New Poll Posted

In planning this years events I would love to find out what you want! I'm working on the bus trips currently and am considering a few options.

1. Creating Keepsakes - Kansas City
We would go up on Saturday, October 11th, attend the Creating Keepsakes show and visit one store.
2. Creating Keepsakes - Tulsa Oklahoma
We would go up on Saturday, August 23rd, attend the Creating Keepsakes show and visit one store.
3. Round Robin Kansas City
We would go to Kansas City June 28th, shop at 5 stores.
4. Round Robin Tulsa Oklahoma
We would go to Tulsa on June 28th, shop at 5 stores.

For those new to our bus trips, when we do a Creating Keepsakes show you get a t-shirt, free pass into the Creating Keepsakes show, a goody bag and the KISS Bucks auction. Many vendors offer specials or discounts.

When we do the Round Robins we go to 5 stores. You get a free t-shirt, a M&T or mini class at each store, goody bag and KISS Bucks auction. Many stores offer specials or discounts.

Please take a few minutes to answer our poll to the left so we can make our decision. If you have other ideas on places we could go or things we could do PLEASE post them here!! I want to hear from you!!

Looking back at 2007

Wow!! What a year K.I.S.S. Scrapbooks had last year! Just wanted to share some of the highlights as I've been reflecting the past few weeks on the business side of K.I.S.S. Scrapbooks, where it was, where it is and where it is going! Thanks to many very loyal friends (I can't say customers, you're way more than that to me!!) and tons of new ones, K.I.S.S. is excited about 2008.

Let's take a journey back to the beginning of 2007.

Our first event of the year: Spring Fling held on March 3rd. What a great day this was!! Queen Hailey raised money for her 4-H, many of you got loaded up on the blue lights and the crazy paper sale and of course Janet and Janice had their run in with the ummmm....cow!! We met many new friends at this event thanks to those that are spreading the word!!

April brought us to our Crop for the Cure benefiting Tina Mosely of Stark City. The 35 croppers that attended raised an incredible $1100.00 for Team Tina and Relay for Life! Wow, now that's amazing!! We had ladies from Oklahoma, Arkansas and Kansas at this event!! Not to mention the local gals!!

June 2nd had us hitting the city, Kansas City that is!! We left Joplin at 7:00am and returned at 1:00am aboard a charter bus!! Yes, the crazy ladies pictured below REALLY did shop that long!! I was worried that we may need to rent a U-Haul to get all of the packages back home!! The stores we shopped at were awesome!!

June was also a tough month for our family, we lost Nanny a very special person in my life and a driving force behind the scenes of my business. During all of this and with the awesome determination of the Stockton Crop for a Cure team the crop went on!! Held on June 16th, the croppers at the Stockton Crop for the Cure raised $400.00 to benefit the Relay for Life. Thanks ladies for allowing me time with Nanny and keeping the crop going!!

August 25th had us hitting the road again, this time to the Creating Keepsakes show in Tulsa, Oklahoma!! So much fun and the goody bags, WOW!! What fun to dig through all those awesome goodies!! Met many new friends at this show and some even joined us the following month to crop with us!!

September 28th and 29th we were talking, wearing and I think even eating PINK!! We cropped for two days to benefit Scrap Pink, a nationwide event to promote, raise awareness and find a cause for breast cancer. What an honor it was to be able to donate over $900.00 to the cause of breast cancer. We even had a visitor, my sister-in-law stop by. She was and is currently fighting a battle with breast cancer.

The creative ways to decorate bras blew my mind, who knew? And give a girl a hot pink, very large bra and the opportunity to win prizes and you never know what she'll do!!

October 13th took us to Greenfield, MO where we raised an amazing $887.19 for the Relay for Life team. The ladies there were on a mission to raise money for the cause and money they raised!! Our penny auction was a huge hit!! Not fun counting all those pennies but the cause made it worth it!! Bras decorated in crazy ways were a hit and so much fun!!!

November 9th and 10th, WOW!! That's about all you can say about this one!! The final event of 2007 for K.I.S.S and boy did it go out with a HUGE bang!! Our community service project for 2007 was Alexandra's House a prenatal hospice group based out of Kansas City. We asked our croppers to donate completed pages that we would then put into albums and deliver to Alexandra's House. Our goal? 2000 pages! Our final totals? 9, 686 pages!! That's just pages!! That doesn't include the empty albums, the supplies or the completed albums!! INCREDIBLE!!! Bonnie Behrend produced 2, 096 pages, Cindy Adams donated 1270 pages, Pat Goettel turned in 1,149 pages and Janet Hall created 1,104 pages. Along with many other scrappers we were able to deliver over 9,000 pages and touch the lives of families from all over the area!! Needless to say I wasn't expecting to purchase 450 or so albums so we are still accepting album donations for this cause!! (Oops, have to mention the Janet saga, let me just say this time it involved handcuffs!!! )

Will add pictures at a later date for this event. Still trying to get copies and get mine downloaded!!

Here's one croppers definition of scrapbook crops, edited just a bit: (hi Dianne!!)

"Who would ever have thought a bunch of women could get together, cut up a bunch of paper and pictures, glue it together, loose hours of sleep, snack too much, laugh till our sides hurt and tell every one what a wonderful time we had. Well, that's what scrapbooking crops are!!"

Often times we find ourselves questioning what we are doing, who we are and if we are doing what we are suppose to be doing in life. I have to tell each and every one of you that attended a K.I.S.S. event in 2007 that you are allowing me to do exactly that! What I feel I am suppose to be doing, what I'm meant to do and what I want to do. Thank you from the very bottom of my heart and here's to another fantastic year of cropping, shopping, making memories, sharing memories and making a difference in the world!!! Thank you for supporting K.I.S.S. events, the causes, the charities and the groups we work with!! You all are an amazing group of ladies!!

Check out our post tomorrow and the poll that will be opened tomorrow to find out what the plans are for K.I.S.S. 2008 and how you can become a part of the greatest group of friends, scrappers and loving hearted ladies in the Four States!!