December Recap

Happy Wednesday and the last day of 2014. Where did the year go? It seems like it flew by but overall it has been a pretty good one.  It started snowing here on Monday and we are in the deep freeze now. It was -19 this morning. Hopefully it will get above freezing again soon.
Thankfully it has been a much better month than November was. Etsy orders continue to keep me busy. My winter Onederland theme continues to be a popular one.
We celebrated both Hanukkah and Christmas.

and went to the Illuminations Drive Thru Light Show in Larkspur

 

It was nice to see the lights without freezing. Here is a little video. The drive there was long and not really worth the 10 minutes of lights but it was still fun. 

Emilia got some holiday money from her grandparents and used it to highlight her hair which is something she has wanted to do for a while now.
I don't have anything crafty to share this month so I am going share this from Emilia instead. This year Emilia had a cupcake calendar that came with a different cupcake recipe for each month. She made all the cupcakes for the whole year. I think she did a great job. Which one is your favorite? Mine is December.

That's all for now. I hope you enjoy your last day of 2014 and 2015 is a good one for you filled with peace, love and happiness.

November Recap

Happy Sunday and last day of November. I am really glad this month is almost over because it has not been a very good one.
It all started the beginning of the month when my left leg started itching. I didn't think much of it until the next day when I saw bites. They were itchy and painful and kept appearing for days after that but nobody else had them. I ended up washing and vacuuming everything I came in contact with but I never saw any bugs and I still don’t know what bit me. Whatever it was seems to be gone now. I just hope it stays away.

After that out new dishwasher was not working right and in the process blew the fuse to the furnace on the coldest day of the year. I didn’t find out it was the dishwasher that caused it until after the heater people came. Turns out they were both on the same fuse. We were without a dishwasher for a week waiting for them to come and replace it. We thought it was fried but turns out it was okay just needed to be put on a different breaker. When the heater people were here for the furnace they discovered Black Widow Spiders in my crawl space  though so I then I had to have an exterminator come. 

Last week I found out my Citibank credit card that I have had for over 20 years was hack for a 4^th time this year. This time it was a huge charge and the credit card company didn’t catch it. They really didn't seem to care that it keeps happening either so I canceled the card. Another case of bad Customer Service.

I have also been dealing with crazy buyers again.  This one called me an ignorant asshole because I could not make something for her in the time she needed it. Why do people have to be so rude?

My shoulder is giving me problems again and is making it hard to breath sometimes now. The doctor we have now is not very helpful. All she wants to do is give me a cortisone shot which I don't want. We are trying to decide if we want to stay with our current health insurance or switch. They are raising the rates on us. I thought healthcare was suppose to be affordable now??
We had a major problem with one of Emilia's online teachers. She gave her an F on an outline stating that she did not follow directions. Turns out the directions she wanted her to follow were not in the unit where the outline was suppose to be done. Emilia was very upset about it and when I asked the teacher to let her do it over she refused and was very nasty to me in the process. Thankfully I was able to talk to someone over her and he was very helpful. He was in agreement that Emilia should have had a chance to do it over and we have a new teacher now who is great.

Lastly if you are are a regular reader of my blog you probably read what happened in my last post. Thanks for all the support. So far I have found some good replacements for the PTI Cardstock from My Favorite Things and Avery Elle. They both have comparable colors and weight for most of the colors I need except for Spring Rain and Hibiscus. If anyone knows of a good match for those 2 colors please let me know. I hope to do a comparison post on Cardstock next month.

Even with all these problems I am still trying to focus on the positives though especially since this was the month to be most Thankful. Even though it may not seem like it after this post I do still have a lot to be thankful for.
Before I go I will leave you with this photo. I made the hat for this dog a few months ago and just love the photo the buyer sent me of him wearing it.Looking at that photo always makes me smile, I hope you enjoy it too.  I will be back again next month with more to share then. Here is to hoping it will be a much better month!

With Great Sadness - Papertrey Ink Buyer Beware!

 This morning I woke up to this horrible email.

