STUDIO UPDATES w/Dawn

Hello! I wanted to pop in and give you a quick update on some things happening here in The Studio. I've been quiet, but the Design Team and Guest Artists have been keeping the inspiration flowing in excess! I hope that you've had a chance to check out all of their wonderful projects and found a little time to leave them some love in the comments.

It's hard to believe that this is our eighth year in business already. Man time flies! And in this technology driven world, eight years may as well be a century.

That means it is time to update our website. I've been working on prepping stuff behind the scenes in order to do just that. Our current website is still running on that "ancient" technology. There are many new features and integrations with social media platforms available that we are currently unable to take advantage of. So, it's time to update the platform of our website so that we can partake in and streamline a lot of these channels.

I've also been working on our next product release - coming at the end of the month. But, before we launch the new release, I want to make sure that the site is updated and all of the (possible) kinks are worked out. My goal is to have as little down time as possible, while completing the changes in stages. That being said, over the next couple of weeks, the website wplus9.com will be down for maintenance periodically. Since we have an international audience, there really isn't a perfect time to take it down. But, it will be down for a couple of hours each time vs. days.

While I am making these changes and updates, there may be some features that are inaccessible at times. But I am going to do my best to make it as painless as possible, and appreciate your patience and understanding during the updates!

UPDATES: Stock, August Release & a Winner

Hello everyone! Joni here with the winner of the Get Sketchy Challenge #2. Again, I wanted to say thank you so much to everyone who participated in our Get Sketchy Challenge. You guys did another amazing job with the sketch and there are truly some gorgeous creations!

Get Sketchy Challenge #2 Winner

Congratulations Kelly S.! Please email customer service@wplus9.com to claim your $20 Wplus9 store credit. ***Remember, if you don't already have one, please be sure to set up an account at wplus9.com to expedite processing of your prize.***

Thank you so much again everyone! Don't forget, our next Get Sketchy Challenge will be September 8th, 2015.

August 2015 Release

I know that a lot of you have been wondering where the August sneak peeks are? Well, we have a GREAT release planned for you, but we just need a little extra time to prepare for it. So the August 2015 Release will be a little later than usual.

We have tentatively scheduled the release for August 14th. We have 6 new PURE COLOR inks, 5 new stamp sets, 5 new dies and a new addition to the PURE COLOR product line coming your way!

We think you are going to love it and appreciate your patience. If you don't already, you can keep up with us in real time for sneak peeks and any updates on Instagram (@dawnwplus9), Facebook (@wplus9) and Twitter (@wplus9).

Stock Updates

We have received lots of new stock over the last couple of days. We are in the process of sending notifications, but if you were waiting on something to become available again, here is the full list of items we've recently received:

Stamps

• A New Day
• Botanical Bunch
• Bubble Talk
• Flora & Fauna 2
• Lucky Star
• Pick of the Litter
• Punny Produce: Pears
• Sending Sunshine

Dies

• Folk Art Alphabet
• Hand Lettered Hello
• Happy Trio
• Holiday Apertures
• Landscape Borders
• Love Notes
• Pretty Little Peonies
• Pretty Peonies
• Quilt Cuts 2
• Timeless Tags 2
• Unforgettable
• Woodland Wreaths

As always, thanks for stopping by and I hope you are having a wonderful day!

Random Updates

Hello! No cards or projects to share today, just popping in with some updates.

Stock Updates

As promised, we have had lots of restocks arriving over the last month. Here is a rundown of items that are now back in stock:

Stamps

• Coming Up Roses
• Hand Lettered Hello
• Hand Lettered Thanks
• Ink Splats
• Miss You Lots
• Paisley Patterns
• Sweets & Treats
• Unforgettable

Dies

• Basic Banner
• Coming Up Roses
• Dream Catcher
• Holiday Apertures
• Modern Numerals
• Nautical Notions
• Onesie Twosie
• Quilt Cuts 2
• Sparkle & Shine Trio
• Unforgettable
• Whole Lotta' Happy

Inks

• Lake House
• Sweet Gelato
• Sweet Nectar
• Wild Mango

We have several more arriving, I think that I have finally made it onto a schedule of restocks arriving every week - every two weeks.

