Wednesday, August 29, 2007

Feelin SAS-y Part 3+4

I have been a really bad blogger but I am trying to be a really good store opener upper and a really good mommy with BethO home. I did manage to get some new pieces of Feelin SAS-y made for you but I have a few more in mind. The pieces to today’s download are more refined but I want to make some embellishments from rough wood and some other shabby pieces, they will probably be ready by this weekend. There is also a bonus in the Member Giveaway of the forum, it will be at the top so it won’t be too hard to find.

We were hoping to open the store next week but with all of the details to work out I decided it would be better to be safe than sorry. I have heard of opening days that go so badly that people do not get products or that servers get shut down for a few days. So we are going to open sometime between the 10th and the 13th. We are going to do a practice run on the store where the CT and the rest of the team go through and purchase free and discounted items to make sure that the cart system and all of the links are right. I would rather take the time to get it right and save our customers any hassle. At this point I could probably write a book on opening a store, but I will tell you I could not have done this without such a great support team. Everyone from the creative teams to my assistants are giving everything they have to make this successful. I don’t know how other people open stores, this has been one of the hardest but most gratifying things I have ever done. I am still amazed on a daily basis of the generosity and capabilities of women just like me all over the world who have pitched in, When I get tired and start to wonder if this is all worth it I think of all of the people that are involved and know that it is so very worth the effort.

As you have probably heard on the other designer’s blogs our newsletter is going to be jammed packed with freebies and specials, make sure you are registered in the forum and that you agree to receive mail from the administrators, because these offers will only be available through the newsletter and you do not want to miss it. Be sure to go by all of the other designer’s blogs for their freebies.

Good news for all of you that won coupons for free kits in the posting contest, I have 4 kits in the works and hope to have more by opening day so you will have so things to choose from. I need to get into Zen Cart and figure out how to get them to you sometime before opening day.



Be sure to get both parts.
Download Feelin SAS-y part 3+4a Here
Download Feelin SAS-y part 3+4b Here

I forgot to put the link in the forum yesterday, it is there now, sorry, I will make something extra to make up fro your trouble

Click here to go to the Member Giveaway area in the forum for the bonus. Be sure to check out all of the great contests we will be starting on the first, Enjoy!

Wednesday, August 22, 2007

Update and Exciting News

Hi All, I wanted to let you know where I disappeared to. Besides the million little things I have been doing to get ready for our grand opening, I have been getting ready for my daughter to visit. Beth joined the Air Force 2 years ago and has only been home 3 times for 4-5 days since. The field she has been studying for takes over 2 years to complete and she has not been able to take leave except for Christmas, She has just completed a major portion of training (I don’t want to say too much about what she does because I did not clear it with her) so she can take 26 days of her leave. As you all know I have been working on getting things done for the store all day every day for the last 6 weeks, you can imagine what happens to your house when you pretty much ignore it for that long. I will give you a hint as to how bad it was, the other day when I mentioned to my DH that I needed to get some cleaning done he said “Yea, it looks like a Hell hole” any other time I would have smacked him but unfortunately he was not too far off in his assessment. I have never been a fanatic about a clean house, our house looked lived in, it was always a bit messy, partially because all 5 of us are pack rats, but it has never been dirty, well I am telling the world right now that my house has gotten very dirty. So I have been trying to get it cleaned up a bit so when Beth comes home it is not a complete wreck. With my elbow I can’t do a lot of heavy cleaning but at least now the kitchen does not crunch as we walk…LOL. I know I promised you another part of Feelin SAS-y on Monday and I have been working on it but I don’t even have the time right now to package it up. So it will be a few more days, but what I will do is put part 4 and 5 up at the same time.

I do have some big news to share with you today thou, we have two new designers joining the SAS-y Ladies team, Lisa West of Lisa West Designs and KoriB who you might recognize from the Go Digital Scraps contest are our newest designers. I asked them to hold off on their announcement so they might not have it on their blogs yet. They both have very exciting styles that I think will round out our offerings wonderfully.

