Maya Road and Me

innovation...

i wanted to share this picture of some of our photo corners. these are probably my favorite of the 4 sets we have - the bronze thick edges. what is awesome about ours is that you can set them with a hammer! just tap them on the backside and voila you are DONE! i can think of 100 things you can do with these but right now i am too pooped to do them LOL.

it is funny b/c the more i get into this business the LESS i have time to actually MAKE from my own stuff. isn't it ironic?

speaking of ironic, i am on some mailing lists for some scrapbooking stores and i got one of those weekly emails from a store this week. and what do i see on the newsletter - that they have maya road ribbons and stuff. which is kind of funny b/c i know that we haven't sold to them directly. i am the one looking at all of the invoices and that name (nor anyone like it) comes up at all. so it puzzles me where they got their MR stash. oh well. can't think about that right now.

i am thinking about taking up knitting to get away from scrapbooking - funny huh? having a hobby to get away from a hobby. i bought a cute kit at target (of course for 75% off) and it is sitting in my car taunting me whenever i am out running errands...

ah, other news, i have planned my trip for 4 days of not working on MR. i cannot wait!

the rewards...

... well i just got back from a "track workout" that i modified for what i could safely run at 10 pm at night in tx... it was a series of eight 200 meter sprints full out followed by a 200 meter jog in between. i like to mix these into my running workouts as they challenge me to do something different. they suck though when you are doing them and the goal is to finish the last one at close to the same pace you did the first one...

so my reward is that i am going to share with you some of our new CITY ribbons. here is another peek at some new stuff. again, monochromatic design in 7 fab colors. they are the perfect size at 1/2" wide for lots and lots of fun project. i hope you enjoy this peek! (smiles!)

LMK what you think of them.

ah the good life...

well MT is less than 2 weeks away. wowizers. can it be? there is so much to do that it is some what crazy when i think about it. ( i put a mini album of our maui trip from this time last year just to bring some "calgon-take-me-away" moments to my life.

but to help get my mind off of things, i am happy to report that i have gotten back on a regular running schedule and i still take the time to stay up late to watch the discovery channel shows on things like the deadly australian jelly fish and their powerful stings! LOL. and btw, i kicked BUTT at my soccer game yesterday.

i have decided that i am really going on vacation AFTER MT. just a couple of days where i can phsycially be close enough to MR to do anything. i picked out the place where we will go i think but i am going to keep it a secret until we actually do it! i just remind myself we have to get THROUGH the next 2 weeks and then i can breathe again...

my DH told me today that ppl from my former place of work ask how i am doing and tell him that they wished they had the guts to try what i am trying now. but i have a lot of help and support from my family and esp Deb. funny thing is that corporate world stays pretty much the same but when you work for yourself, you have to be one of those ppl that DRIVEs it the way you want it to go. there isn't someone to tell me to roll out of bed each day and work 12 hours on this but i do it b/c i want to.

i am rambling now - tomorrow i will get back to more sneak peeks! we have about 40 ribbons coming out and some KICKIN' new metal epoxy charms so stay tuned...

perks...

one of the perks of having your own scrapbooking wholesale company is the chance to make stuff you really love to us (and to fondle the merchanise LOL)... so i was going through our new stuff that just arrived and i pulled out some of these - our new chipboard sets! deb and i truly believe in a couple of things :

1. 1. quality (the type A personalities here)
2. 2. value - we have no qualms about being thrifty
3. 3. design and function

i am hoping to explain how the chipboard sets you see here fit all 3! these are the 2 chipboard sets we released at CHA summer.

there is the foundation set and the blossoms set. and YES they come in the super cute and functional Maya Road tins you see HERE (the tins are 4" x 6" x 1"). when we were talking about designing these, we wanted to offer consumers something neat and of great value. each set comes with 36 pieces but as an added bonus the FRAMES around each of those pieces for a total of 72 chipboard shapes you can use.

the pricing is very good too. you can get all of these - 36 shapes + the 36 frames + the tin for about $7 (dunno what it will cost in foreign countries so don't quote me on that). i have seen similar tin sizes being sold just plain for $3-$4 each!

and just for you blog stalkers, just WAIT to see what new sets we have for Memory Trends! (wink wink).

a teaser...

i am tired. too much to do. too little sleep. burning the candles at any end available. drinking lots of diet coke. running at 10 pm. working til 2 am on projects. but some eye candy for you blog readers - what we are planning for MT - enjoy!

new things...MT sneak peek!