New Challenges

Wplus9 Throwback Thursday

In case you missed it, there is a new challenge. Maureen is hosting a Throwback Thursday Challenge on the third Thursday of each month. She will posting three cards, each using the same basic layout and design elements featuring a "throwback" stamp set.

And you are invited to play along! Feel free to use any of Maureen's card as inspiration, or even the featured stamp set if you've got it. Use at least one Wplus9 product and upload your project to your blog or online photo gallery such as Flickr. Then link it up using the InLinkz widget on each post. There is a $20 store credit at wplus9.com each month for one random participant.

Sound like fun? There is still time to participate in this month's challenge, click here to check it out.

The 30 Day Coloring Challenge

My friend Kathy Racoosin is hosting a really fun 30 day challenge that I'm pretty excited about. Here's a little excerpt from her blog:

The idea is to color something everyday even if it’s for five minutes. Just five minutes that’s it. Some days you or I will have more time and that’s even better.It’s just about adding more time to color and carve out a little time for something that makes you happy.

I think it is so important to practice and to encourage each other. No one is ever amazing at anything the first (or third, or fifth time) time they try it. With practice though, we get better and better. And honestly, if we are having fun...who cares if its "good" or not! Right? I think that this challenge is perfect for encouraging all of us to just create - no plan needed.

I will definitely be playing along on Instagram. Be sure to check out all of the details here on Kathy's blog.

Other News

We have a lot of really exciting stuff on the horizon here at Wplus9.

Really. Exciting.

New product, new illustrators, new collaborations. Fun fun stuff, I tell ya! I can't share just yet...but stay tuned, some are coming a bit sooner than others! ;o)

Thanks for stopping by. I hope your week is off to a great start!

Inside The Studio: Wplus9 Design Team

As you know, we have had the same wonderful design team for many years. Several of these talented ladies have been with me since day 1.

I remember all too well sending each email.

I remember being afraid that they would say "thanks, but no thanks". To my delight, they accepted, and have continued to delight me ever since with their incredible designs.

I did not realize what a special place each of these ladies would carve into my life - my history. And I can not thank them enough for all of their hard work, creative genius and support!

But it is time for these ladies to pass the reins over to a new group of talented ladies. They have some big shoes to fill, but I believe they are up to the task!

I am pleased to introduce the 2014 Wplus9 Designers. Each of these ladies are avid supporters of Wplus9 and I am sure that you will recognize them!

I will have more on each of these ladies individually in the coming weeks to help you get to know them better. For now, be sure to check out their blogs if you haven't already:

• Iwona "Chupa" Palamountain
• Joni Nina Andaya
• Kara Vrabel
• Maureen Merritt

I hope you will join me in saying "thank you" to Hannah, Jinny, Kerrianne, Lea, Sarah and Savitri for providing us with so much creative inspiration over the last several years. This is not farewell, because I will continue to follow each of them, as I hope that you will.

And a great big "welcome" to Chupa, Joni, Kara, and Maureen. I can not wait to see what is to come from this amazing group of crafters!

Release Week Is Coming

Release Week starts here on the blog in just under 7 hours! The party starts with 3 days of previews and samples from the Wplus9 Design Team. You'll find tons of inspiration using all of the new products before we release them for sale. On the fourth day we will show you all of the products we will be releasing this month. And on December 5th all of the items we will be showing you will be available at www.wplus9.com, as well as at many of your favorite craft supply retailers.

Speaking of the design team, I am so happy to announce that Mrs. Sarah Martina Parker will be joining the Wplus9 Design Team!

I first asked Sarah to join the Wplus9 Design Team over two years ago, however the timing just wasn't right. I am so excited to finally have her joining the team as I think she has so much to offer! I am a huge fan of her work and look forward to seeing her work her magic with our product! Please join me in welcoming her to the team!

I hope you are as excited as we are. We can't wait to share with you what we've been up to. See you in a few!

