Coolibah sneak peek!

I just wanted to let you all know that we posted a demo video of our digital scrapbooking iPhone app on the Coolibah blog!! I'm posting it below as well. Leave me a comment and let me know what you think!

Follow Coolibah on twitter: @coolibahme
Read the Coolibah blog: www.coolibah.blogspot.com

How Sweet of You!

I've mentioned time and time again how much I love my clients. They're the best people in the world to work for! Krista Jones from Sweet Abigail is no exception. She was absolutely amazing to work with and has to be one of the sweetest people I've ever met. You can imagine my surprise when I went to get the mail today and found a HUGE box from her. You'll never believe what I found inside...... The first thing I saw was an amazing note that seriously made me blush :) Below the note laid the biggest assortment of hair accessories I've ever seen in my life!

There are hats, hair blooms, AbbyBaby Clips, Gumdrops, headbands... more headbands... more clips..... more blooms. I just kept pulling more and more stuff out of the box. Madeline sat here literally squealing with delight. She had to try everything on at least once. I had to laugh when she put a hair bloom in her hair and said, "this makes me look just gorgeeeeous".

Take a look at these headbands. I LOVE them! What's really cool about these is you can clip hair blooms and AbbyBaby Clips to them. So you can mix and match... interchanging the clips with the headbands. How cool is that!? I have to mention the quality of everything here too. The attention to detail is amazing! You can tell a lot of time and attention goes into each and every creation.

One of my favorite things is this pretty little AbbyBaby Clip. Isn't it pretty? I can't wait for Madeline to wear it! We're going to put a box together for Alex and sent her some of this stuff too. I know she'll just love it!

Krista made sure to include extra printed stuff for me to see. I think that was sooo cool of her! I design printed stuff for my clients all the time. But I don't get to see the printed version very often. Thank you sooo much Krista!! YOU ROCK!!!

Now everyone go visit www.sweetabigailhairbows.com to see what all she offers. If you're in Southern California check out her Event Calendar. She's going to be at the Home, Garden, and Green Expo at the Long Beach Convention Center on July 18th and 19th! She has many more shows this year too.....

Coolibah Update

I just wanted to give a quick update on Coolibah and the progress we've made...

Just in case you don't know... Coolibah is a new digital scrapbooking app for the iPhone and iPod Touch. It's a little project I've been working on with my brother and we'll be launching it very soon. He's the brains behind the technical programming end of things. Just wait till you see what you can do with this nifty little app. Scrapbookers everywhere are going to love it. Scrapbooking on the go... what more could you ask for?

So far, I've launched a blog for Coolibah and set up a Twitter account. The website will be next! If you'd like to follow our progress then come on over! When launch time comes, we'll be doing some giveaways and stuff. So, make sure you sign up for our mailing list on the blog too!

**We're also looking for beta testers** you can read more about it on the Coolibah blog.

I woke up on a soapbox....

I turned on the t.v. this morning for some background noise while getting caught up on some work. I had NBC's Today Show on. Al Roker's clip about the 'Lend a Hand' series he's working on caught my attention. It was at that very moment that I stepped up on my soapbox. I've never wrote an email to a network to comment on a show. But for some reason I felt that I just HAD to. Here is a copy of the email I just sent off to NBC.......

"While I am very excited about the work Al Roker is doing with 'Lend a Hand' I am also very frustrated. I'm not normally a person that would sit down and write an email about something like this. But while watching the clip on The Today Show this morning I felt moved to comment on the series. In these tough times I'm sure I'm not the only person that feels the way I do. I can't turn the television on without seeing another "low-income", "underprivileged", "living in poverty" group or person receiving some kind of hand-out. These people are not the only one struggling, suffering or sacrificing. There are plenty of middle class families that are struggling right now. We can't put our kids in pre-school programs, art programs, music classes, summer camps.. etc. because we simply can't afford it. Yet, at the same time we don't qualify for "income based" services for our children.

We are a family of 5. My husband and I work extremely hard to provide for our family. I am a self-employed graphic designer that works an average of 60 hours a week. I work from home so I can have a flexible schedule for our children. My husband is a USMC veteran and the Fire Chief at a local General Motor's plant. My business has not been immune to the current economic state. At the same time we worry about my husband's lack of job security. This past school year we had to pull our 3 year old daughter out of pre-school because we couldn't afford it any longer. Our 8 year old son has a passion for music that we'd love to encourage... but we can't afford music classes for him. And our 12 year old gifted son is has a passion for science. We'd love to be able to send him to a science camp this summer.... but we can't afford it.

My husband and I work as hard as we possibly can to provide for our children. We've worked very hard so we don't have to depend on any social services programs. It's frustrating to turn on the television and see another hand out going to people who make receiving social services a way of life. I understand that many times the children are caught in the middle and they don't have a choice. I'm all for helping the children overcome the situation their parents (or lack of) have put them in. That will only make for a better world. But it's sad to see the children of hard working middle class families being forgotten. Everyone talks about "low-income" children not having the same educational opportunities that middle-class families do. I disagree. My middle-class children do NOT have the same educational opportunities as low-income children do. My children are not able to attend the free pre-school, art classes, music classes or given "low-income grants" to attend summer camps. It's frustrating to see my tax dollars going to pay for these services.. yet I can't afford to provide the same for my own children. Then to turn on the television and see another hand-out going to "low-income" groups or people is just frustrating.

All I'm asking is that you don't forget the middle-class families and children that are struggling right now..... "

Coolibah

How many of you use an iphone? How many of you scrapbook? How would you like to be able to scrapbook on your iphone??? Cool concept right? Well, it's in the works ;) My programming genius brother has asked me to help him out with a new iphone app he's working on!! But I need your help....

We're trying to figure out what scrapbooking themes are going to be the most popular. So, if you had a scrapbooking app on your iphone what type of themes would you like to see?

I'm thinking:

Baby (girl and boy)
Seasonal
Sports (Girls and Boys)
Travel
Shopping

Summer Break

Just a quick post to let everyone know that I will be closed from June 18th through June 23rd. I'll return all emails when I re-open.

Meet Bobbie

This is the illustrated version of me :) My BFF Lisa drew it for me! Isn't she just the sweetest! I completely love her style .. she is so creative! She's started out drawing one of herself. Then she decided that her illustration needed a BFF. So she drew me!!!!!! It was a complete surprise when she showed it to me last night. Thank you Lisa!!

True Blood fan???

In my attempt to NOT blog about Jon and Kate and what a train wreck that whole show is.... Are you a fan of True Blood? I AM!! I watched the first season last year and fell in love with the show. Season 2 is starting on June 14th and I can't wait! If you haven't heard of True Blood then you're missing out. It's a series on HBO that's based in rural Louisana. Vampires are real and have made their presence among human known. A new synthetic blood has been invented they can drink. Sookie Stackhouse (played by Anna Paquin) is a barmaid that can read minds... the mind of everybody but vampires. So, when she meets Bill, a vampire, she falls in love and her adventures into vampire (and other supernatural) politics begins. There's romance, action and a good story line that keeps you wanting more!!

In between seasons I started reading the book series the show is based on, the Sookie Stackhouse books by Charlaine Harris. So far there are 9 books in the series. I just finished up book 8. Season 1 of True Blood is based on the first book... so season 2 is based on the 2nd book. Personally, I can't wait for season 4... book 4 was the best in my opinion (Eric fans know what I'm talking about *wink*).

You can read more about True Blood here

You can find the Sookie Stackhouse Books Here

Here's a little video for you Eric fans out there.....