MT is going to kill me i think. and Deb. i mean we have some KEWL stuff coming out but with getting everything done for the trade show and getting everything from the last trade show out, well let's just say i will need a vacation after this...

but for you faithful blog readers, i have a special treat. wanna see some new ribbons we have? check out the tin on the left... the black ribbon with the flowers - i am very excited about this new ribbon - we will have 7 colors and 4 styles - the one you see has monochromatic shades of RED (and 1 white) flowers on it! do you recognize this? this is our tin we released at CHA summer that the foam stamps and bottlecaps and chipboard come in... it is 4" x 6" x 1" but makes a KICK BUTT album or storage case with a bit of dress up (you can't even see the MR logo here b/c i covered it up with TAPE!)

wait til you see what else we got! (wink) - i love it all already but of course i am biased!

PS i love these cutie kids too!

must {sorta} love dogs...

so my inlaws were here last week visiting us and they brought with them the 2 most spoiled dogs i have ever seen. they are the kind of ppl who won't leave their dogs behind. i think i mentioned to them that they could consider kenneling their dogs when they come to see us or travel and they shot eye daggers at me like i was telling them to send their pooches to the dog pound or something...

but in the interest of family harmony, i gave the nod to my DH and them that they could bring sparkle and tessa (the two dogs) but at first i said they had to stay in the utility room (some background info, these two pups came for a visit like 5 years ago and one of them pooped on my carpet like 6 times in 1 weekend). i conceded again and said ok, the dogs could come but they had to stay in the tile aread of our house (which is about 40% of the house) but it was sort of sad/funny/ironic to see my FIL standing in the kitchen with the pups on leashes talking to us while the rest of us were in the carpeted living room. so i finally gave in again that they could be in the living room only (hence these pics of them lounging around on the carpet).

there are a lot of dog stories i can tell you from this past week but i think that what i had to learn here was how to adapt in a dog family. my family was never a dog family. i had one pet ever- a duck named jack when i was growing up (yes a duck , a white duck). and honestly i have disliked dogs ever since one attacked me when i was 6 on a farm in NJ and threw me on the ground. i think i feared dogs (big or small). i don't think it was until after college that i became ok with them.

but i know how important it is for my DH to see his parents so i compromised a lot. and the two pups were pretty well behaved (except when one of them thought i wasn't looking and she jumped on my couch and i yelled and she jumped back down). what has become of me - miss hard nosed - don't back down for anything? sigh. i must be getting old and soft in my old age.

i might invite them back for a visit and tell them not to bring my inlaws (just kidding!)

getting old...

i had my first soccer game of the season today...i wish i could say i felt and played as well as i seem in this pic (but this pic is from last year) but i didn't. i felt sluggish and i know exactly why. maya road has taken up a lot of my time in the last 9 months. so much so that my other hobbies have taken back seat. i don't run the 30+miles a week i used to. i didn't play soccer this summer.

and now i am paying for it. i breathe a bit harder and don't run as far without feeling tired and honestly that makes me mad. it is also a wake-up call to me that i need some balance. it has been a LONG time since my DH and i have taken a vacation not related to a trade show. it has been a long time when i didn't think about work for 1 day. it has been a long time since i have run a 15k or even gone shopping for cute clothes on sale(that is a hobby of mine too LOL).

so i need to give some focus. i won't let one more email or one more design get in my way of going for a 3 mile run or 200 meter sprints anymore b/c i refuse to let myself be winded in soccer anymore...

not much to say today...

so this pic captures how i feel!

my hometown...

it was a year ago almost to the day that i got a chance to go back to my home town - new york city. i left there a long time ago - elementary school when my dad decided it was too cold and we moved south. what a change that was going from a city of diversity to another one where people asked me almost daily if i was related to the other 3 asian kids that were in the same school (yes on my sister but um no to the other kids who were asian but not chinese).

i miss new york in my mind. we used to go back for 10 days every christmas when we would drive from the carolinas to new york. i used to get so excited to see the statue of liberty esp when NJ felt like the biggest state with the longest turnpike EVER when all i wanted to do was be in NY. i miss going to rockerfeller center when i was little to watch the ice skaters. i miss convincing my parents to buy me a pretzel from a street vendor. i miss chinatown with all of its sights (and smells). i miss seeing the empire state building and the field trips to the MET. i miss the subway and the times my mom would walk us about 10 blocks to go to the public library and the occasional times she would let us get a big slice of NY style pizza.

it has been about 10 years thoughbefore i went back last year. sometimes i wish we could live that big city life. we went back to the house my parents had when i was born and we took pictures out front. i miss that energy, the life of the city.

in the pic here, i am with my cousin, al. he and i lost touch over the years much like the city and i but our love was never lost. i love NYC. no more words needed to express how i feel.