Wednesday, December 31, 2008

It's Happy New Year Time Again!

Happy New Year Everyone!!! Here we are, starting another year. AND zeroing in on the last year of the first decade of the 21st Century!!! How did that happen so quickly? Lots of changes. (Check the ETC. page to see how Linda Reid's grandchildren have grown in this time!) For gg designs and for all of you loyal customers who've been hangin' out with us for much of that time, we've seen many changes in our lives, our families and our stamping interests. As most of you have noticed, gg designs has moved from new carvings weekly to new carvings....hardly ever! Cost of production is high and we can no longer afford the luxury of producing images that are apt to have limited appeal. We have always known we are not for everyone and kind of liked it that way. But with the demise of Cyberstampers and A Monthly Rubber Stamps Club, new customers arrive by fortunate accident of a kindly Google Search. So we are forced to be more conservative about producing many images. With the beginning of yet another year, we are accessing our position and attempting to decide what to do next. We will still order anything from the catalog when someone requests a particular stamp or set and we will offer stamps routinely in the Mini Mall and on eBay. But that's not terribly exciting stuff for image/technique hungry veteran stampers or folks new to the stamping/scrapbooking scene. Unless we can build a small community at gg designs we won't have much to offer our customers. Heather Strenzwilk's sketch challenge got some of us pretty excited. It was fun and had the potential to bring us together more frequently around a theme or a project. BUT we can't ask Heather to carry the whole load. SO.....how about one of you stepping up and sending a "sketch" for us to follow. You don't need to be a pro, just give it a try. We'll publish the first sketch we receive, so speed is more important than skill or experience. Send to "Here's My Sketch."at STAMPSggdesigns@aol.com. Let's make this (possibly) last year for gg designs a "fun and games" time for us all. Heather will still be "playing" with us and keeping us informed on the latest trends but she has some heavy duty family commitments at the moment so we don't want to have her just fill space. Rather, we'd like real questions for her. So write to her and we'll see how far we can all go together. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Blogging A to Z Heather Strenzwilk October's "sketches" were a lot of fun. If you missed them you can take a look Here: Heather's Sketch Challenge . Heather's columns will be saved so you can refer to them at will. She has a lot of information and fun to share so we expect this section to grow. Many of you have written to say you enjoyed the intital challenge and are looking forward to more. Don't forget, it's more fun if you participate, both in answering the challenges and posing questions for Heather. Write to her at STAMPSggdesigns@aol.com