Too tired....

I'll try tomorrow morning....
:)

OH MY GOODNESS!!!

We accomplished SOOOOOOOO much today!!!

Mandy, Danni, Bonnie and Chelsea all joined Tom and I to work on the store today....

We were *ALLLLL* so impressed by how much we got done today!!

I got a BUNCH more product reentered... Christmas, Halloween, Thanksgiving, Fall, New, Wellspring, Bo Bunny Dots, cardstock, shimmers, metallics, Copics, custom embellies, Silhouette, some scrapbooks and refills, magazines, and some others were put out. Sooooo much more tomorrow! Lots of items are checked back in, but just need to be put out.

Tom reassembled racks and fixtures, broke down boxes, and took stuff to and from storage. He took a break from the store stuff to get our cars washed... wow, we needed it!

An important part of our progress today was that our front counter was set in place today!! Craig from Timber Point Construction has been just completely AWESOME!!! He put in the electric in the floor to the front counter. Then the flooring guys installed the floor after him. And today, Craig and his team returned and drilled the hole to drop the counter onto the outlet so that we can use it. This was REALLY IMPORTANT progress because we couldn't set up a front register until the counter was set! And all of the rest of the counters align with it, the new anti-fatigue mats couldn't be ordered until we knew the exact size. Anyway, Craig does general contracting and specializes in a couple of areas. (I need to ask him to remind me what they are). He's probably going to do our promo, so stay tuned!! But he has been just SUPER sweet and accommodating and really just awesome. I *HIGHLY* recommend him!

The mail also brought us a couple of goodies today!! They brought us new product from The Sweet Stamp Shop!! YAY!! I haven't opened it yet but it will be all brand new!! And, have I mentioned that our VERY OWN Danni is now on the Sweet Stamp Shop Design Team!!! CONGRATS DANNI!!!

For lots of Sweet inspiration, check out Danni's blog:
http://www.madeinapt14.blogspot.com/

We also will now be the exclusive store for Nicole's classes!!! Nicole, the owner of The Sweet Stamp Shop, has chosen CSS to be her one and only store where she will teach!!! We are *SOOOO* honored!!

The mail also brought us another exciting item... our new business cards!!

They are a little more "lime" than I had wanted, but the girls REALLY liked them!!

 

Additionally, I have been making lists of things that we need, so after my super long day, I went to Office Depot and Home Goods to see what they had to offer....

I didn't find what I wanted at OD, so I wandered over to HG. I have a "love/hate" relationship with that store!!! I *LOVE* everything that they have and I *HATE* how much money I spend when I'm there!! Lol!!

 

These are a few of the goodies I got...

 

You can't really see them, but I got these glass hurricanes for the counter area for a new promotion we will be offering to our customers... Stay tuned!!! We think you will really like it!

 

These were just a few of the glass items that I had to choose from! It was KILLING me trying to figure out which one(s) to buy!!

Also, I've been looking for a new clock. The layout of the store requires that the clock be in the middle of the side wall so that it can be seen from almost everywhere. So, I want a really big one, and a little rustic.

I had wanted a dark wood (black?) edge with a rustic colored interior.... I found this one... (opposite of my color scheme).  I'm not 100% convinced, but I'm flirting with buying it..

Then, on my drive home tonight, it occurred to me that the City of Poway had never sent me new business license!!!  I applied probably 4 weeks ago with a planned open date of this weekend. Even though we were already a Poway business, we needed to completely reapply with a "new" business fee (ouch$!) and get a brand new license. I knew that, so I applied early (or so I thought). So, I'm really surprised that it isn't ready yet! I contacted them this evening (I didn't get home until after 7pm, so I had to send an email) to inquire about its status... Anyway, this might delay our opening a bit {sigh}. I'll try to call tomorrow to find out more. Fingers crossed!

While at Home Goods I found a few other goodies.... I'm DESPERATE to find them a home in our new store!! OMD they were so awesome!!

Isn't this amazing??

 

and this...

I'm thinking about putting it above the coffee bar... (oh - I also have only painted the drawer of the coffee bar and am considering reversing my plan and doing a dark stain on the piece - btw, it will NOT be done by our reopening!! Keurig still has not even called me back about getting a commercial unit! Grrr!)

