Zoomorphs

We got a demo bag of the zoo morphs toys and I wanted to find some kind of play table to use for it. I found this great little table and chairs and decided that I wanted to paint them. As I was painting them I had a great idea to decoupage some picture onto the stools. I was trying to think of what kinds of pictures I could use on them. It was then that I spotted the catolog they had sent with the demo's. I cut up the whole catolog and made this cute little Zoomorph's playtable. I found a lap table to put on the top to keep all of the parts in. I think that it turned out great. If you click on the picture you will see a lot more detail.In case you are wondering...Zoomorphs are take apart animals insects and reptiles that you can mix and match to create your own new animals.

View from outside

First shipment of PINK!!!

My first shipment of pink arrived yesterday!! I had so much fun unpacking and displaying all of this darling stuff. It was almost like Christmas.
These were some of our favorites. They are little nursing animals. They have little magnets on the babies and on the momma's. So cute!!!

Toys are arriving

Our toys have been slowly trickling in over the last couple of weeks. Although there are still a lot of holes that need to be filled in, it is starting to look like a store. None of our biggest orders have arrived yet and we still have a few more large orders to place. It is really exciting despite the way the economy is going at this time. We remember the many miracles that happened to get us to where we are today. We do not doubt that we are in the right place at the right time. We ultimately don't know what the outcome will be, but for now we are at peace with this grand adventure.Erick ordered some plush and to his surprise they included this huge white alligator as a free gift. It looks great surrounded by his lizards, snakes and tarantulas.
I went to the ABC kids show in Vegas for a week earlier this month. I would talk to Erick everyday and he would tell me about all of the toys that he was receiving while I was gone. When I went into the store after coming home I had to ask him where all of the "pink" was. Everything that had been ordered was all of the cool boy stuff. He then informed me that it was my duty to order the "pink" stuff and that I had been slacking. Needless to say I have been busy the last couple of weeks ordering lots of fabulous pink to fill the store. Hopefully it will start arriving next week. Then I will have lots of fun pink picts to post.

This is a picture of the crazy hat rack.

Orders, orders, and more orders

There is not alot going on yet as far as the looks of the store, but there is a lot going on behind the scenes. Erick has been working with about 4 different toy reps (each rep represents 20-30 different toy companies) to place orders. This is probably the hardest part of the whole process. We met with one of the reps last week and I knew we were in trouble when after an hour we had only gone through one catalog. There are upwards of 200 catalogs that we have to look through and try to decide what to put into the store. It is a very time consuming process. Once we get the store filled it shouldn't be as hard to maintain, but initially... WOW. Susan is the person that we bought all of the shelving from. She has been a huge help to us in this whole process and has been working with Erick in writing up the orders. She has over 20 years of experience in the toy industry and really knows what she is doing. It has been a huge blessing to have her and her husband in our lives. I will have more pictures soon as we start getting our orders in. We are hoping to be open in a couple of weeks.

Sign approval

We met with the sign company today and this is the final copy of what the sign will look like on the store. It will take up to 6 weeks before the actual sign is up. They first have to get permits from the city and then once the city approves it, it can take 3-4 weeks for them to make the sign and hang it.

Unpacking the toys!!!

Today Erick started unpacking all of the toys that we have already bought. We bought out the remaining inventory from the people that we bought all of the sales counters and shelving from. We are so grateful to them for all of the help that they are giving us. They came today to help Erick unpack and set up. It was so neat to see the store today. I could actually start to envision what it will look like when it is filled with toys. Groovy girls display
I stood on a ladder to take this picture. You get a really good view of the store from up there.

The kids are looking at these pictures and keep saying "is that what dad's store looks like?" "AWESOME"

Color!!!

We finally have color on the walls. The red still needs another coat, but we are almost done!!! The next step will be hanging the shelves on the walls.

Painting

Wednesday night we painted the primer on the walls.

Hopefully thursday we will get the color painted on the walls. They will be painted red, yellow and blue to match the sales counter. Erick painted the top panels and I painted the bottom panels. After 12 years of marriage we finally bought a ladder.The walls before primer

Hanging up the walls

Today we started hanging the wallboard's up on the walls. This is what we will hang the shelves on. It is so nice to finally get them put up. What you see here is the bottom layer. There will be another layer on top of this one so it will go up about an inch from the ceiling. Then they will be painted in primary colors to match the floor and the sales counters.
This is a view of the store from the backroom.
You can't tell from this picture, but Erick has been working hard today.Luke is working hard today too. He loves coming to the store with daddy.

Moving day

On July 31st we moved all of our fixtures into the store. We rented a uhaul truck to move everything in. On one of the trips to the store another driver flagged Erick down and told him that the back of the uhaul was open. This load had all 3 of the big sales counters that are in the pictures below. One of them was sitting on top of the tow dolly that they used to load it. It was an absolute miracle that nothing fell out of the truck. Our prayers were definitely answered.

The dream begins

The dream of owning our own toy store is finally a reality. We got the keys to our new store on July 30, 2008. This is the beginning of Sams Toybox.