Okee dokee, where do I start???

ROFL!!! How about with the GOOD stuff, lol.

WOW, WOW, WOW, what a FABULOUS response you guys. I NEVER, EVER in a million years could have EXPECTED all the traffic the new Shoppe is getting. To be really HONEST with you I was actually REALLY disappointed with myself because there were SOOOOOOOO.... MANY other things I wanted to make and just could NOT get around to it. But overall I think it's going more than well and I thank you from the BOTTOM of my heart!!! All I can really think of right now is what I want to make you, to thank you!!! lol

Okay so there are MANY things I want to cover and I am going to REALLY do my best and try to be brief, lol. ONLYYY because I can chat ALL day and like I said I REALLY wanna make you something after I check all my emails, lol. PLUS, I REALLY don't think you have a bunch of time to listen to me ramble, haha!!!

Bloging--OMG, so WHAT is my problem? lol. I tell you yall I have worked AROUND the clock for WEEKS just trying to catch up on emails ad prepare for this. I have had EVERY good intention of coming over here since Monday to keep you updated but I will be COMPLETELY honest, I am BEATTT. It FINALLY caught up with me, no sleeping that is, and I am just BEAT! I really have not had the energy nor the time to do it. We posted on the sites home page and my team is doing their best to take care of any and all issues for me at DST while I handle the CS. So I SINCERELY apologize and can not WAIT until things are back to normal! :)

New stuff--So are you happy?? Do you like the new stuff?? Can you believe the the UBBERR TALENTED gal I collabed with??? What a DREAMMM, huh? I think I peed myself when she agreed, bwhaaaa!!! I told her that too. That princess, I SERIOUSLY CAN NOT EXPRESS to you (I know you know this, lol) how sweet she is. I know she probably has a GAZILLION offers to collab weekly and I feel SOO honored, TRULY LUCKYY!! So French Countryside, isn't that like THE PERFECT name for it, hahaha. She came up with it after it was all finished and to me it just brought it all together in two words. We had a BLAST creating this even though she was REALLY on vacation and I dealing with the preparation for the Grand Opening, lol. It was just sooo coool to see our different takes on things. I know most of you were probably COMPLETELY SHOCKED just because our styles are slightly different.

But when I think of a collab, I like a challenge. I like too have two opposites come together to make one, kwim? However as I was creating I was getting scared that I was gonna scare off her customers. Just thinking...ohh no this is SOO NOT going to go together and then WOW...it meshed SOOO perfectly!!! This thing is HUGE, I have to say it IS a must have... I think all but 3-4 papers are solids (well with only a slight design such as polkas, grids, ornamental, etc.) and are all the PERFECT go to versatile papers!!! It is just TRULY YUMMY!!! There IS so much in there that I am wanting to put together a little slide type thingy so you can all see what's in it up close. Anyone know anything cool? Anyhow this HUGE almost 500mb kit with NINE (9) downloads is only a little over $6 on sale right now. You MUST grab it Who knows if she will ever collab with me again, ROFL!!! :) , heehee!!!Oh and WHO doesn't know the Shabby Princess right?? But here is link to her Shoppe http://www.theshabbyshoppe.com/. She TRULY has the MOST UNIQUE, AMAZING and SUPER HIGH Quality designs in her shoppe for you to check out. I would have to say personally that her customer service is her TRULY EXCEPTIONAL quality too. She guards her customers like a CHAMP and spends BOO COOS of money just to give away FREE kits at her other site http://www.shabbyprincess.com/, and I have learned she doesn't sleep either, hahaha...see I'm not the only one!!! lol

Issues--HOLY MOLY are there ever issues, ROFL!!! First of all let me say this... a large part of my CT, Lauren Barden (web MASTER) and I are working AROUND the clock taking care of everything we can. However, server issues that are controlled by the people who OWN the server can not be fixed by us especially when the problem is the sheer volume of traffic! Let me explain...

Originally, I had NO IDEA what to expect. First of all I was just opening so I wasn't sure about how much traffic to expect. On top of this the Princess was not going to put the collab in her Shoppe unless I wanted her to. She thought it would be nice for all of the traffic to come to my site. See did I NOT tell you, she is TRULY AMAZING!!! Well I gladly accepted hung up the phone with her and it hit me...HOLLLLYYY MOLLYY, lol. This chick runs on FOUR DEDICATED servers!!! Sooo.. needless to say, I got to work and spent LOADS of money preparing for the largest group possible. I KNEWW I was OVER EXPECTING but best to be safe right! Well come Monday we had server crashing and had to move and re-upload files and all sorts. Tuesday we opened and things went NUTSO. Shabby Princess and I re-discussed our plan and decided it would be best if she did NOT send out an announcement quite yet. There were already SOOOO MANY orders coming through that even the dedicated servers I purchased were not able to handle it.

Hundreds of orders were placed in just the first 2hrs of the store opening.... that is INSANELY HUGE. I am not sure how many stores run on dedicated servers but I can tell you that I was on a shared server which is typical, yet sharing space with 400 other companies. On a dedicated server it is all you. So what I am trying to say I guess is we have done EVERYTHING humanly possible to handle this. It is NOW OUT OF OUR CONTROL!!! The problems are completely because of the volume of traffic and unfortunately the issue can not be fixed.

