Quickpages Are Quick!

I have said this before and I will say it again. Sometimes you’re in a hurry and you don’t have time to “be creative” – when this happens digital quickpages are the answer. I often find myself sitting in front of my computer on a lazy Sunday afternoon and I just want to do something with my photos. I am pretty sure I have close to 10,000 pictures in my iphoto library (and most of those need to be deleted…but that is another task all together…) In fact, most of my photos still need editing and cropping. It can feel overwhelming at times; especially if you are behind on “scrapbooking” your most recent memories.

So…I wanted to do SOMETHING creative today – that is when I decided to hop over to the new Pink Paislee digital store and downloaded some of the quickpages that are available for just $2. After just 1 hour I was able to finish the following pages…and you know what took the most time? Picking out my photos!

And as a bonus….I also received this FREE quickpage from Wild Dandelion Designs and I played with it too:

The benefit of creating digital scrapbook pages is that one day I will be able to create a photo book (shutterfly or something similar) and I honestly believe my son will love seeing his memories in a professionally printed bound book. I don’t think I would ever print these pages for my other albums but I think they are fun to create, fun to save, and it still allows me to get “creative” with my photos in one way or another when I don’t have a lot of time.

-Rebecca

You Only Get (1) Shot

Last night while listening to “my playlist” one of the songs that popped up really hit home. The song from Eminem titled: “Lose Yourself” starts out like this: “Look…..if you had one shot…one opportunity..to seize everything you ever wanted in one moment….would you capture it or let it slip?”

Never has this phrase meant more to me.

In the last 5 years our company (pink paislee) has grown at a rate of 23-25% and it has taken all of my energy to keep up with the fast pace of the craft and hobby industry in addition to the fast pace of our own growth. We now have 5 full time employees (yay..up from 4 last year) and we are constantly working with more and more freelance employees to cover our workload; it is an exciting time. In 2012 we also moved into a 5200 sq. foot warehouse & office space and already we have outgrown it and are on the lookout for a larger facility! It’s crazy! …and now..the biggest opportunity we have ever been involved with will be revealed in just a few weeks. (more on that later….)

A close friend and confidant said to me this week “we don’t want to take on too much so let’s just pace ourselves…” If only he knew that wasn’t possible for me. I can confirm without even a second of hesitation that I am a workaholic. I work 7 days a week and when I’m not working my brain is still “working” – thinking of ways we can improve our business or improve the products we design. Being “good” just isn’t good enough. We want to be great; and..luckily in 2013 great things are happening!

And that is why this song really hit home for me. How about you? If you only had 1 shot…would you capture it too?

-Rebecca

playa del carmen wrap up

We are home from Mexico!  To be more specific we are home from our 6 day trip to Playa Del Carmen which is about 30 minutes south of Cancun.  One thing is for sure…it is always “good to be home.”  When Barry and I first met in 1997 we went to Cancun and we actually vowed we would never go back but I kept hearing really good things about Playa Del Carmen so we gave it another shot!  We were not disappointed. The location is gorgeous and the water temperature (even in late November) was warm and inviting.  Although we all suffered from “montezuma’s revenge” as my friend called it…we still enjoyed our time away from “work” and the daily grind.  Here are just a few photos:

This is our balcony on Day 2.  Snapped a quick photo of the little guy before going down to the beach!  Such a “cool dude.”This is a hotel balcony view from Day 1

This photo was from my favorite day…Akumal Bay where we got to swim with the sea turtles. I really loved how quiet and “non commerical” this area was.  We snorkeled out about 100 yards and saw stingrays, sea turtles and lots of little fish. There is no reef where we were but there is lots of shallow grassy areas the sea turtles love.  It was overcast this day but it was still very warm.

X-caret!  Connor got to pose with the parrots right after we entered the park.  This is a beautiful place but unfortunately Barry got pretty sick and we didn’t get to stick around for the nighttime events.

Spider Monkey’s at X-caret.  This park was sort of like half water park / half zoo.  We enjoyed all the little walking paths.

My toes match the water……hmmmm…..(I sort of planned that)

Everyday we would dry out the swim trunks on the hammock!  Nice.

So that is a quick overview!  We didn’t go on a lot of excursions mainly because we all got ill but we did spend a lot of time resting and doing nothing which totally made me happy!

-Rebecca