HELLO ALL YOU WONDERFUL PEOPLE!

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First - I want to thank all of you who called, emailed, texted and wrote notes to me, asking if everything was ok. I really appreciate your thoughtfulness.

We are actually fine. In the past few months we have had illness (bad allergies), machinery problems (both computer and printers), sick cats and various other things go wrong. As soon as I think things are all fixed - something else goes wrong.

I actually wrote a newsletter in March - sent it out by email - then the printer decided that it didn't want to print out the 'to be mailed' newsletters.

I know some of you are saying' "Why doesn't she just buy a new computer?" There is a good reason for this. Some of the programs that I use all the time for the business are no longer available and won't even work on the newer computers. So I need to baby this one along until the end of the year, if possible, so I can finish the years projects the way they were started.

After that, I will have to figure out how to make the new programs do what the old programs already do. I know! I know!! Teaching an old dog new tricks isn't hard - it's just frustrating. Once I get something to do what I want, I hate having to figure it out all over again.

I want to thank all of you that have gone on and 'liked' us on Facebook. It's easy to do - just hit the 'like' button on the web site homepage.

I really do put things on the Facebook page during the month. For instance - did you know that the National Weather Service says you can paint with water-based paints even on 'ozone action' days or during 'air quality alert' days. This means that you can paint with your Cameo paints any time you want to.

Don't forget to order your projects for the summer.

If you're going camping - be sure you have projects for the kids to do on inclement days when they can't go out of the tent, cabin or RV. This makes for a more enjoyable trip. (Also, good for road trips.)

If you don't really get into the hiking, etc., be sure you have projects for yourself to do. Good time to do Holiday gifts, shower gifts, wedding gifts and of course, birthday gifts.

So…after writing the previous part of the newsletter, the weather went up into 3digit heat. This is ok if it lasts a day or two, but when it goes on and on, in Michigan, it just isn't good. For one thing, the extreme heat (for here) affects the phone lines. Now I have dial-up internet. When the phone lines start crackling, my internet goes out - comes on - goes out - comes on, etc. You can see where this is a problem. Not only can I not get my emails, or do the credit cards, or send answers to questions that come in, but I can't send newsletters or ship packages.

I actually had emails (some of them orders) that didn't come through for weeks and some of them never came through at all. I'm not ignoring anyone; I don't realize that you are trying to communicate with me.

Then there was the touch of heat prostration. That really put me out of it for a while.

Among all the above things, I, also, found out that I had printed the wrong 'kitten' prints for the last half of the year. We will have to go with them as there is no way to fix the goof-up that I committed.

I see the Kitten Quilt as either one complete quilt with the 'yarn kittens' on the outside of the quilt and the 'basket Kittens' on the inside, or you could use them as two separate 'lap rugs'.

For those of you who knew her - I just wanted to let you know that Ruth Burtch, from here in Michigan, has died. She died at home, where she wanted to be, after not being well for a while.

Monroe County Fair starts on Sunday, July 29th. Our new booth is right in the front row (facing the fair grounds), right next to the library booth. I sure hope I see you there.

I won't have any help running the booth this year, so if you walk up and I'm not in the booth, please, come back a little later.

We will be setting up the booth on Saturday (the 28th) and the fair opens around 1PM on Sunday.

Kittens, puppies, horse manes and tails, people hair; they can all be done flat 2dimensional or very 3-dimensional.

People's hair and horse's mane and tails, usually looks better the more different colors that you streak in. Blues, purples, greens - all can be used in these areas to make them look more and more real and 3-dimensional. Add these colors to the browns, blacks, yellows, whites and other colors that you use and you will be amazed at what happens to your designs.

Kittens and puppies use long or short strokes with your paint or brush - to make them look more like a short-hair or long-hair animal.

In all these different color strokes, make sure that you streak the paint in the way the hair or fur grows. It really does make a difference.

If you want it to look very, very curly, put the paint on in little circles. Just keep putting the colors on over the other colors until you have the look that you want.

If you want it to look straight - put the strokes on straight.

If it's a wavy look that you are trying for - put the strokes on in curves to give that impression.

If you do these little things it will make a big difference in how your designs wind up looking. The finished product will be mush better looking.

Catalogs are now $4.00. I have had to start having them printed at the Printer's rather than being able to do them here in the office. It costs at least $2.50 to send them out and well over $5.00 to have them printed - so you're still getting a great deal on a colored catalog.

The part that was called the "how to section" is now a book by itself. It will be $5.00. As I come up with more, and more classes - they will go out in newsletters, or be on the web site - and you can just add them in as you get them printed out.

I suggest getting a small 3-ring binder to put your catalog pages and 'how to' pages in. That way when the catalog pages are up-dated or we add more 'how to' lessons, it's really easy to change them in or out.

My Canadian customers seem to be having a problem with the packages that I send out United Parcel Service. It appears that I pay the shipping from here to the border - then you're charged extra to get them all the way to where you need them. I'm trying to figure this out. What I need is to have you email, fax or mail me the copies of your invoice that you paid UPS when they delivered your orders. I presumed that they were just charging you import tax, but then I discovered that we have a free-trade agreement with Canada, so that doesn't work out. I will try to get this straightened out.

Some orders are just too large (content-wise, like multiple C350, Paint Racks) to send by the post office (or at least that's what I thought), but considering what some of you are paying UPS, it would be less expensive for you to just pay me the extra postage for that. Some of you have already told me you would rather have it sent postal and would rather pay a little more in shipping.

Please, work with me on this.

I'm sending the Monthly Quilt Blocks page. Even thought a couple of the August prints are not in here - you can still order them. They will be done by the end of the fair and be ready to send out by the Monday after the fair - which is the first time I will be home to ship orders. Actually, the August 'kitten in a basket' will be for sale at the Monroe Fair. Feel free to come in a buy it.

I did get all the orders out today that were 'in house'. Yeah!!!

It is going to take me a little while to get the shipping back to normal. When I get back - I will be a week behind. So bear with me for a couple of weeks after that until I can get everything caught up.

August 16th - Workshop here -if you want to join us for breakfast (or lunch) at Linda's, we're there at 10:00 AM. The paint class actually starts at 11:00 AM and goes until between 2:00Pm and 3:00 PM.

Ok. Now if I can run the cover sheets, I will get these in the mail in the morning on the way to the Monroe Fair.

We always need more dealers. Contact me if you're interested.

The first thing that you need to know - you need a sales tax license from your State Treasury Department. These are usually either free or with a small cost. It means that you are in charge of paying your own sales taxes to your state for the sales that you make to your customers. I don't charge you for your state sales tax, so it's up to you to take care of it.

Here is a tip to get more sales. It works!

If you sell paints to your customers, it will pay you to make sure they get a T4673 - Dots transfer. Make sure that they only fill in the paints that they have. What happens is that they want to fill in all the 'dots', so they keep buying paints, as they can, to make sure that happens

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