Sunday, January 23, 2011

With a little help from our friends...

About 6 times a year, things get absolutely CRAZY at Lizzie*Kate! When we release new products, we ship new designs to all of our participating needlework shops on the same day! That means printing & assembling enough products to ship hundreds of shops all at once...and it requires alot of planning, coordination, luck and nearly every inch of office space.  Sometimes everything runs smoothly, but more often than not...something unexpected happens.  This January several "unexpected" things happened...the printing press broke down (we're talking about a million dollar BIG printer), a frame got stuck in a snowstorm in North Carolina...you get the picture.  In order to meet our promised ship date for our shops we had to scramble and get a "little help from our friends".


We always hang out with friends on Friday night, so this Friday we invited everyone to our house for Mexi-food, movie and L*K assembly!  Our friends were FANTASTIC! Because they haven't assembled thousands of Flip-its before, they think this is pretty fun stuff (or at least they don't complain)!  We set up tables in our family room and happily worked our way through a movie...and gluing embellishments on thousands of Halloween Rules Double Flips and sacking the 100 Years From Now chartpak.  Linda spent her evening beginning assembly on the new ABCs of Parenting kits, with threads that arrived only that afternoon. We finished the evening with fabulous sopapilla dessert from our friend Connie and carried bins and boxes full of fresh inventory to the office. 


What a productive evening!  We had lots of other stuff already finished, but this was a big help.  Then Alan and Linda spent the weekend packing orders. (It seems to go more smoothly on weekends when the phone isn't constantly ringing.)  Now it's Sunday evening and I'm taking a break to sit down and rest my back (and do this blog!) while Alan is working on credit cards for more order processing.  We're about 2/3s through packing, so we will meet our Tuesday shipping date. THANK YOU, FABULOUS FRIENDS!!

8 comments:

  1. I am so excited to see your new Halloween designs coming to stores. I am waiting patiently for them. Thank you for such wonderful designs

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  2. As a big fan of your designs, I am very excited about ABC's of Parenting and 100 Years From Now... which I think will make a great gift for a teacher.
    Thanks so much for your great designs! And thanks to your friends for helping you meet your deadline.
    Annette

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  3. What a fun way to spend an evening--friends helping friends, eating good food and watching a movie together! I'm looking forward to the new releases, Linda!

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  4. Loved today's blog and can't wait to get my hands on your new "stuff"! Keep up the good work!

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  5. aw what fantastic friends you have! Sounds like running a design company is a lot harder than most people expect, glad you're able to meet your deadline now though, looking forward to buying these designs!

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  6. Looks like it was a fun evening. And a big help to you.
    I can't wait to see the new designs.

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  7. Yay! Can't wait to receive all the new goodies! :)

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  8. What a productive and fun night! What great friends you have! Wish I could have been there to help!

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