Last Recycled Rubber Sale Ever at Art 'n Soul

LAST RECYCLED RUBBER EVENT EVER!!

We are amazed by how much we have to sell at this last Recycled Rubber event! It's going to be enormous!

 

We have cleared out the whole back classroom area, and there will be Recycled Rubber stamps covering the shelves. There are a LOT of dies and punches and stencils. There is just a huge amount of everything, and it will be the largest Recycled Rubber event we have ever had. Most of the staff will be there for a good part of Saturday to help you and aid in speeding things along. We hope you will join us! 

 

We have also put a lot of furnishings and fixtures and other things out on the front tables that are for sale. Most everything in the shop is for sale, and some has already sold.

 

This Recycled Rubber will open tomorrow, Saturday, at 10:00 a.m. through 5:00 p.m. We will leave everything on the tables for a week, through Sunday, October 8th. If you have things in Recycled Rubber that you want back, you can take your things back off the tables during this time. Anything that is left after October 8th will be donated to area schools.

 

IF YOU CAN, PLEASE BRING YOUR OWN SHOPPING BAGS.

 

Credit balances for sales from September 30th and October 1st will be available by October 3rd. Balances for sales from October 2nd through the 8th will be available by October 10th.

 

Catalogs for 4 companies have been opened: Memory Box/Poppy; Rosie's Roadshow; RubberMoon; and Magenta. These orders will be closed by October 5th and sent by October 6th. 

 

WE ARE ALSO OPENING THE STAMPSCAPES CATALOG EFFECTIVE IMMEDIATELY. The Stampscapes catalog will be closed by the end of the day on October 14th and the order will be sent by October 16th.

by Pam Nelson

Big Thank You Party!

As a Thank You to you, our wonderful customers, Art 'n Soul will hold a big Thank You Party on Saturday, October 14th. The shop will be open at the regular time, from 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m., but the party will be from 1:00 p.m. - 4:30 p.m.

 

There will be refreshments made by Sue Moffat, and demos, and we would love to see all of you there. And by the way, if you have ever had anything baked by Sue, you will come just for that! Sue is a wizard in the kitchen, and her baked goods are absolutely amazing!

 

Our owner, Susie Tracy will demo how she stamps and colors her beauiful wood frames from Magenta, using alcohol ink and color pencils. We will have a limited number of wood frames for sale.

 

We are also thrilled that Kevin Nakagawa of Stampscapes will be demo'ing his amazing techniques at our party! Many of you are familiar with Stampscapes stamps and the beautiful images they can make. Some of you may have been lucky enough to take classes from Kevin when he used to teach. We feel honored that he has agreed to demo at Art 'n Soul to celebrate our store and our customers. The Stampscapes catalog is open now! You can order Stampscapes stamps in wood or unmounted rubber. The order will be sent in by October 16.

 

FOOD BANK

We are holding a last Food Bank drive in conjunction with the Thank You party. You have all been so loyal in donating to the Food Bank over the years. Please bring any non-perishable food item or items with you to the party and we will be sure to get it to the Food Bank for our last donation to them.

 

Some Orders Still Coming in!

We have an order coming in from Impression Obsession, and we are hoping to receive it on Friday, and if not, on Monday.

 

Furniture and Fixtures for sale!

 

There are still a lot of furniture and fixtures for sale. A lot of the display tables are still available, as well as the wall shelf units, the slot walls, a few chairs, the large classroom table, 2 file cabinets, refrigerator, microwave, cash register, silk plants, etc., etc. The CDs are $1 each, as are the sample cards. 

 

Per Susie: "I will sell furniture and fixtures on a first-come, first-served basis. Furniture, furnishings, fixtures and cards will not be further discounted. To reserve an item of furniture that you want, you will need to pay for it up front. If I still need the items for displaying merchandise, I will ask that you pick those items up on a day close to our closing date, during working hours. Cards that are for sale will be sold for $1 each (no envelopes) and CDs will also be sold for $1 each.

Loyalty cards can only be marked and used for regular, full priced merchandise, and not for any of the furniture fixtures, or accessories.

Please come in and see us, we would love to see you!

Art 'n Soul is Closing

I have been the owner or at least the part owner of Art 'n Soul since 2003 and yes, it is now almost 2018.  I have loved the store like it has been one of my children but at some point even our children fly the nest and it is now time for Art 'n Soul to fly the nest.  Our wonderful store will be closing October 31. I say this with incredibly deep regret.

For all of these years our customers have sustained us financially and psychologically and there is no way to tell you how much my staff, earlier and current, are appreciative of your loyalty and your encouragement and your friendship. It has been a darned good run and we could not have done it without each of you.