Cyber Monday Sale Update

As promised, I wanted to follow up with our progress on the Cyber Monday Sale corrections. We apologize for any confusion that our oversight and mis-messaging may have caused. All affected orders have been corrected and subsequent refunds have been issued.

Again, only orders placed before 12:20 p.m. EST were affected. All orders have been double checked and any necessary refunds have been issued.

Thank you all so much for your support and understanding. We truly appreciate your business!

Cyber Monday Sale!

If you follow us on Facebook, then you already know that we are having a Cyber Monday Sale at Wplus9 Design! It's time to take advantage of our already low prices and pick up some of those things on your wish list for a steal!

• Grab our "New Arrivals" at a 10% DISCOUNT
• Up to 20% OFF all previously released dies and stamps
• NO COUPON CODE NEEDED - prices will be marked
• Prices valid from 12:00 a.m.-11:59 p.m. November 26th EST

Wplus9 Q&A Part 2 & Updates

Inside The Studio

If you follow us on Twitter or Facebook, then you know that shortly after the release my computer decided to die. I decided that instead of getting another PC, that I'd make the move to Apple. Switching also meant that I'd have to acquire all new software since I would be switching operating systems. I didn't realize that a couple of the programs that I currently use don't have Mac versions. After doing a little research, I settled on some alternatives and I am happy to announce that we are fully functional once again.

New Video

My video editing software was one of the programs that I completely switched, so it took me a little while to get up to speed. But I finally finished editing part 2 of our Q&A video.

Watch above or in HD at YouTube

New Retailers

We are excited to announce that we have many new retailers now carrying Wplus9 products, including Ellen Hutson!

Events

Holiday Card Workshop

Onlinecardclasses.com is having a Holiday Card Workshop. You'll be able to find some great cards, amazing ideas and wonderful designers including our own design team member Cristina Kowalczyk. Sign up and you'll be able to pick up featured Wplus9 supplies and more at a discount from the class sponsors; Ellen Hutson and Simon Says Stamp!

Pictures In Time Open House

I will be doing Make and Takes at the Pictures In Time Open House event on Saturday November, 10th from 12-2. If you are in the Jacksonville/Orange Park/Fleming Island area and would like to stop by, I'd love to meet you!

Stock Updates

We have a large shipment of dies and stamps expected to ship on November 6th. We apologize for the delay on the stamps, but our manufacturer has increased their expected production times from 2-3 weeks to 3-5 weeks. We have made adjustments on our end to accommodate these longer production times and should see things even out by December.

December Release

I wanted to thank all of you for the overwhelming response to our October release! We didn't anticipate it and we apologize for the quick sell out of so many items. Starting with our December release we will be opening up wholesale pre-orders even earlier so that we can get restocks in house sooner. We have also doubled our starting inventories again for the December release and we hope that these steps will help with availability.

As always, thanks for stopping by today! I hope you are having a fantastic week!

Help Us Choose

We've got a lot going on here in the studio. Finalizing designs, testing product, preparing for the October Release...decisions, decisions, decisions.

Well we can be quite the indecisive bunch sometimes, so we thought it would be fun to get your opinion! So will you help us?

We are trying to finalize the lids for our inks. And...we have narrowed it down to these two. We are torn, completely torn. So what do you think? Design A or B?

We'd love to hear which one you'd choose! And thanks for your input!

Wplus9 Q&A: How Did Wplus9 Start?

I've got another Q&A video for the questions that you all have submitted recently via comments, email, Twitter and Facebook today!

Today's video answers a question from Jamie and Shane about how/why I started Wplus9.

"I'd love to know more about how you started your business."

I chose to focus less on the technicalities of starting a business and more on the why and my personal reasons for starting Wplus9.

Watch above or in HD at YouTube

Today is also my oldest's 12th birthday. Jason had to travel, and I thought I'd share a little something he put together to help him celebrate even though he couldn't be with him today. It's a great idea for those of you that have loved ones away or if you have to be away during a special time.