And then, I'm reconsidering the furniture in the bathroom... A couple of runner-up's...

   

 

Ohhhh... lots and lots to do!!!

We are working as hard and fast as we can!!!

I would have never imagined that after 15 years that we would have an opportunity to "start fresh" but we are SOOOOOO excited to be able to do this!

:)

What did we get accomplished today???

...Well, a little more than yesterday!!!

I had REALLY bad insomnia last night (maybe I have a little on my mind??), so I was up from 12:15am until past 3:30am.... so I didn't get in until about 10am...

But, I did step up the volume of product checked in by about 70%. YAY!

And both Bonnie and Chelsea came in, plus Tom, so there were extra hands.

We walked around and assigned each rack its product/theme (well, mostly) and put sticky's on everything so we know where most stuff is going...

Most of the items that I had checked in yesterday were arranged to their respective racks.


We got a LOT of stuff in the backroom reorganized and figured out how we'll arrange our clearance section and the space for "The Father" :) (We *MUST* rehang the "Dad's Office" placard!)

And I placed the supplemental order for custom high school paper for Poway and Maranatha (I can't believe that I missed ordering Poway!! Sheesh!)


And we put a few other items out and talked about some other "ideas" we have.... SOOO exciting!!! We won't be able to get everything done by this Friday, so we will be a "work in progress" for a little while, but we will get everything set and done and "pretty" by our GRAND reopening.... (which you will NOT want to miss!!! BTW, you can sign up to get each blog post update at the right here). Our GR will be in August sometime. We'll let you know. But we will have our soft opening this weekend (fingers crossed).


Tomorrow, the front counter gets installed tomorrow and will have electric and we can get the front register set up.

SO MUCH TO DO AND SO LITTLE TIME!!

We're working on it though!!!

Chelsea, Danni, and Bonnie will all be working tomorrow (plus me) so we should make great progress! :)

We've started unpacking.... Oh my!!! We have a lot of work ahead of us!!

I was at the store for a little more than 6 hours today.

Tom joined me and he worked on securing fixtures to the walls, putting spare items up in our attic, and organizing some things in the back room.

I decided to wipe out our POS system inventory amounts and reenter everything so that we have a VERY accurate inventory (and, sadly, to see how much has actually been stolen over the years - it is amazing how much theft we have!!). The staff agreed that it would be a great thing to do and that we would never have an opportunity like this again. I did that a few days ago and started fresh this morning.

So, for about 6 hours, I checked in product.... lots and lots of product. BUT, I haven't even made a dent in the piles of boxes! Since I've had the POS system at my house for the last month, I found a few features that we have never used and I found a SUPER easy way to check product in! But, while it felt like I checked in a ton of items, it was only $13,276.02 worth!! I couldn't believe it!!  At that pace, I should be done in about three weeks! LOL! (Of course, I would like to open on Friday, so lets hope that I pick up the pace a bit!).

I did take two breaks to put some product out...

We will have a great wall JUST of custom school paper! But, before we closed in May, we sold out of a bunch of styles. That's why I placed that GIANT order yesterday! We have practically NOTHING left! No Poway, only 1 Mt Carmel, 1 Del Norte, 1 Scripps Ranch, etc...

Anyway, this is where the custom school paper will be:

ALL of those empty spaces will be filled when the order comes in!! And, actually, we will probably have to put a few more trays at the bottom (we have some stacking ones) to accommodate all of the styles and schools. We will have more than 20 local high schools in stock!!

 

Oh no! I just realized that we were totally sold out of Poway and Maranatha and I did my reorder based on what we had in stock!!!  Ok - I guess I'm placing another order this evening!!! Sheesh!!! Can you tell I have a lot going on??!!!

If you want to see a list of the schools that we ordered, it's in this post:
http://coolscrapbookstuff.blogspot.com/2013/07/new-orders-are-being-placed.html

 

And I'll reorder Poway and Maranatha right now. Any other requests??