We are working on the newsletter and all of us have great freebies and Grand Opening specials so be sure to go to the forum and register and leave the “Receive Email from Administrators” checked. I promise you that we will not send you e-mails more than once a week unless something really spectacular is happening. You should check out the other designer’s blogs, I know some of them have freebies they are offering. Well it seems that every day a few more things get done but everyday there is always something else to take care of. I will tell you that none of this could have happened without the help of a lot of good dedicated people. I will have information on the quick page round up soon, Olga does not think it is a good idea to have people upload the QPs themselves in case there is a virus, so we think it would be best to run them through some kind of virus detection program just to keep everyone safe. I will let you know as soon as we get that figured out.

BethO, yes we actually call her that the O in JulieO is kind of a family name...LOL

Friday, August 17, 2007

Feelin SAS-y Part 2 and Good News

I am still very busy getting things done for the store but I have been able to slow down a bit. I even made a decent dinner last night, now if I could get to the laundry life would be good…LOL. It was nice to be able to do some designing today but I told Sherah that I have had so little time to design that I am always afraid that it won’t come back. But when I opened Feelin SAS-y I was so happy because as soon as I looked at it the colors of the kit they inspired me. I have so many ideas for this kit, I wish I could spend the next few days just creating with it, but alas, there are many more things to do. I really want to make Feelin SAS-y a versatile kit like Feelin Wondeful, most of what you have so far is more on the casual/playful side but I have some things in the works that will “dress it up” a bit. I have decided that I am going to set aside time every day to design, if I don’t I will be the only one in the store with empty shelves and that just wouldn’t do…LOL. BTW, if you missed my exciting news about the creative teams read yesterday’s entry

I have very good news about the odd files that some of you have had, Terrell was kind enough to send me a screen shot of her download of Feelin SAS-y part 1, I have included it below. She has all of the papers and embellishments that I put in the kit, but she also has those funky kitty files, those file have the same name as the real files except they have an _underscore in front of the name. Feelin SAS-y 1 is 39 mgs, when Terrell deleted the funky kitty files it reduced the file size by about a half mg. There is also has a Bridge file, Bridge is part of the Adobe CS3 Design Premium package, it is the file browsing program that I use. So you can throw out the duplicate files and the Bridge files, and most importantly they do not add anything in the way of size to the download. As soon as I get permission to use my daughter’s PC laptop I will start taking my files over to her computer and deleting they extra files before I upload it. I will probably not use the win rar program since that program can cause it’s own problems, so I will just continue to zip them. I can’t tell you what relief it is to find all of this out. I have tried everything I could think of but I kept getting reports of the strange files, now I know that you were getting ever part of the kit that you were suppose to. If any of you have a different problem I would like to hear of it so I can deal with it.

I hope to have more of Feelin SAS-y by Monday, I think we will be ready for QP’s from Feelin Wonderful by then, I had a few questions for Olga and as soon as I get the word you can start uploading and sharing them. We have close to 700 layouts on the member’s gallery already so stop by to get inspired. Enjoy!



The link is all fixed. Pat was right, I tested it the first time and it worked but when I pasted it in to the browser I left the http there. Right after I posted this I went to my little niece’s birthday party, I have gotten close to her lately and I started her scrapping her puppy album so there was no way I was going to miss her party. When I got home I was wiped out and for the first time in months I did not check my e-mail or comments right away. When I opened the comments I was mortified, thank goodness Pat had it figured out, thanks much Pat. Hopefully things will go smoothly from here. Have a nice weekend.
Download Feelin SAS-y Part 2 Here.
Reactivated 9-27

Funky files screen shot- Delete the duplicate files with an _underscore in front of the names and the Bridge files (explanation above)