Watch above or in HD at YouTube

Thanks for stopping by! I'll have more of the Q&A videos up soon!

Wplus9 Tips & Tricks: Separating Your Dies

The other day, I mentioned that I was editing a quick tip video on separating our dies. As promised, here it is!

Watch above or in HD at YouTube

This is a short, to the point video covering a frequently asked question on separating our dies. I go over which dies to separate and how, as well as which dies we do not recommend you separate. I've also included a tip or two on die cutting in general.

Thanks for stopping by!

A Closer Look: Clear Cut Stackers

Hi guys! There's a new video up! Today I wanted to share a quick intro video to our Clear Cut Stackers dies.

Watch above or in HD at YouTube

I'm also editing a short video on how to separate our dies, so be on the look out for that one soon! Thanks for stopping by and have a wonderful day!

Catching Up

I have been out of town for a couple of days and boy do I have some catching up to do! Don't worry, order fulfillment and shipping carried on as usual in my absence. However, if you are waiting on a personal response from me for anything, I should be able to get all caught up in a couple of days. Thanks in advance for your patience, and I apologize for the delay.

I hope you all had a wonderful week. I can't wait to do some blog hopping and catch up on what I've missed in blog land!

Stock and Website Updates

Hi guys, I hope you all had a wonderful Easter holiday! We had a fun mini-vacation down south at Lego Land, and a quiet dinner at home on Sunday.

I just wanted to pop in quickly to point you all over to our Recent News for our stock and website updates in case anyone missed them. Remember, you can subscribe to these feeds as well by clicking on the little RSS icon for Recent News from either the home page or the footer of the website.

I'll be back soon with some new projects!

April/May 2012 Sneak Peek #2

Have you "liked" our Facebook page yet? If so, you've been keeping up with the sneak peeks of some of the stamps we will be releasing on April 5th. If not, what are you waiting for? Here's what those in the know have already seen.

A new addition to our Label Layers series.

A floral bouquet just in time for Mother's Day.

A gorgeous follow-up set to our very popular Mehndi Medallions.

We hope you will join us for Release Week starting tomorrow. The Design Team and I will be showing you all of the fun stamps and products that will be available beginning April 5th, with multiple chances to win it before you can buy it!

April/May 2012 Sneak Peek #1

Hi all! I'm back with a sneak peek as promised. I am super excited about this release and I hope that you will be as well once you see everything we are releasing. Here's a little peek at one of the six new stamp sets Wplus9 will be releasing on April 5th.

We hope you will join us for Release Week starting on the 1st with lots of inspiration and prizes too! As always, thank you so much for your continued support!

Dusting Off the Cobwebs

Hey guys!

I apologize for the silence lately. February was a busy, busy, busy month here, both on the home front and for Wplus9. I'll start with the Wplus9 updates so those of you who don't care about the home stuff, can be spared. ;o)

Store Updates

Your shopping experience is important to me. So I'm always trying to improve the website. I've added a lot of little updates over the last month.

• I've done some reorganizing of categories and plan to do more. But you may notice that I've created a "Companion Cuts" section where you will be able to find all dies that have a matching stamp set.
• Taking it a step further, each stamp set that has a matching Companion Cut, now has the ability to add that die bundle to your cart directly from the stamp set's product page. You can click here to see an example.
• I've added an FAQ page as well. This is something that will be updated and added to as needed.
• I wanted to thank all of the wonderful retailers who are now carrying Wplus9 products! I will be adding a page of retailers to the website soon so you can see if there is one near you.
• We have a big release coming up! 6 stamp sets and 4 dies big...and a surprise. In fact, I may start some sneak peeks early on the blog or on our Facebook page this month.
• I've been working on 2 new product lines. One will be available for our April Release. The second one will require some adjustments to our shipping rates and policies, but I am trying to get everything worked out and ready for the April Release. We will see. I want to make sure everything is planned out and accounted for before pulling the plug.

