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Sara ~ Chief City Chick
It Takes a Village ~ or a City
We've all heard the saying 'it takes a village'. I've said that all my life raising my children. Its no different running a successful business. My team of City Chicks is nothing short of the best. They make me look like I know what I'm doing, when in reality, they are the ones making this store work...making this "City" work. There's a lot to it! Many think its just a fun job selling our favorite crafty supplies and crafting all day. That's just a very small portion of the job. In reality, paper is heavy! Standing on your feet behind the register all day is hard. Crafting under a deadline is not always inspiring. Every fabulous piece of paper or pretty embellishment has been handled at minimum 5 times before you see it on the floor to purchase. Basically, it takes a village to run the store. And my village is simply amazing! They have been hand-picked by me and I'm so proud that they are part of my team.
Margaret ~ aka Lead City Chick
I am so very lucky to have Margaret here at The City! She had been a member of our design team for several terms and we got to know her very well. She's definitely caught the attention of a lot of customers with her talented work and as a result, I hired her to teach most of our classes! Margaret has become my right hand with anything and everything that's going on in the store. She keeps me in line and tells me what I need to be doing and what needs my attention. I couldn't do all that I do without her! I'm honestly not sure how she manages my crazy life and squirrel chasing!!! She keeps me focused and grounded and together we make an awesome team. She's full of ideas and always planning for the future and thinking ahead. You will see Margaret in every aspect of the store - behind the register, managing the inventory, traveling to shows with me, teaching a class or doing demos and Make-N-Takes. If you are ever shopping and need any inspiration on how to use a product, she will definitely be your go-to chick for ideas on how to use it. Her favorite quote is very fitting for her personality ~ 'Creativity is Contagious' by Albert Einstein.
Carla ~
Carla was a customer at our store at one of our very first crops when we opened back in 2007. We immediately fell in love with her bubbly personality and her laugh. She gets the trophy for juggling multiple projects at once for sure! At any given time you will find her cutting vinyl on her Cameo and making shirts, stamping and making cards for the next card swap, editing hundreds of photos at a time…and while they are printing she can even spit out several fun scrapbook pages!! She brings that same enthusiastic energy to the sales floor at The City. You better watch out when shopping under Carla’s watch…she’ll have you buying things you didn’t know you ‘needed’ when you came in only for adhesive, LOL. She loves to help customers find the perfect paper and embellishments to go with their pictures. If you can catch her for a moment it will be on the weekends or at crops as she’s a 1st grade teacher during the week. She has a precious family that is always on the go…I swear I don’t think she sleeps. She is a loyal City Chick all the way and I am proud to have her on my team.
Lisa ~
Lisa came to me in 2019 as a transplant from Illinois. She'd relocated here and chose the city of Alcoa for her family to start fresh. Her son Dante plays football and her daughter Desiree plays soccer. She's a busy mom and helps her husband run a food truck, Food & Co. How cool is that?! She was looking for a crafty community and quickly found her people at Scrappin' In The City. Lisa started working at the store just before Covid hit and everything shut down. So, her role has evolved along with the store and she's now running my shipping department. If you get a pretty package in the mail from us, odds are Lisa shipped that! She also helps behind the scenes in kitting class kits (then shipping them lol). Lisa also runs our social media for Facebook and Instagram. She knows all the trends and helps to keep me in-the-know and on trend!
Kate ~
I was born into a military family then married into the military and lived/traveled with my solider husband to Germany and many military forts in the south. That is when I fell in love with southern culture and is why, in 2008, we abandoned our Yankee roots for Tennessee. I have worn many hats; entrepreneur, nurse and mother. We have three grown children, seven grandchildren and lots of pictures and stories that need to be documented. I've always been crafty but it wasn't until 2014 that I started Scrapbooking those memories. That's when I discovered Scrappin In The City and realized the potential of paper crafting and how it could enrich my memory keeping. I look forward to meeting and greeting all the wonderful customers who love to craft and talk about their art.
