It's been four years since Kaleidoscope Cards and Crafts "officially" started selling supplies on eBay, and in August we will celebrate our fourth anniversary for Kaleidoscope Cards and Crafts's website. While there isn't a day that goes by that I don't think about how great it would be to have a retail location, I can't help but to feel fortunate that we haven't had to shut our doors, er, site, like so many of the stores and manufacturers around us.
Since November 2007, I have seen 9 local stores (that's ALL our local brick-and-mortar scrapbooking stores) close their doors, and at least 3 of my favorite manufacturers have either closed or are getting ready to close up shop. The latest casualty is one of my all-time favorites, Rusty Pickle. One of the first manufacturers that I ever carried, Rusty Pickle designed and manufactured supplies that truly catered to the one-of-a-kind scrapbookers.
Two of my favorite Rusty Pickle papers were "I Will Not Kiss Boys" and "Vintage Crayons."
Six months ago, the loss of Daisy D's made me think about all the themes I would love to see in the scrapbooking racks. I won't deny, I've now got a bucketful and have been working on designing the Kaleidoscope Cards and Crafts scrapbooking collections. Look for the first releases to occur in late 2010 or early 2011!
While scrapbooking, don't forget to support your local scrapbooking shop (or online shop). While convenience may draw you to your local Target or Walmart, it is the small, non-big-box shops which keep all the super-creative one-of-a-kind smaller manufacturers in business. And if the individuality and creativity of your scrapbooking layouts mean as much to you as they do to me, you truly value these manufacturers.
Some of my favorite manufacturers are:
QuicKutz (yes, they are a relatively small company, but with a BIG reputation!)
I know we've all heard the expression "on to bigger and better things", however I encourage everyone to seek out the smaller and better instead!
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