 

 

Anyway, another popular product that we carry is actually a "gift" item. These Wellspring Flip Notes are SUPER popular!!! We sell them for LESS than the manufacturer's website by 30%!! We found this great rack for them:

YUP! We carry a LOT of them!!! And these are not all of the styles!!! These items make a GREAT hostess gift, stocking stuffer, Mother's Day present, etc!! And you guys LOVE them!! They are a notepad encased in metal, so they don't get dinged up in your purse. It is held closed by the pen and has a spring so that when you remove the pen, it automatically opens. And both the pen and the pad are replaceable.

 

At least one employee is going to come in tomorrow. And at least 2 on Monday. So, with more hands working on it, we should be able to make much more progress this week.

FINGERS CROSSED!!!
 

New Orders Are Being Placed!!!

We have already received a few items while we have been closed, but I'm working on placing more orders for new product....

We received an order of basics: Adhesives, Cutterpede Blades, White Pens, Inks, some washi's, etc.

I placed an order with the Sweet Stamp Shop for their newest, hottest stamps.

Our Bazzill rep comes on Tuesday to do a cardstock order; plus, Bazzill came out with some CUTE new paper lines!

   

 

 

I've got a TON of Distress Inks on order, plus white pens, a TON of washi, school embellishments, Perfect Pearls Mists, and more.

 

An SRM order is en route. We sold out of SO much before we closed!

 

I'm also working on a Teresa Collins order, Echo Park, and Carta Bella.

 

Plus, a GIANT order for Custom Papers!!! Here is a list of High Schools we ordered: Canyon Crest, Cathedral Catholic, Del Norte, El Capitan, Escondido, Francis Parker, Granite Hills, La Jolla, Madison High, Mt Carmel, Mission Bay, OLP, Ramona, RB, San Pasqual, Santa Fe Christian, Scripps Ranch, Serra, St Augustine's, Torrey Pines, University City, and Westview.

We also ordered Aztecs, Toreros, Tritons, and So Cal Shop Hop paper. It should be in the week of the 15th.

That's about as far as I've gotten (along with still putting the store back together!!)

Which new lines would you like us to order?

 

More Classes Scheduled!!

Mark your calendars!!! Jenny Griffiths will be teaching a class using Elizabeth Crafts Designs on Saturday, August 31st and a Graphic 45 book class on Saturday, September 14th.

She is working on the samples now and we will have more details about times and prices soon!!

Storage is unloaded, let the madness begin!!!

We had our friends from LA staying with us for the weekend so we had 2 extra sets of hands. WOW! Such hard workers!!! So, between Tom and I, Brian and Kate, Chelsea and another friend, we were able to unload both storage units in only two days. AMAZING!!! (I had the truck reserved for 3 days!).

 

Gosh, though, could we have picked a warmer weekend???

 

Brian and Kate left this morning, so Tom and I went into the store after that.

It was pretty daunting when we started! 

 

We assembled wall units and reorganized gondolas.

 

Several of the fixtures got banged up or broken during the move. So Tom started repairs and reconditioning, while I organized boxes into groups and worked on putting together the backroom.

 

We definitely got a lot done, but have so much more to do!!!

 

Tomorrow will be a short day as I made an appointment in the afternoon since the Red Sox are on so I won't have Tom's full attention (Lol!).

 

Wednesday, we will be back to a full day and I hope to get at least one register back up and running.

 

During our "down" time, we are having our computers serviced and upgraded. We got one back already and hope to get another one this week. (The third will be another week). Then, we can finish getting the electrical wired and the computer network installed. Once that is done, the counters can be finally installed and we can hang the slat wall behind them and start finalizing the location of every other fixture.

 

We still have a few items in storage. This is a wall of just paper trays that are still at the storage unit.

I didn't want to be tripping over excess items while trying to get organized, so we didn't bring all of everything if it would fit into the car later...

Oh so much to do!!

And, during all of this, we are prepping for the Shop Hop, trying to order new product, working on our new online shopping site, and updating everyone on Facebook and the new blog....

I was so tired when we got home, that I immediately lied down on the couch and dozed while Tom took the dog for a walk.

BUSY! BUSY! BUSY!!

But I'm SOOoooooo excited to open at the new location!!

:)