I am faced with a number of things. In my mind, top of the list is the Internet.  We can no longer compete with Internet stores in terms of the variety of merchandise available or their ability to fill orders rapidly. I know that so many of you have come to us first, rather than the Internet stores, when looking for new merchandise and we are incredibly grateful for your support over the years.

You may also know that our little mall has been taken over by a bank and a property management company and I have absolutely no guarantee that my rent will not be increased at any point and I simply cannot sustain any rent increase.

And then there is the basic change in the craft industry. I survived the move to scrapbooking without moving in that direction and I have tried to adapt to the interest in mixed media and have been modestly successful at that. I used to joke that we should become a die-cut store instead of a stamp store but I'm not sure that was such a good joke. Dies are the thing and I have been doing my best to provide them to you but they don't replace stamps. (I so love stamps!)

Here is a rough outline of the plan between now and October 31:

To begin with, I want to reassure you that all pink sheet orders will be honored either with product or with store credit.

For those who have store credit, in the interest of helping you be able to use as much of your store credit as possible, I will be changing our Recycled Rubber date to September 30 - October 1. My guess is that should be an enormous Recycled Rubber event. I will try to post your earnings no later than October 3.

I will be unable to accept any additional items for Recycled Rubber after September 18.

I have chosen four catalogs from which you may use pink sheets to order stamps and dies. The four catalogs I have chosen are Magenta, Rubbermoon, Memory Box, and Rosie’s Roadshow. I do reserve the right to not order certain items if we have to order doubles and feel the second one might not sell quickly.

I will send those orders by October 6, so you should receive them no later than our closing date. As with any store closing, our store credit and gift certificates cannot be honored after October 31.

Effective immediately, I will no longer be able to accept returns. Also, I will be unable to cancel or change any pink sheet order. If something that is ordered on a pink sheet is unavailable and back ordered by the company, the money will be credited to your store credit only, and must be spent no later than October 31st.

I plan to also leave the Recycled Rubber items on the tables until the evening of October 8th. Anything sold from October 2nd through the 8th will not go on your cards until October 9^that the earliest. Those credits can be used for anything for sale in the store. If you wish to pick up any items you have placed for sale in Recycled Rubber, you must do so no later than October 8^th by 5:00. Anything not reclaimed by you will be donated.

I am immediately placing our in stock wood stamps (with the exception of Rosie’s Roadshow) on sale at the price of the same stamp in cling. If the company does not make cling stamps, or I can't determine the cling price of an item, I will reduce the wood stamp by 25%.

I am not going to do a graduated discount of current merchandise. I will announce one date on which all merchandise (not including furniture and fixtures) left in the store will be discounted. Don't hold off for future big discounts because they will not occur. I will announce this discount date soon.

I have lots of shelving, fixtures, cards and other accessories that I will be selling. Everything from my cash register to the front desk cabinet, to the kitchen appliances, to all other furnishings will be on sale. Cards will probably be about a dollar apiece with no envelopes and all of the furniture and accessories will be individually marked. I will sell furniture and fixtures on a first-come, first-served basis. Furniture, furnishings, fixtures and cards will not be further discounted. To reserve an item of furniture that you want, you will have to pay for it up front. We can mark them with your name and a sold sign. If I still need the items for displaying merchandise, I will ask that you pick those items up on a day close to our closing date, during working hours.

Loyalty cards can only be marked and used for regular, full priced merchandise, and not for any of the furniture fixtures, or accessories.

As an enormous Thank You to all of you, our loyal customers, I plan to hold a Thank You Party and celebration of Art 'n Soul before we close. At my invitation, a very special guest and long-time friend will come from California to demo for you one last time. Kevin Nakagawa of Stampscapes has agreed to come show you some of his very special techniques. There will be an opportunity for all of you to order his stamps (wood or unmounted rubber) at that time. I will also plan to demo my color pencil techniques, along with using alcohol inks on wood. I will have a limited number of wood frames to sell at that time. The date of this celebration will be formally announced soon, so please stay tuned to this newsletter and FaceBook for all future announcements.

It has truly been an honor and a joy to be a part of this community and to get to know all of you. Please come in to see my incredible staff as much as possible before they depart, and please help make our closing a celebration of the unique and special bond we have all enjoyed.

Sincerely,

Susie Tracy

Owner, Art 'n Soul

Technique of the Week: More Beautiful Distress Oxide Backgrounds by Marj Marion

Recently, I was wanting to make a lot of background panels, and of course, reached for my Distress Oxide Inks!  Instead of just using a spritz of water to create those wonderful splats and splotches, I had the idea of spritzing the painted panels with both my  water spritzer, and then with my my 91% Isopropyl Alcohol spritzer.  I loved the results!! 

