Intense Shopping

Wow it has been a whirlwind twelve hours trying to get a couple of the add ons to the March Studio Calico kit. I am a subscriber to SC which means I automatically receive the main kit every month. There is a subscribers' early bird reveal and purchase of the add ons which come with the kit at 12 noon on the 27th of each month and a second release to the general public at midnight. New items also become available in the store - often other pieces of the most represented collections in the main and add on kits.  I hope that makes sense.

The times I mentioned above are EST which means the subber's reveal is 1 am Singapore time and the general public reveal is 1 pm . Now I love Studio Calico kits. For a beginner scrapbooker like myself they are a dream. I would never in a million years be able to put together such a great collection of items that work so well together. In addition they have papers and embellishments made specially for them that cannot be purchased anywhere else. They save me a ton of money buying bits and pieces that I cannot make work together. If you spend $99 as an international member your shipping is free too. This is awesome because paper is heavy and shipping from the US to Singapore is enough to make your hair curl.

Sadly I am not the only one who thinks SC is da bomb. Obviously member numbers are a closely guarded commercial secret but spend anytime on their online forum and you will see members literally from the four corners of the globe - Brazil to Iceland, Stockholm to San Diego. It is an amazing place!

Anyhoo I decided not to set my alarm and rely on myself to wake for one am (I can no longer sit up that late). Sadly I let myself down and by the time I woke at 1.45 am I was well and truly too late and all the things I wanted had sold out in the presale. I lay awake and fumed until about three thirty and resigned myself to trying again this afternoon.

I managed to get the Monkey happily watching Diego so that I could have a good run at getting the add ons I was after. I logged in bang on one and went straight for my first choice add on and processed the payment. Result! When I went back to try and buy the other two I was considering they were all sold out (within one minute!). I hung around a bit longer and a couple of times one of the other add ons would pop up as available but it was gone by the time I got through to my shopping cart. My patience paid off however, as I managed to nab it about ten minutes after reveal. The adrenalin rush with this form of shopping is something else. I know it is only paper and pretty fripperies but, especially for people based outside the US, they can be very hard to obtain. I know SC imports a great line of French paper that is not available anywhere else in the US and is only sold as part of their kits. 

I cannot say enough good things about SC. Their customer service is second to none. If you are thinking about a kit club I would totally recommend them - just train those typing fingers! And no I am not getting anything out of praising them to the skies. If you are interested in seeing what all the fuss is about have a look here.

On an entirely different note I have tried my hand at making mango salsa and my own hummus with really great success in the last week. Hummus is really expensive in Singapore for some reason . I found an online recipe for crockpot hummus which took forever to get the chickpeas ready (as opposed to opening a tin) but the flavour is better when you cook them from dried. It is so delicious - full of lemon and garlic and really healthy too.I can forward the recipes through to anyone who is interested. 

And as a pictureless post is a boring post here is a shot of the view from our apartment taken a wee while ago now. Happy Tuesday!