Coming Soon

New Graphic 45.
They posted a sneak peak on their blog this morning! See it here.
I am already in love with the Christmas line.

FYI- We will be open on Friday, July 3rd but CLOSED on Saturday, July 4th.
Friday is the legal holiday but we will be celebrating with our families on Saturday. Plan to visit on Friday and see all of the new products. I have a couple of shipment notices that have told me what special things are coming next week...

New Basic Grey: Lemonade & June Bug

It's all here. Fun colors and patterns. Basic Grey arrived today.

Spaces available in Thursday class

For those of you who may have missed the June Card Club class, there is still space available in the class on Thursday, June 25 from 6pm- 8pm. Cost of the class is $28 and includes the cute little Changito Scuba stamp you see used here. Call to sign up (860) 684-2641.

FREE Online Photo Editing Class

Jessica Sprague is offering a FREE Online class beginning July 6th. I have taken classes from her in the past and they are awesome. You will learn so much and you can't beat the price!

Go Here to check it out.

Anyone looking for a kitten?

I was given the care of three little kitties this week and as you know, we have way too many here as it is. I am looking for good homes for them. The orange one may be spoken for, I'll know on Thursday. Please email me if you are interested.

So much going on

I have fallen behind with my posting and even missed this past weeks newsletter because we have had so much going on, it's hard to keep up. Let's see if I can cover everything in one blog post.

First of all, last weekend was our spring Customer Tag Sale and oh my goodness, we were mobbed! We had a ton of great stuff brought in to sell and had a huge group of people waiting in the parking lot for 11:00. Once they started shopping we didn't even have time to take potty breaks - it was a non-stop line of people at both registers until about 1:30. By then, we were almost totally wiped out! Normally, we start packing up the outside about 3:30 - but this time, there was almost nothing left outside by 2:00 so we packed up and brought it in and even got the tents down (before it started raining). By the end of the day there was very little to return to the vendors. Most just told us to donate it. We donated everything that was left over to the West Stafford Fire Dept. They are having a fundraising crop on June 13 and will be using the items as gifts and raffle prizes.

The ladies who participated in the Tag Sale were all VERY pleased with the amount of store credit they received with many of them taking home a hundred dollars or more (the big winner had more than $350)! Our next Tag Sale will be September 13th so start planning now.


Then yesterday was the first of two Fiskars Birthday Crops.

This year marks the 360th birthday of Fiskars products! To celebrate lead Fiskateer, Kelly Jo, arranged a birthday crop here at The Inspiration Station. We didn't even have time to advertise it. Kelly Jo gave the date to 2008 Fiskateer of the Year, Laura Casey, and within hours it had sold out! So we added another crop on June 20 which also sold out very quickly.

Kelly Jo brought a ton of great Fiskars products as gifts for the ladies and Laura surprised us all with a special gift. She contacted the First Selectman of Stafford, Allen Bacchiochi, and he officially proclaimed June 6, 2009 as Fiskars Day in Stafford Springs. It was a bit short notice so the official proclamation will be coming in the mail and we will proudly hang it in the store.

This is such a fun group of ladies! I can't wait until the next one on June 20th. Even though the crop is sold out, you can still come by the store that day and meet Kelly Jo and Laura. The Fiskateers are all so wonderful and they love sharing the Fiska-love.

Updated list of kitties

New products

Lots of new products are pouring in again. Below is a sneak peek at a project I am working on with the new Travel line from Little Yellow Bicycle.



We also received a big shipment of Prima flowers; a re-stock of stamps from Pink Cat Studio and the new Bo Bunny Popsicle line.

Magenta Cat of the Month Stamps

The June Cat of the Month from Magenta Rubber Stamps is Gaya. She is totally adorable and she is in stock.













In case you missed it, we also have the May Cat of the Month, Pasha available.

Remember: The Cat of the Month stamps are a Limited release. They will only be available for one year from the release date. After that they will be retired. The program started with March 2009 and if you missed any we can special order them for you - just ask!

D - day

Today is "D - day". Drop off day. If you have signed up to sell items at our Customer Tag Sale today is the day to drop off all of your marked goodies. If you can't make it in today, we will accept items tomorrow, however, we have a lot of work to do to organize everything before Sunday morning so we appreciate the earlier the better.

Passport reminder

Just a reminder that sign ups are underway for the 2009 Summer Passport. You must sign up before June 21 (Father's Day). We are ordering custom made albums for each participant and we need to know the exact number in order to prepare them. We are also making the page kits from scratch which takes a bit of time. In order to have everything ready for you on day one we have to cut off sign ups by June 21.

This is going to be a whole lotta fun and you don't want to miss it!

Tag Sale This Sunday

Get ready to shop 'til you drop! We have more than 15 craft addicts who are cleaning out their supplies and selling them at ridiculously low prices - This Sunday at our Customer Tag Sale.

What kind of deals can you find?
Everything!

Papers, stickers, rubberstamps, tools, trimmers, die cut systems and more!

The weather is supposed to be nice so we will have the tents set up out in the back lot so we can spread out. We have even gone through some of our own overstock and marked stuff down to get it out.

Get here early for best selection ( just NOT before 11am!) At 4:00pm we will pack everything up and it is over so don't miss it!

New Tim Holtz video

Our friend Tim has done it once again! He posted a new technique video on his blog this morning that you have to check out. In case you're wondering... Yes, we sell all of the supplies at The Inspiration Station including those stamps!

New Basic Grey

Basic Grey unveiled 2 new lines this morning; Lemonade and June Bug. I've already placed my order and will let you all know when it arrives.

Here's a peek at Lemonade:




And June Bug:

I live in a feral cat colony...

If you've been reading my blog for a while you know that we live on a farm surrounded by other farms and I swear the neighbors are breeding the feral cats. Since September I have trapped, neutered and vaccinated 5 kitties. This weekend 3 more appeared. They are all from the same gene pool, I'm sure, since they all look alike. Our companions is dropping off the traps again this afternoon so hopefully I can catch these as well. Two look very young and the third is a bit older, could be the Mama. I'll try to get a few pics up later today.