The process is shown in the first two steps, and then photos of my results. You can try other percent formulas of rubbing alcohol, but 91% from the drug store is what I used.

Step 1. On a craft mat, tap 2-3 colors of Oxide Distress inks, and spritz the ink with water.  Use a watercolor brush (I like a Round #10 or a 3/4” Wash brush) to paint the water-spritzed ink onto watercolor paper. 

Step 2.  Then, spritz a little water on the panel, followed by a spritz of 91% Isopropyl Alcohol.  It immediately formed a cool little splotchy design!

You can blot off any excess, or let it dry as is.  I didn’t blot most of the samples, but just let them dry.

Here are my results:

Blue Examples:  I used Oxide Faded Jeans, Twisted Citron and Salty Ocean, plus some regular Distress in Peacock Feathers. 

Red/Pink Examples:  I used Oxide Picked Raspberry, Wilted Violet and Candied Apple.

Fall Examples:  I used Oxide Spiced Marmalade, Wild Honey and Vintage Photo. For some reason, the Alcohol didn’t form many droplets with these particular colors on the top panel in the photo.  The lighter panel was made by swiping a watercolor panel on the left over inks on my craft mat, and then spritzing with alcohol. Both panels will be fun to use with fall themed stamps.

I hope you will enjoy this technique! You could even paint a full sheet of watercolor paper, and do the spritzing on the whole thing, and then cut it into various sized panels for your cards. 

Art 'n Soul should be stocked up with most of the 24 colors of Distress Oxide as of our delivery from Ranger today! 

Orders Starting to Roll in!

First some news about Recycled Rubber

The first weekend in October falls a little late for us, and we are going to move Recycled Rubber up a week to September 30th and October 1st. We have already received more things for the sale, and we know it will be a good one. Please mark your calendars for Saturday September 30th 10:00 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. and Sunday October 1st 12:30 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

We received our Magenta order late on Tuesday, and those stamps are already selling very fast. We got stocked up on Nuance, and that is also selling fast. Come in to see us and see what we still have. Last time we checked, we still had a feather stamp (very popular) shown here

by Dianne Johnson Backporch

At publication time we had at least one of Dianne's Zen Bouquet floral stamp design (there were more, but they are going fast). The sentiment on this card is also in stock.

by Dianne Johnson Backporch

The popular Clover Silhouette from Magenta, used in this card is in stock, as well as this sentiment.

by Dianne Johnson, Backporch

Click on the links of any of the above 3 cards to take you to the previous Technique of the Week posts, showing you how to make them. The Sending you Sunshine card above was made using Nuance powdered color from Magenta, and we just got all of the colors in stock! Come in quickly while we still have a good supply of all of the colors. If you had a pre-order in you should have been called.

 

We received our order from our distributor, and wow, we are stocked up on lots of fun things, including bling! 

We got in more glitter, especially the very popular Elizabeth Craft transluscent glitter in Warm Diamond and Cool Diamond; we got in more sequins, more enamel dots, and the fabulous and shiny Nuvo Gilding Flakes in Gold and Silver. 

When you're in, check out the previous Technique of the Week cards that Pam did with the gilding flakes; they are beautiful!

We got in LOTS of Nuvo drops in including Crystal, Jewel, Glitter, and even some of the new glow in the dark. Hurry in for best selection!

 

We sell out of the Nuvo drops very fast whenever we get them in. If you have not seen Jennifer McGuire's video where she talks about using this great product and gives you tips and ideas, you can check it out here, and find out why we love these pretty little bottles.

 

We are stocked back up on Distress inks, including the first 12 colors of the very popular Distress Oxides (except for Broken China, which is coming in tomorrow from Ranger. For the second release of 12 colors, we are also waiting for our order direct from Ranger.

First 12 Colors of Oxide Inks from Ranger

 

Our order from Ranger is scheduled to be delivered tomorrow, Friday, as far as our best information. We will get in more of the second 12 of the new Oxide inks, including re-inkers. We will also be getting in LOTS of the new Tim Holtz stamp platform. The Broken China color from the first release, along with mini blending foams and perfect pearls powder will be in the order from Ranger.

Second Release Colors of Distress Oxide from Ranger

 We want to thank all of you who have ordered the Tim Holtz platforms and other new items such as Oxide Ink through us. We know that some people may have been able to get them faster from an online company. We can't compete with them, and really appreciate your loyalty and patience more than you know. 

Tim Holtz Stamp Platform

We also received lots more Yupo paper, Tim Holtz watercolor cardstock, Stick-it adhesive, Stickles, sequins and more! Come in and see us!