On the Home Front

• My baby turned 7, okay, so that's not really a baby. But he'll always be a baby to me.
• Jason and I celebrated our 10 year anniversary! Can I get an AMEN?!
• The boys had their Pinewood Derby Race. Jason is the Pinewood Chair, so by default, I guess that makes me Co-Chair. Carter place 1st in his Den and 4th in the entire Pack (87 scouts). And Hunter placed 2nd in his Den and I think 8th in the Pack.
• We had the Blue & Gold Banquet, for which I volunteered to design and print the programs...the day before. Ack! Hey, it got me out of baking a cake. Yes please!
• Hunter crossed over and is officially a Boy Scout now!
• We entertained the most fabulous out-of-town guests, Jason's cousin and his family. I LOVE them! We have so much fun just talking and hanging out.
• We forgot my MIL's birthday! I know. I know. I really don't know how I could have forgotten such a wonderful, generous, kind, funny and gracious woman's birthday...but I did. And I feel horrible. I'm sorry. :(

So that's it in a nutshell. I will be back soon with a Design Spotlight, so be sure to add your Wplus9 projects to the Flickr Gallery. See you soon and thanks for stopping by!

Dawn W.

Black Friday Sale

If you haven't heard yet, we are having a fantastic Black Friday Sale!

To continue expressing our thanks to you and all of your support we are offering a 25% discount on all stamps. One day only! Just enter BLACKFRIDAY11 at checkout.

Thank you so much, and for those of you in the US, we hope that you have had a blessed Thanksgiving!

*Prices are valid on Friday, November 25, 2011 only. Offer valid on all in stock stamps. Sorry, no rain checks.

New Stamps Coming In December

I know the blog has been very quiet lately and I apologize. However, this is not necessarily a bad thing. More often than not, this is because I am focusing on other areas of Wplus9; the website, product development, new product research, and/or administrative stuff.

Some of you may have noticed a lot of small changes happening regularly over at the storefront. There is still more to come, but here are a few things we have been working on:

In order to streamline our important communication channels, we have started posting all announcements in the "Recent News" section on the website and enabled you to subscribe to the RSS Feeds for all announcements. You can find this in the left hand column on the main page as well as in the footer of every page of the website. Again, all important announcements will always be posted here. For example, the message below:

Every now and then we have to do a little planning and reorganizing. In order to keep things running smoothly here in the Studio and to create the best possible shopping experience for you, we will not be releasing any new stamps this November 2011. Instead, we have been focusing on cleaning up the website and making progress on new product research and planning. Exciting things ahead!

But not to worry, we already have our December release here in the Studio and it will be one sweet Valentine's Day! The Design Team and I are sure that you will love the December 2011 release, including 3 new stamp sets and 3 new steel rule dies.

Thanks!
Dawn

We have also enabled a "quick-cart" when shopping. Now, when you add an item to your cart, instead of going directly to your cart and having to navigate back to continue shopping, a pop-up window will display confirming that the selected item was added to your cart. You then have the option to continue shopping without ever leaving the current page you are on or continue through to your cart and checkout. We hope you find this to be a much more pleasant user experience.

Along with some of the functional areas of the website, we have made some aesthetic changes as well. These changes incorporate the look and feel of our new packaging.

We have also made a lot of progress in areas that I can't quite share yet, but we are working on a couple of exciting things for 2012. I will share more when everything is final.

So, even though we will not be releasing any new product for November, we are proactively making improvements internally to ensure that we continue to bring you quality products in a timely manner for an enjoyable experience. I will be back this week with some new Design Clip videos. It's been a while and I was a bit rusty, so they need a bit LOT of editing!

I hope you had a fun and safe Halloween! Thanks again for all of your support!

Stock Updates: Label Layers 3 & Vintage Envelope dies

For those of you that have been waiting, we finally got the new shipment of the Label Layers 3 die in. You can find it here in the store. Thanks for your patience!

The Vintage Envelope die is also back in stock.

Don't forget, it's almost time for our September Release to begin. Please join us right here, starting on the 1st as we introduce 4 new stamps sets and 1 new die. Hope to see you there!

Have a wonderful day!