Thursday, August 16, 2007

Exciting Announcement and Good News

I was trying to get the next part of Feelin SAS-y up for you today but that did not work out. I took me two days to recover after pulling the all nighter Sunday night getting ready for our big announcement. I spent Monday and Tuesday organizing all of the things that were basically thrown in a ‘pile” in my computer, then Tuesday night I was getting everything sorted on the right docs when my power went out. OMGosh, it was 104 degrees here, but I decided that before the house warmed up I would try to catch up on the housework that I have neglected for 6 weeks, so I got a lot of that done and ended up doing my dishes by candlelight (how romantic huh…LOL) By then the house was down right hot so I took a nice cool bath and decided that since there was nothing I could do in the dark I might as well go to bed, but since it would be too hot I was seriously considering sleeping in the tub and changing the water as it warmed up (it sounded like a good idea at the time.) Just about the time I had settled in the lights came back on. Unfortunately I did lose some of the docs that I had open but I was just glad to have power. Now that I have all of the big things done I think that I can slow down a bit, I really did not think I could have kept at the pace I was working at much longer, so I am relieved that I can relax a bit. Everyone that talked to me a few weeks ago and that has talked to me in the last few days says that I am talking a LOT slower than I was…LOL, were they trying to tell me something??... ROFLOL

I have a very exciting announcement for you, I have the creative teams together and I am thrilled at the talented and enthusiastic people that have joined the SAS team. It is a bit confusing because some of the people on my team are going to be helping out on the store team for a while because there is so much to do and also because I STILL have not had a chance to design much so I do not have anything for them to scrap. So here is the list of the SAS-y Girls, and the JulieO creative team (I need a better name for them) The SAS-y Girls are the store team and they will not only be scrapping layouts and stuff they will also be involved in they activities that are going on the forum and many of them have special talents and skills the I hope they can up to good use in the forum. So with this announcement the Stone Accents Studio Team is complete!!


These are suppose to blink but I do not know how to make that happen here so you will have to go to their blog to see the cool blinkies that Lori made for me, that girl is too good to me...LOL

Introducing the SAS-y Girls
Boo
Nighty
Jasia
Jean.
Pat
Kyda
Lee B
Linda



JulieO’s Creative Team
Astrid
Michaela SAS-y Girl/JO
Nanc SAS-yGirl/JO
Nicole
Rebecca
Sasha

It was really cool when I went by their blogs and saw my name in lights so to speak…LOL. I linked to the ones that have blogs so you can stop by and say “Hi”

Monday, August 13, 2007

Feelin SAS-y

I was Feelin Wonderful but now I’m Feelin SAS-y because today
Stone Accents Studio is Pleased to Announce
The SAS-y Ladies Stone Accents Studio’s Design Team



All of the SAS-y Ladies have special treats planned for you today and I know that Candee has been working like a woman on a mission to put together a special contest for you in the SAS forum.
Blogger is being a BAD BAD blog and will not let me put my list of links up so I will list them here
Candee @ Mermaid's Haven
Phreephorm @ Phreephormpsr BlogSpot
Digitreats @ Princess Pamela
Pillow Girl Pillowgirl's Scraps
Terrell @ Wait it Gets Better
Kara @ Kara PerrienDesigns
Sherah @ Skrapper Digitals
And Julie Cohen from Australia who does not have a blog yet

To celebrate today’s announcement I have Feelin SAS-y for you, this kit has been on my mind for a while, but working on the site and putting the teams together for what seem like 24 hours a day got in the way of my designing. The last big important item I took care of was putting the Creative Teams together. Lori my assistant (I still think it is a hoot that this little SAHM has an assistant…ROFLOL) did a great job gathering all of the links and the scrapper in her decided to present them in layout form…LOL, it took me most of the weekend to get letters out to all of the applicants but it is finished, if you applied and have not heard from me that probably means that in all of the craziness your application may have gotten lost, so contact me if that is the case.
I actually started this kit at about 6:00 Sunday night and it is now 9:00 Monday morning and I have not been to bed yet. I have lots more planned but I am going to take it a little easy for the next couple of days. I am probably not going to know what to do with myself now that I will not have to type all day. With the store opening soon (right after Labor Day) I will still have a lot to do, I think I will have to find my new “normal.” Well be sure check out all of the SAS-y Ladies blogs and freebies their links are on the right and then stop by the forum to see what we have planned for the contest and all of the other things going on there. I am fading fast and still have a few things to do before I can get to bed, I hope you are Feelin a bit SAS-y yourself today, Enjoy!