Jonna ~
Basically, Jonna makes me look like a rockstar! She does all the tedious tasks behind the scenes to make everything work at The City. She has her hands in almost every aspect... from the organization of the project to the processes that bring it to completion. I can come up with an idea and she can make it happen. She's my 2nd set of hands that I've always needed. Everyone needs a Jonna and I couldn't do all that I do without her! I make a class and she cuts, kits and creates the instructions for it. She's become a pro at the Cameo machine with designing as well as cutting. She's patient and a perfectionist which are two qualities that make her the perfect the City Chick for the job. When it comes to data entry and website work, she can speed through it like lightning. If I'm overloaded or just not getting my creative mojo, I can even ask her to design a class...and she still delivers!
She works tirelessly and rolls up her sleeves to get the job done. Thank you, Jonna, for making me look so good and put together :) and for your love and loyalty. I'm always saying "Jonna has saved the day" because she's helped me pull it all off. With her on my team, I know whatever project or idea I have next can be done!
Jenn ~
You'll most likely recognize Jenn's crafty work that we display all over the store. She's been a member of the design team for awhile and is now an Ambassador to the store. She is undoubtedly the most productive scrapbooker I've ever met. She's always thinking outside the box and has a great eye for design and color. Not only does Jenn cover the store in inspiration, she also teaches classes and loves to inspire others to craft outside their box. Because she has such a good eye for design, Jenn now resets the store weekly and puts all the new products out on display. That's no small task! Putting new product out in our small store takes some serious creativity and is a domino effect... once you move something, then you've got to move something else! If you've come into the shop and seen a mess all over the floor with displays torn apart, then you know Jenn is working her magic and making things look great! Jenn has also begun traveling with me to shows. I can give her a box of random products packed from the store and say 'just make it pretty' and then I can worry about the logistics of the booth. Making things pretty is her jam and I'm thankful she's party of my team.
Melinda ~
Melinda is our mixed media guru! She loves paint and abstract art and I seriously think she does ALL the crafty hobbies. I'm all the time hearing of her latest crafty adventure and I'm secretly jealous. Melinda is so giving of her time and her knowledge. She is extremely meticulous at everything she does... which is why I have her working on my inventory management weekly. I'm thankful for her attention to the details. She's amazing at kitting all the projects and labeling everything in sight! Odds are, you'll not see Melinda much as she's always quietly behind the scenes doing all the necessary work to make the store run on rails. She's a fabulous worker bee and such a joy to be around.
Paula ~
Paula is undoubtedly the toughest chick I know. Paula has served our country for years in the Air Force and the Air National Guard. When I say she's tough... she's tough! She's had combat training! (there's an inside joke to that, btw!) When I'm with Paula, I am always laughing.... seriously, she's hilarious and always has a funny story to tell. She's an avid animal lover and rescues dogs but can be found loving on any animal in sight. I just love her heart and if you don't see her at the store on the weekends then you can bet she's traveling somewhere fun! This girl is always on the go. She's always got plenty of pictures from her travels to scrapbook and she loves making cards too! Paula stays connected to the store through all the friendships made and she loves to help out when she can on the weekends and at the bigger events. If I can snatch her on any given weekend I consider myself lucky.
Amanda J ~
Amanda is literally the sweetest friend. She's always got a smile on her face and always willing to help. Amanda has been with me from the beginning in some form. Her story is definitely one for the books. Her husband came into the store and asked for us to plan a 'scrapbooking date night' for them. Say what?! He surprised her with this gift to scrapbook his proposal at Disney to her. I know... winner, winner, right?!? Amanda has been hooked since and I've watched her scrapbook each of her pregnancies and watched her children grow. Her entire family is just precious to me. Amanda has worked every aspect of the store I believe, but now you'll find her as a Design Team Ambassador displaying her fabulous work to inspire us. She's known for all her paper piecing and layering. I love to study her pages to check out all the details she's put into each layout. Amanda also closes our crops at the store for us. She's a late-night scrapbooker like most of us, so its a perfect fit for her. Come try a crop at the store and scrap along-side Amanda. I know you'll love her as much as I do by the end of the night and you'll be wanting to scrap-lift all her layouts!!
