Jeune Girl Update

It's been almost a week since my last update! I know many of you are wondering what I've been up to and I'm happy to say that I've been BUSY. BUT... I've been busy STARTING a bunch of name albums. Unfortunately, I haven't FINISHED any this week to show you. The reason is that I have been having some issues with my sewing machine (first it didn't work and then I needed new thread) so all of my mats for the albums are in sewing limbo right now. Once I finish the mats I will be ready to ship them out. I'm expecting to have all the albums that I'm working on finished and in the mail by Tuesday so keep checking back here to see photos of the finished products.

I will be appearing this Wednesday from 7-9 at the Community room at the Poughkeepsie Galleria for a gathering of Mothers of Multiples. I will have a table with items for sale and will also be taking custom orders at that time. Hope to see some of you! You don't have to be a Mother of Multiples to stop by... just bring your own kids and some of your friends LOL just kidding... everyone is welcome!

I am happy to report that my web designer worked overtime for me this weekend and fixed the glitch I was having with the mailing list requests. If you haven't signed up to be on my mailing list, please do so! I have some great mailing list exclusive deals. If you're not on the list, you don't get the deals!

Meanwhile, here is a lunch box I made as a custom order for the woman who runs Catrina's playschool. She received one as a teacher gift last Christmas and loves hers (says she keeps it in her bathhroom with soaps in it) so she wanted to have me make one for a friend who has a patriotic theme throughout her house.

Jeune Girl is Going International

Actually through the power of Ebay I have had a few international orders (I've sent things to France, Sweden, England, Korea, Canada and Australia to name a few) but this time I have been working closely with a sweetheart in Canada who won an Ebay auction for one of my name albums. She then asked me to custom make 4 other albums for her. It turns out she is giving two of them to two little girls (ages 3 & 5) who are being treated for cancer. This woman is a real angel and I'm so happy to be helping her give something special to these girls.

And another reminder, I will be accepting orders for Christmas gift name albums until October 20th. Other custom gifts will still be available after that date. Email me for ordering details.

Jeune Girl Website Info

This week I received a few Jeune Girl mailing list requests through my website. For some reason, the contact information that is supposed to be attached to the request wasn't attached to the request. If you plan on joining my email list through my website, you need to include your contact information (email address) in the space provided. I have mentioned this to my web-designer (as he poured his coffee this morning.... hey, it takes a staff to run a scrapbooking empire) and he hopes to fix this glitch.

If you haven't joined my mailing list but would like to, please contact me at meg@jeunegirl.com. You will receive emails with exclusive discounts (once a month if you're lucky.... I definitely don't send those out as much as I blog so you won't be bombarded with unwanted emails!)

Well, I can't do a post without a photo and I figured I'd be festive with this Halloween layout I made last year. I do hope to get more Halloween layouts done and listed on Ebay sometime this week.

Breast Cancer Awareness Month

As many of you know, October is "Breast Cancer Awareness Month". I was approached this summer by Carole Trone, co-founder of an organization called "Crickett's Answer for Cancer", to decorate a lunch box tin & mini-album with the theme of "hope" in the traditional breast cancer awareness color of pink. I was happy to do this for her organization.

Here is an exerpt from the Mission Statement of the organization:

Crickett’s Answer for Cancer is a nonprofit corporation formed in memory of Crickett Julius, who passed away in October of 2006, 4 months after being diagnosed with metastatic breast cancer at the age of 39. Her family created Crickett’s Answer for Cancer to ensure that women with breast cancer have access to wigs, mastectomy products, facials, and other pampering services, as a way to feel feminine and beautiful despite losing their hair and/or breasts.

This item will be added to the already large inventory of hand crafted items available for purchase through their charity website.

Theeeeeeeeey're Heeeeeeeere!

All 18 name albums arrived safe and sound at my doorstep yesterday. I needed a forklift to pick it up... it weighed over 6 pounds!

I immediately went to work on a set for a local mom to give as gifts and they couldn't be any more opposite! They are obviously for 2 very different families!

I still have so much more work to do but I' m happy to be busy! I will be taking orders for more albums up until October 20th when I will be placing my final order for guaranteed Christmas delivery.

Happy Birthday QITM

QITM is my Ebay selling group and we're happy to be celebrating our 1st Birthday! I've been a member for almost the entire year and we now have 23 members! To honor this occasion, we're having a Birthday Celebration sale Oct 8th-15th where we will be featuring unique projects with a birthday theme. Here is a sneak peak at 2 listings I will be putting up (anyone interested in purchasing before the big listing, contact me before the 8th)


Both are a Birthday Boy theme:

We also just began our Halloween Spooktacular sale. This is NOT limited to Halloween crafts... it's just the title of our sale. We will be featuring lower listing prices, free shipping (on certain items) and great sale prices so please make sure to search QITM when you are at Ebay from now until Oct 31st for some great deals!

ETSY

I have had an Etsy shop (click here to see) for a little while and have kept a constant supply of crafts in stock. Etsy is a great site for crafters and artists to showcase their work away from the glare of other sites (like Ebay). I have wanted to do well on Etsy since their listing fees are much more reasonable and I love the look and feel of the site. Since I opened my Etsy shop I have only made a few sales and most of them outside of Etsy (someone would see something on Etsy but then contact me about customizing something). But now I am proud to say that I have made my 1st OFFICIAL Etsy sale. A woman came across the customizable word albums I have listed there and wanted me to make 2. The buying/selling process on Etsy is a little more involved than Ebay (Ebay: I see it, I like it, I buy it) and there is a dialogue that has to happen to ensure the buyer will be getting their item customized to their specifications.

I hope to grow my Etsy shop in the next few months as the holidays approach. This doesn't mean I'm abandoning my Ebay!! In October I will be having some great birthday, fall, and Christmas theme items listed.

This will be the last chance to order name albums with a GUARANTEED holiday delivery! I have to do these early. With the last order I had 18 albums ordered and I want to make sure I have the time and materials on hand to make your album unique and to your specifications.

These are absolutely precious. Anyone who receives these albums is sure to treasure it. Here are some photos of some past work:

Wall Letters.... Remember Them?

I almost don't! I was going through my old emails and ran across this photo sent to me earlier this summer showing the wall letters actually hung up in my client's home. It reminded me that I haven't done a set of these in a while. I think I have adult ADD ... I do somethings for a while and then I move onto another project. I love making wall letters and hope to get back into it again soon.

Scrapbooking Tip #8: Get Organized!

If I haven't said it yet I'll say it now.... most of these tips I think of are just an excuse to show off some of my latest work and this is no exception. My tip this week is about organization. I was having a conversation with a woman at my church yesterday about her daughters' photos and how she really wants to scrapbook them but they aren't organized. Her daughters are both teenagers and she hasn't started a scrapbook for them yet but she really wants to (I hear this A LOT).
One tip I gave her to begin getting organized is to divide each daughter's photos into themes. It would be overwhelming to do it chronologically (unless you're like my long-time customer, Jen, who recently gave birth to her FIRST DAUGHTER after several boys and she's getting off to a good start with her organization).

If you have older children and want to scrapbook key events I recommend 2 things: Themes (dance, soccer, school, vacations, holidays, birthdays) and mini-albums. With theme related scrapbooks and making smaller albums on one subject, the project becomes much less daunting. This example is for a client to give as a gift for her relative who loves her cat:

Finally, the best thing you can do to get organized is actually, the easiest tip of them all. Take your shoebox of photographs, drop it off at my house and in a few weeks it magically gets organized into a beautiful family keepsake.