Download part 1 of Feelin SAS-y Here

Friday, August 10, 2007

Final Part of Feelin Wonderful

I was trying to get this up yesterday but we had something happen in the forum that ate up a bunch of my time. As some of you may have noticed the post count went whacky. We have no idea of why it happened, no one pushed the wrong buttons or anything so at this point it is a mystery. I have a post about it in the forum so if you go by there please read it. I promised you some more beadwork and here it is,
I think this will round out this mega kit wonderfully. Most of you know how much I LOVE clusters, I was going to try to get a few of them together but I ran out of time, but I would love it if some of you post what you have made in the gallery.

Today is the first month anniversary for Stone Accents Studio’s (SAS)
I can’t believe all that has happened in the last month, the forum has so many great threads going and there is so much involvement there. We have a lot of member galleries with so many beautiful layouts from my kits as well as using other designers. The last three weeks have been a whirlwind for me with putting all of the teams together, I am so happy and grateful for all of the people that want to be involved in various ways. Lori has gathered all of the CT applicant’s links and we are going to spend the weekend putting the store and my CT together and we hope to be able to let everyone know by Sunday night.
Now for the really big news, I know there is a lot of talk out there about who is on the design team and I had hoped to be able to share this earlier but I wanted to make sure everything was in place before we told you. We will have everything in ready by Monday so one way or another will have the official unveiling of the Stone Accents Studio Design Team on Monday. We have some great activities planned next week in the forum so be sure to stop in and check them out
I think all of this caught up with me because I have a cold or something, I feel all achy and yucky so I am going to relax a bit this weekend and hopeful I will throw this off. There is no bonus today, but I think you have plenty of things to work with for the QP call, we will get that started next week, so get to work girls…LOL Enjoy and Hugs.



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Wednesday, August 8, 2007

I Am Feelin Wonderful Again

I think I hit a wall last night and the last month or so of crazy activities caught up with me, so I got to bed before 3:00, slept late and woke refreshed,

Today’s download is a mix of colors, papers and embellies. With all of the papers I made I have had a heck of a time trying not to give you duplicates, so if I did I am sorry, but I spent a lot of time trying not to. I almost forgot to give you the scalloped envelopes tops for the “Mix’N’ Match” envelopes so they are in this download.

The mystery SAS design Team members have done some fine beadwork, I actually have some in the works so you have a lot of types of beads to work with. All of the embellishments in the separate preview today were done by another mystery design team member. I have been so pleased with the work they have done and I really look forward to all of us putting our creative skills to work on our first Mega Kit. There is a bonus in the forum again, the alpha was done by the same designer that made most of the embellies for yesterday’s download. With the DST boards down yesterday and I think today still, traffic has been a bit light here, so tell your friends to come on by and get all of theses freebies.

I wish I had the time to do a proper preview for today and someday I would love to have a preview of the whole kit, that would probably need a few pages since it is so huge, but maybe I will get a chance someday.

When you go by the forum and gallery you will see a lot of changes thanks to our Web-Master Olga9999, she has all the skills that I totally lack and she is whipping the place into shape. Lori my assistant is helping me round up the links for the Creative Teams and we should have that worked out soon. The choices will be difficult because of the high quality of work, but with 2 CTs we should find a place for everyone, we just need to figure out what they all want to do and get them plugged in to the right place.

