Tuesday, January 26, 2016

Two Weeks Late(r) . . .

I did promise to share a few images from the Grapevine show a couple of weeks ago, but I have been so busy trying to get new items on our site and the time just slips away.  If you haven’t had a chance to take a look at my efforts, I encourage you to go to our website at www.marcopaper.com and look at the new item banners – right after you finish reading this.

Since any pictures of little ones are almost always adorable and since I have several of those from Grapevine, here goes . . .

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We start our people young – Lucia McLaughlin was part of our setup crew in Grapevine when she was less than a year old, and she spent part of Saturday at our demo table putting a junior spin on Adult Coloring.  The irony in this is that Lucia now lives with her parents and two brothers only about three miles from our mail center in Ohio, yet I rarely see her except when she’s visiting her grandparents in Texas.

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We do seem to attract the kids – I put this shot on our Facebook page and said something about Marco’s Paper and Daycare . . .

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But Lucia wasn’t always at the demo table.  See that billowing curtain to the right of our booth?  A peek around the corner gives you a view of the playhouse it became . . .

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The adults got a kick out of coloring, too . . .

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There were fun things going on all over the Grapevine Convention Center.  If you look very closely, you can see the customer-blown bubbles that were causing Dave Carlson from Heirloom Productions to recoil.

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The highlight of my weekend was a drive to Waco (about 120 miles south of Dallas-Fort Worth) to meet with dear friends from my college days.  Dave Nelson was my roommate for two years at Miami – Laurie lived a floor above us in the dorm, so I was there to watch their relationship bloom and was in Cleveland to watch them get married 35+ years ago.  They have lived in Austin for many years, so Waco was the halfway point for a long overdue reunion with them and their son, Ricky.

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This is what greeted me the day after I got home – no, this is not Superstorm Jonas that pounded the east coast last weekend.  But it looked like it at times.  These pictures were taken from the same vantage point – and I took them five minutes apart.  I know I have already posted those snow pics, but they amazed me so much that I couldn’t resist sharing them again.

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One last image – Sharon Lindquist-Skelley gave me a selection of dog treats for Zoe just before Christmas, and I promised her a picture when she “opened” her gift.  But we had so many treats that I put them in the freezer for a couple of weeks.  And I really thought I might be able to get Zoe to sit still for an instant while I snapped a picture.  You’ll note that most of her is in focus – but that head just couldn’t wait . . .

Tuesday, January 12, 2016

The View Outside My Window . . .

I got home from the Grapevine, Texas show last night (more on that in a day or two).  Today, I am sitting in my sunroom at home, working on getting all of the new items from CHA on our website -- and there are lots of them.

Most of what I have been working on today and while I was gone are in two categories on our site (some are in both) . . .

For New Items from Ranger, click on this link

For New Items from Tim Holtz, click on this link

Neither of these categories is finished, so check back often to see more!

But it's hard to concentrate on all of this when the view outside changes every few minutes.

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A few minutes ago, I looked outside the window and almost couldn't see the house next door.  The wind was whipping the snow sideways.

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And then five minutes later, the same view looked like this. Only in Ohio . . .