Lesley ~
I met Lesley as a customer in the store and she I always attended the monthly crops. It was her time away from being mommy and getting to be crafty. She quickly made a very close-knit friend group with the fellow scrappers she met at the store. Lesley is so talented - at scrapbooking, cardmaking and mostly her self-taught hand lettering. Lesley began teaching Bible Journaling classes for me and now she teaches the Hand Lettering classes. She's great because she's a lefty and swears anyone can do it! She's done chalkboard classes and envelope classes as well. They're always fun. She worked the store for several years until she moved away to Chattanooga. Then I was so sad to lose her I tried to find a spot for her to remain part of my team. She'd always had such a great way with words, so she now does my blogging for the website. I know blogging isn't the most followed trend anymore but I think its really helpful to the success of a website and rounds out our store website with pertinent information. I'm thankful we still get a small piece of her!
Amanda H ~
Amanda is another friend that I met through the store cropping at our monthly crops. We got to know her and she got close with several of the other croppers. I also got to know her work and she does beautiful layouts with her strong suit being able to use all the leftover patterns. She worked the storefront for awhile until she had to take a full-time job. Now we get to see her work through the Traveler's Kit Club as one of our designers. Amanda also helps with my event planning for the big crops. She can bring an idea to life at a party!
Christy ~
Joanne ~
Tiffany ~
Tiffany has been a customer for many years and a member of our previous design teams. Her husband of 40+ years encourages her to stay crafty. With her 3 children and 5 grandchildren, she has plenty of scrappy material. Her love of crafts started with a neighbor and cross stitching and has evolved into card making and scrapbooking. Tiffany has always been an avid learner at Scrappin' In The City and takes almost every class offered .... not because she needs the instruction, but because she's always searching to learn new techniques and loves to be with her crafty people. Tiffany is our newest City Chick and will be helping with our updated loyalty program and some other behind-the-scenes kitting and prepping. I know you'll love her as much as I do!
Michelle ~ Copic & Watercolor Instructor
Being an engineer, it was a really fun journey to discover I had a creative side. I have been scrapbooking for over 20 years, but really got into cardmaking in 2016. It started when I walked into my local scrapbook store and saw a copic class going on. Hmm, I thought, what are copic markers? Silly question, I know, but I quickly became obsessed. Just a few months later, I attended Copic Certifications classes and started teaching Copic Classes.
About the same time I was at a Creating Keepsakes Show and "found" the Art Impressions booth. Poor Kendra probably thought I was a stalker. I spent hours at their booth just watching her create images. I was in love in watercoloring the Art Impressions Way. A short while later I started teaching Art Impressions classes as well.I have now been teaching Copic and Art Impressions Watercolor classes for almost five years. I truly love teaching people how to color with Copics and how to watercolor the Art Impressions way.I believe no one ever stops learning. I also honestly think anyone can learn either of these techniques. Give them a try, and find your happy place, as I did mine.
Missy ~ Bible Journaling Instructor
Wife and mom of three plus a bonus daughter in law. My oldest is married and lives in Arizona, my daughter is a senior in high school, and the baby is in middle school. I have loved all things paper, pens, and markers for as long as I can remember. Back to school supply shopping was always one of my favorite times of the year. I have paper crafted for most of my life. From a little scrapbooking, to zentangle, to the planner world, and many things in between. I have tried a lot of different things, but about 8 year ago I saw a Bible journaling page on Pinterest, and I found my creative outlet. Bible Journaling has completely changed my relationship with God's word, and I have a passion for sharing that with others.
I fell in love with Scrappin' in the City about 5 years ago...and, now it is my happy place away from home. Tends to be a little quieter (ok a lot) than my own house. I love taking all kinds of paper crafting and incorporating that into my Bible journaling. From ink to stamps and dies it all goes in the margins of my Bible. My hubby, kids, and serving at church keep me busy, but any down time you can find me at my messy table Bible journaling or some other paper crafting. From junk journals to flip books I love when creativity and faith collide.