Terri,
I am one of the owners of this company. Nichole does not handle customer service but would fully support my decision as it is based on our policies. While we appreciate your business very much, you obviously believe we owe you something for shopping with us. We offer high quality products at a low price, we offer FREE shipping if you order $70 or more, and we reward customers with 1 dollar worth of merchandise for every $25 spent. That is what we offer our most loyal customers.
We follow the policies posted on our website as that is the only way to treat people fairly and with respect. Terri, I worked very hard to get the paper for you and that was obviously not enough. So be it. I realize customers feel like they can treat the companies they shop with like slaves, and then threaten them if they don't get their way, it is now a societal norm. You feel as though you have the right to demand something from us which goes against our policies for whatever justifiable reason. When someone says no, you keep writing emails to try and get your way and justify your position. Terri, we do not ship products for free because you just placed an order and now you don't want to pay for shipping to order something else. No one knew when the paper was coming into stock, if you were that worried about it, Terri, you should have waited. I guess if I hadn't begged the manufacturer for the paper to be sent to us immediately, we wouldn't even be having this conversation, however, I was under the impression you needed it as soon as possible so I did whatever I could to make sure the paper would get to us as soon as possible. Had I known any of this would happen, I wouldn't have bothered to call them. So basically you are upset with me because I made sure we got the paper too soon for you because you had placed an order a couple of days before, it is very frustrating and leaves a person wondering if they should ever go the extra mile for a customer. This situation may be sufficient evidence that no matter what a company does it is not enough. If every time we put something in stock and had to ship it for free to the people that would have ordered it in a previous order had it been available, we would be out of business. Therefore, we can't offer something to you and not offer it to all of our customers, that would absolutely be unfair and unethical.
I realize the politically correct thing for companies to do is to kowtow to their customers and apologize profusely for something they didn't do wrong and go on and on about how the customer is always right. We have respect for this company, ourselves, our customers and the products that we sell. I refuse to allow customers to bully me or anyone in this company because they feel they should have special rights and privileges because they shop with us. Terri, we don't owe you anything. You buy products that you enjoy using and we send them to you. We do everything in our power to ensure you get your money's worth when you purchase from us by offering high quality innovative products. Terri, I have not been disrespectful to you, you have been disrespectful to us with your demands. If you do not feel like our company policies meet your needs, you can shop somewhere else. I know that people like to demand special treatment and have companies bow down to their demands, there are plenty of companies that will give you that pleasure.
Thanks, Terri. You may not understand how much we are truly grateful for you business because generally people associate companies kowtowing to them as a way to show appreciation. I am sorry if you feel as though I have overstepped my bounds as customer service is supposed to just take the hit and pretend like you have just been so wonderful no matter how badly you have treated me as a person and the blatant disregard you have for our company policies.
Thanks, I truly wish you all the best in your future endeavors.
Take care,
Julie Heskamp
Customer Service
Papertrey Ink

After reading that email I decided it was time to say goodbye so I tried to post this in the Papertrey Forum but it was removed before anyone could see it. I am hoping that those of you from the forum that follow my blog will take the time to read this. If you know of another way for me to get my post seen by more forum members please let me know. Everyone there should see this so they know what kind of people they are doing business with. 

This is the post I wrote. 

I didn’t want to bring this here but I feel I have no choice now. I have been a Papertrey Ink Customer since 2007 and have continued buying from this company and supporting them even with all their problems. For the past few weeks I have been waiting for the Silver Shimmer Cardstock to come back in stock. I have contacted CS numerous times to see when it would be back in and each time Julie would give me a date but it still was not restocked by then. I was in desperate need of this color for my business and thankfully many of you kind forum members were willing to sell me what you had in the meantime which I was very grateful for. I place large orders at least once a month and was holding off as long as I could so I get everything at once and the free shipping that comes with it. I contacted CS one more time for another ETA on it and was told by Julie that she would finally call on Monday to see what was going on. I went ahead and placed my order on Sunday because I thought it was going to be even longer until they got it in and I needed the other things. I was told it finally came in 1 day after I placed my order. I politely asked if they would waive the shipping this time since I had just placed my order and it had already gone out but was told that was not possible. She then told me that I was bullying her into changing their policies. I never did that and it was never my intention. She also stated that she went out of her way to make the call to get it which I appreciated but why was that not done weeks earlier?  I was very hurt by her response. I ended up buying enough cardstock to get the free shipping and was going to let it go but I still was not happy about how I was treated and it was weighing heavily on me so I decided to try and contact Nichole about this since she is supposed to be an owner of this company. I posted a message in the forum yesterday for her to contact me because I did not know any other way to contact her. She responded by saying the only way to get a message to her was to send it through CS which I was trying to avoid because that was the problem. I finally decided to send the message with her name in the subject line like she told me to do. This morning I got a reply from Julie saying that Nicole does not deal with CS issues and she went on to be very mean and hurtful. I am so upset right now and feel that I cannot continue to do business with them anymore. The biggest problem is that I am going to have to find other cardstock to replace what I have when I run out and I know that is not going to be easy. If anyone here knows where I can get comparable cardstock specifically color and weight please let me know. I am assuming that this thread will be locked once it is seen by them so if you are reading this before it happens you can contact me at Terrbear38@gmail.com.  To be treated this way by a business owner is absolutely unacceptable, especially after being such a loyal customer.  It greatly saddens me that Nicole Heady is just a face. Tears are falling down my face as I write this I am going to miss all of you.

Terri

Hopefully my next post will be a happier one.