Janalyn, who is Sheri and my girl Friday, is helping me with the posting contest. It turned out to be a big job to keep up so she is helping me to figure out who we hand all of those free coupons out to. BTW SAS’s one-month anniversary is Friday the 10th so we hope to have all of the coupon winner’s names available and we will have the coupons to you in time for our big Grand Opening.
There will be more wonderful embellishments form another design team member tomorrow. I still have to work on the newspaper and a dozen other things (my DH thinks dinner would be nice…ROFLOL) so it will probably be early evening by the time they are hear. Start making your quick pages, we should be ready for them next week. I can hardly wait to see all of the great combinations you come up with from this Mega Kit. Enjoy!





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Part 5 coming soon

I was going to try to get part up 5 tonight but I think the last week just caught up with me. Besides dealing with all the things for the store I also have to do the layout for the newspaper and half dozen ads. Today just was not one of my best, but what can I say the past month has been one good day after another so I can’t complain. I am actually going to bed before 2:30 for a change. I will try to get part 5 up by early afternoon. I have some papers with a bit of a color shift and some more embellies from a soon to be reveled designer, so come back later. Hugs.
Julieo

Monday, August 6, 2007

Feelin Wonderful 4 and a little hint

If you have been reading my blog you know how busy I have been. I have typed more in the last two weeks than I have in my entire life put together! So many plans to be made and e-mails flying back and forth through cyberspace. It seems like I have been typing 14-16 hours a day forever. But so many good things have happened it has all been worth it. I still can’t tell you who is on the design team yet, but over the next few days I will be giving you some hints in the way of embellishments. Because I have been so busy I have not been able to do what I LOVE, which is to design, and share the goodies with you guys. As I told you earlier I made over 50 papers for Feelin Wonderful, I started with a color palette to tie it together but I have tried to give you a variety of styles in the papers and embellishments so that this kit could be used for everything from weddings to parties, and from formal to playful. Even thou this is one kit, I think the color range and combinations make it so that you could mix and match to your hearts content and every page would look different. But because I have been so busy I have not had time to finish the embellishments. So I asked some of the Stone Accents Studio (SAS) design team to help me out. Most of the embellishments for the rest of the week will have been made by a soon to be named Stone Accents Studio (SAS) design team member.
It has only been sheer excitement that has keep me going some days, I don’t think I have ever worked this hard in my life, but it seems that every day one more piece falls into place. I got a great response to the call for assistants for myself and Sheri who is in charge of advertising. There was so much talent and enthusiasm I could not settle on just two so I ask three wonderful people to join the team, After today they will be taking much of the load off of me so I can focus on designing, Lori 1941 my right hand girl, e-mailed me today to “nag” me because I had not sent her anything to do yet…LOL. The reason I hadn’t done it was because I was so dang busy I didn’t have time…ROFLOL. So anyway, things will ease off and I am extremely grateful to everyone.
I want to let the creative team applicants know that starting tomorrow Lori and I will be downloading and checking out your layouts. So I hope that within a few days we can get the store creative team and my CT together and you guy can start scrapping away. It is not too late to apply. My creative team will mainly be scraping layouts from my new designs and the store team will be helping the design team and taking part in activities and contests in the forum, so if you are interested in either team let me know.
I could go on and on but I will be back tomorrow with more of Feeling Wonderful, there will also be more embellishments from SAS’s design team and a bit more of an update. Thanks so much for coming by and Enjoy! JulieO



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Wednesday, August 1, 2007

Some New Flowers and a Big Update

Wow, What a week, there have been so many exciting things happening. I wish I could share them all with you now, but I have to keep some secrets for just a while longer (what a tease…huh.) I hope you are not getting sick of this kit yet because I have a lot more ideas and papers for it. I think the flowers I have today are my favorite ever. These new flowers should add a lot of versatility to the kit since they are a bit more formal than the more playful ones in the other parts. I just love the floral paper that I placed below the flower in the sneak peek I gave you last night. I am going to try to get that one to you in another color combination for this kit. Start getting those QPS ready because I will be doing a call for them next week, but do not send them yet as we have a lot of other things to do first.

