out quickly once that begins, like last time. If you've been procrastinating, thinking you have lots of time, you may want to get you and your group registered before the radio publicity starts.

-- To all of you who have signed me up as a friend on Facebook, I didn't even know I was ON the site until I started getting the emails! A few weeks ago, I was looking for someone's address and I registered on Facebook, I guess, to get to the address. Anyway, I'm not ignoring all of you, I just haven't had a chance to get a page set up. Stacey tells me I have to get in gear since it's so much fun. Mainly, she tells me about all the stuff her high school friends write to her about me from our years in the classroom together! So far, she's only told me good stuff, but she knows to keep me in a good mood!

It's official! My Mind's Eye, a company that make's everyone's short list for top quality, beautiful designs, is teaming up with Scrapbook Generation's Allison Davis to sponsor a FREE class for all 200 attendees at the June 13 Scrap-a-Palooza!

Today, Allison will be choosing My Mind's Eye papers and other goodies from their new "Breaking Free" line of summer styles for the project and then designing a 12x12 layout. MME will donate all the products for the layout, and Ali will teach the class via the huge-huge-huge big screen at Remington's. Everyone attending the event will leave with an Allison Davis original, compliments of My Mind's Eye. And don't forget, everyone attending also gets a goodie bag valued at $25 from Scrapbook Generation!

Scrapbook Generation will still do three free mini-classes during the day in a classroom area, but this big-screen class will allow all 200 people to participate, from the comfort of their own working space!

To register and pre-pay for the event, go to scrapbookgeneration.com, which has a link to the radio station's website. To register and pre-pay for any of the three awesome paid classes that Ali will be teaching, also go to scrapbookgeneration.com, or stop by the store to see the actual samples for the class and pre-pay.

New products arriving Tuesday...
-- 7Gypsies: cute new board book albums in cityscape and love styles;
-- Urban Chic 12x12 albums: a new color -- bisque;
-- Bo Bunny: two new styles of "clearly mixed up" albums;
-- KaiserCraft: new MDF albums, including Victorian tag and mini-scallop.

Sometime soon...
-- Doodlebug: 7 new summery sparkly mini-collections you'll love;
-- Jenni Bowlin Studios: everything! Papers, bingo cards, shaped journaling cards, calendar cards, chipboard buttons, alpha sets, and so much more. Think vintage, but with a stylish twist!

Other fun stuff...
I've mentioned before that Ali will be teaching at the Creating Keepsakes conventions in Tulsa, Kansas City, San Antonio, and Seattle. For a couple of those locations, Scrapbook Generation will be there, doing something exciting and new for us! I'll fill you in as soon as more details are worked out!

I wanted to show you the papers we'll be using for the "All Boy" Super-Saver Scrapbooking sessions this next Saturday, May 16 at Scrapbook Generation. This great group by Bo-Bunny will be the foundation for our three double-page layouts, and we'll add in some twine and some Doodlebug mini-brads. The cost for all three layouts and extras is only a flat fee of $9!

You'll use our free sketches and cutting guides to duplicate the three layouts. The 10 am session is already full, but we do have a few spots at 11:30, 1, or 2:30. To register and pre-pay, just stop by SG, or call us at 417-886-0440.

I'm back! I thoroughly enjoyed (and needed) a couple of days off, as did the rest of the Scrapbook Generation gang, after the frenzy of getting ready for National Scrapbooking Day this past Saturday. As I mentioned in a quick post that day, we were blessed to have the single best shopping day in the almost five years that we've been in business. We're so fortunate to have such wonderful customers, many of whom have become wonderful friends! We can't thank you enough, because without you, we wouldn't be here. That's the plain and simple truth, and one we remember each and every day.

Product updates...
-- Fancy Pants: the new mixed-media mini-albums are here, and we've already sold out of one of the styles before I could get them blogged. I'm re-ordering today! We also have moved all of our mini-albums to one spot, so it's easier to compare what we have available. I'll try to keep a good selection of 7Gypsies, Fancy Pants, Bo-Bunny, BasicGrey, KaiserCraft, Clear Scraps, and other leading mini-album brands.
-- Little Yellow Bicycle: we now have Baby Safari Boy and Baby Safari Girl, with both regular and specialty papers and embellishments.
-- Creative Imaginations: the last two photos above are two groups that have foil papers and matching foil stickers -- one is family/heritage themed and the other is baby themed. There are also lots of CI papers and stickers scattered around the store that are just too numerous to photograph for the blog!

New products on the way...
-- Doodlebug: this always popular/cute company has seven new summery mini-collections with regular papers, glitter papers, shaped brads, glitter stickers and glitter borders, and more. We're getting it all! I don't have a specific ship date yet, but it should be in the next couple of weeks.
-- Creative Imaginations: everyone loves their die-cut papers so much that we ordered more! There are solid colors, and several matching patterned groups with embellishments. We're also getting two large collections from their Creative Cafe line, called Lucky and Spirited. These should also arrive in the next couple of weeks.

Sale items...
We still have a good selection of clearance items, including mini-albums, 12x12 albums, rub-ons, stickers, brads, 12x12 papers and more, by companies like K & Company, BasicGrey, Creative Imaginations, Crate paper, and more.

Sketch sessions this Saturday...
It's my turn for sketches this Saturday, and we'll be using the new and colorful Lime Rickey papers by BasicGrey. There's still time to sign up...just call 417-886-0440.

October 2009 weekend retreats in Branson...
It meant a lot to us that by noon on the first day of retreat registration, we already had a dozen people signed up! That's a pretty good hint that we're doing a good job! If you attended one of the two spring retreats, you can pay your $50 non-refundable deposit now. June 1, registration for any remaining spots will be opened up for everyone.

Scrap-a-Palooza...
Now that National Scrapbooking Day has come and gone, our attentions are definitely turning to Scrap-a-Palooza, set for Saturday, June 13 at Remington's. I haven't checked numbers with Chris at Midwest Family Broadcast Group, but I'll do that later this week and let you know how many spots are left. In January, we sold-out the 200-person event, and expect to do the same this time! Chris has been talking about adding a chocolate fountain to the already great job they did with the food last time, and we also have a new feature we think everyone will love. We're in the middle of negotations with My Mind's Eye, one of our all-time favorite companies, for them to sponsor a FREE 12x12 layout class for all 200 people! Preliminary plans are for Allison to teach the class on the beyond-huge big-screen at Remington's! There will be other free classes during the day, but this one will be something special!

Remember that you register and pay with the radio station for the event, and register and pay with us for Allison's paid classes. For either, just go to scrapbookgeneration.com and follow the links.

Thanks everyone! Last year's National Scrapbooking Day was our best single day ever, and today surpassed even that! We are so fortunate to have such great customers and friends at Scrapbook Generation. More later, when I'm not so tired!