October Recap

Happy Halloween and last day of October. Fall has finally arrived here and the leaves on the trees are falling everywhere. The colors are beautiful though.
The month started out with my Mother's 70th birthday on the 8th.  This is the card I made for her.

 I have been wanting to use the Stitched Sentiments set from Papertrey Ink  for awhile now and finally got the chance to use it. I got some inspiration from Pinterest and went from there. My mom loved it. Celebrating this birthday was not only a big milestone but a miracle that she was actually able to live to see it after what happened to her last year.
The middle of the month I had a huge order from a buyer in Florida. She ordered a bunch of nautical themes items but particularly loved my boat favors so much she talked me into 40 of them. Normally I would never make that many especially in so little time because they all have to be folded by hand  but she begged me. I was not sure I was going to be able to get them done because of my shoulder but it held up pretty well I did have to take a lot of antinflamatories though. . I also ran out of ink and the printer broke in the process but in the end I was able to get them all done in time.  This is what all 40 look like together. It was hard to get them all in the photo but you can see it was a lot.

When I saw the Make It Market Kit Tinsel and Tags by Betsey Veldman at Papertrey Ink I knew a snowglobe favor would be the perfect addition to my winter ONEderland Party theme,
This is what I came up with.

 It matches the winter ONEderland House centerpiece I made last year and shared in this post. On the back you will find this.  These would make great favors for the guests to take home.

    Unfortunately the kit only came with 2 tiny white trees though. When I went on a search for more I could not find any small enough. I posted about it in the Papertrey Forum and was lucky to find Susan who was able to make some for me to match. They are the just perfect and I am very grateful for her help.
That's all for now. I hope your Halloween is a good one if you are celebrating tonight. I will be back with more to share next month. 
                                                                                                                  

September Recap

Happy Tuesday and last day of September . It was still feeling like summer here the last couple of weeks. That all changed yesterday though. We had torrential rain and much cooler temperatures. It is suppose to be like that for the next few days too. At least I won't have to run the AC.
What a crazy month. It all started with Rich going on a vacation by himself to what I would call the middle of nowhere. (Big Ben State Park in Texas). This is someplace he has wanted to go for awhile It turns out it was so isolated there was very little cell service or contact which I was not happy about but there was nothing I could do about it so I just tried to go on with my week but that turned out to be a challenge.
The day after Rich left Lily got sick I woke up to what I thought was her throwing up but it turned out she had a terrible cough that came out of nowhere. I watched her for a few hours but she was not getting any better so my sister came over and we took her to the emergency vet, After waiting over an hour at the emergency vet they could not find much wrong with her and sent her home with cough meds and something for her stomach which didn’t make any sense. When we got her home I noticed when she would try to lay her head down she would do this retching thing. It was very scary to watch and she had a bad night. I called the vets office in the morning to talk to the vet I took her to when she had her foot surgery but he never called me back so we had another bad night, I finally got him to call me back on Tuesday morning but was not very nice. I ended up sending him some videos of what she was doing and after seeing them he was going to prescribe something else for her a but thankfully my home vet called and told me to give her children’s Mucinex instead and thankfully that solved the problem. I would never have thought to give her something like that but thankfully it worked. 
 In the meantime my mother had gone to the doctor because she had been holding a lot of water and when she got there the doctor did an EKG and thought she had a heart attack. She then insisted she go in to the hospital again. I had to talk to the doctor myself because my sister will not talk to her doctor because she had a bad experience with her in the past to make sure my mother heard her right and she did. After talking my mother's doctor told me the EKG showed some changes that made her think that and her sodium levels were very low so my mother agreed to go back to the hospital to be evaluated again so my sister took her over.  Her doctor was supposed to call the orders in but when they got to the hospital they had to start all over again before they would admit her and that took over 5 hours. Thankfully after more tests they decided she did not have a heart attack but had to get her sodium levels back under control so they kept her overnight.  On top of that my prescription antinflamatories that I had ordered before Rich left still were not filled so I had to call the doctor’s office to see what was going on with that. I finally got the doctor to refill it but it took over 2 weeks before it arrived and I ran out not good when you are dealing with chronic pain. Thankfully we made it through the rest of the week without anymore major problems and Rich made it home safely. 
During that time I had a big order to do. The buyers last name was Dots and their daughter loved their red polka dot coffee mugs and dogs so I put a new spin on the dog themed items and this is what I came up with.

I love how everything came out but I especially like the dog shaped favor boxes. The tops are personalized with a thank you from the birthday girl.  I don't know what the buyer ended up putting in them but I think they would be great for dog shaped cookies. 
One last thing  before I go. Below is photo one of my buyers shared with me of her dog Pixie wearing the party hat I made her. Isn't she adorable?

I hope your last day of September is a good one. I will be back next month with more to share then.