I want to tell you all how much I enjoy being able to share this experience with you. I have been a SAHM for over 20 years. When I was home schooling the kids we got involved in a lot of the HS activities and I had some outlets for “adult conversation” (not THAT kind silly…LOL) After they went off to school I got involved with a few clubs and guilds for the crafts I did, knitting, spinning yarn, quilting and of course scrapping. After I shattered my elbow I dropped out of them, for one thing I was unable to drive for a long time and most importantly it was not much fun watching people do the things I couldn’t do anymore. Between that and all of my kids moving out to start their own lives it has been a bit lonely. But NOW I have you guys and this exciting venture I have started and that so many of you want to be a part of. I have to say I am so sorry that I have not been able to spend much time in the great forum and gallery that is growing by leaps and bounds. I will be forever grateful to all of you wonderful people that have been so busy and so helpful there. Once I get everything in place my goals are to spend my days designing and hanging out in the forum (and doing a load of laundry now and then…LOL.)

For any of you that have applied for a position, and has not heard for me either for the first time or as a follow-up, that is what I am going to focus on for the next few days. I do not want to bore the rest of these folks with all of that information so I put some things for you to read below today’s download. I have some information for anyone that has applied or that is considering it, so please read that for some news



I woke up to the news this morning that there is still a problem with the bonus download that I had up that I had up Wednesday and Thursday. I am temporarily suspending the download. I will make it available with the next part of Feelin Wonderful. Sorry for any trouble. Now I am going to go have some coffee and answer a ton of e-mails. JulieO

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I am in desperate need of a personal assistant to help with so many things that will need to be done in the next few weeks and after the store opens. I am looking for someone that can give this a lot of time and dedication, you will basically be working for “scraps” for now, but if things go the way I hope then that could change. The other things you will get out of it is a lot of experience and the opportunity to get in on the start of something special, not just the store but also the community that is already taking shape in the forum. And hopefully we would have some fun working together. Do not apply for this position if you cannot give it a lot of time and effort for the next few months at least. If you are interested please mark your e-mail with the subject “”Personal Assistant” and send it to stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com

For anyone that applied for the co-administration positions, I have filled the web master and advertising positions. The people that are taking on those jobs have a lot of experience and education in those fields. I am sorry if I did not e-mail you personally but I have so many things going on I am just trying to keep all of the “balls in the air.” but I will be writing you soon.

To those of you that applied for designer positions. I still have a few decisions to make and you will hear from me soon. Creative team applicants you are next. I need a personal creative team and one for the store so I will contact you very soon to see if you are still interested. I promise I will be getting with everyone in the next few days.

We are looking for someone to work with the advertising coordinator, this woman has a million and one ideas and there is not enough time in the day to take care of them. I can guarantee that if you work with her you will learn a lot and also get a lot of experience and have the chance to get involved in all of the activities we have planned for the forum. (and some free scraps.) If you would like to apply for this e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com with the subjest line Advertising.

I would like someone to help out the web master as she is on the other side of the world and we can’t always plan Internet disasters for when she is awake. This position would involve helping out with the forums and possibly the store. Again it is a for scraps position along with a lot of experience and the chance to help shape our forum and to be a part of what I am sure will be a great team. If you have some experience in web managent and would be interesed, e-mail me at stoneaccentsstudio@hotmail.com with the subject line Web manager.

Thank you everyone from the bottom of my heart, I am so touched that so many have offered to help, big HUGS! Julie

A Sneak Peek

Just in case you came by early I wanted to give you a sneak peek of what you will be getting a little later today. I was trying to get part 3 of Feelin Wonderful before I went to bed, but I am not going to make it. I have been working on getting ready for Stone Accents Studio Grand Opening about 14-16 hours a day for the last week. I will have some exciting news for you soon. I have to get to bed NOW so see you a bit later