MOST large stores that have a grand opening or sale of this magnitude, have these SAME problems and I think a lot of people are forgetting that fact. Lauren Barden kept telling me it's gonna go down REGARDLESS, it ALWAYS does. I did NOT want to hear it, I just ventured off and bought all kinds of extra space to help. She installed it, no questions asked, lol, know you know why I LOVE HER so much, lol!!! Yet, here we are, site down every now and then regardless.

Like I explained before, SP and I made a business decision to hold off on her announcement. We did this to PROTECT both of of customers and to have the LEAST amount of problems as possible. So this traffic is merely my FABBBBBBULOUS fans, you all that are coming to grab my stuffs :). And YESSS, I WUV, WUV, WUVVV you for it!!

I am SO SORRY it took me so long to post. My team and I have been working FURIOUSLY trying to get through these emails and PM's to try to assist you in the quickest way possible. However, the list just wasn't getting any smaller so I am hoping this will help. I DO WANT you to know that this is NOT, NOT, my normal way of doing things. Things are just MUCH larger than I EVER anticipated. PLEASE don't let this keep you away in the future!!! Thank you all again! Your support is OVERWHELMINGLY AMAZING and I appreciate is more than you know!!!

Q & A from my Team Captain, Mish:

I sent an email but haven't received a response.

CR has more emails than she can handle. We are helping her as much as we can. If you have a question and/or need something quickly then most likely we can help you before she can. I have typed up these common questions and answers hoping this can help alleviate some of the emails also. If after reading this you still have questions, please email christinareneedesigns@yahoo.com and we will try to respond as quickly as possible.

I can't get into the shop, WHY?

If there are still people who can not see the store at all, it is your OWN ISP that is the issue. We do not handle people’s personal Internet accounts. Therefore we can not intervene with people’s ISP’s. If you can not see the store at all, please contact your ISP and discuss the issue with them. They will be the only ones who can help you with that.

My download links are not showing up in my account, where are they?

The reason they are not showing up is due to traffic to the site. The overload of traffic that is interfering with your home PC & preventing it from connecting right away to the server to grab those links. It seems as if EVERYONE IS getting their links just NOT right away. So if they are not there or some are and some aren't, they will most likely appear soon.

Why are my files that I downloaded are corrupted?

The files themselves are not corrupt, the issue again is due to the overload of traffic that is interfering with your home PC & preventing it from connecting properly with the server while downloading. The traffic overload is slowing download times so much that the server is unable to connect properly to every single computer quick enough. Until traffic slow down at the store, this is out of our hands. We can not slow the amount of traffic in the store ourselves.

Why is is taking SO LONG to download my goodies?

The high volume of traffic is also effecting to download speeds. If you have X amount of bandwidth, then you can handle X amount of downloads at a decent speed. We have purchased an INSANE amount of bandwidth possible. But when the amount of traffic is exceeding 23,000 hits a day, it exceeds the bandwidth available, causing some people to be unable to see the store and others to be able to access, but very, very slowly.

My downloads have expired, what can I do?

If we have to reset download links for every single order we will! But it WILL TAKE TIME TO DO SO. Please keep in mind. Hundreds of orders in 2hrs… times that by a couple of days and we have A LOT OF ORDERS. We will deal with things as swiftly as we can, but please bear in mind this will most likely take a few days. Please email us at christinareneedesigns@yahoo.com an we will do our best to reset them ASAP!!!

Communication

We apologize for the delay in sending out an actual newsletter update, but the CT girls have been constantly at DST filling people in, explaining circumstances, answering questions, responding to PM's, etc etc etc. I realize many of you would have preferred more personal contact with Christina Renee herself like she usually does, but if she wasn't doing the stuff she is doing & was responding to people personally instead, there would be complaints because she wouldn't be doing the other things she is.

For some people, I doubt there is anything we can say because there are a few who don't want to accept that the problem is the NUMBER OF CUSTOMERS nothing else. To those of you who have been so wonderfully patient, THANK YOU. Thank you for your support, your patience and most of all your understanding.

Thank you for your support of Christina Renee Designs, you are all AWESOME!

Mish – Creative Team Captain

So your probably wonder what I'm gonna do about this, right? lol. Well first of all, I am going to be extending the sale at the Shoppe through next week, so through July 22nd. I did not realize certain peoples ISP did not update daily and even thought this is not my problem, I AM going to take care of you!!! I can NOT PROMISE that the French Countryside Collab will still be on sale though, so snatch it up THIS WEEK!!! We also had mentioned an exclusive freebie and a product of the day going in the Shoppe. All of these things will happen next week instead. I don't want to ADD to the traffic until most of you can get the things that you have purchased already. We will also be extending the deadlines of the challenges being held at DST, www.digishoptalk.com. More information can be found there in either the designer announcements forum or the Insirational Scrapping Ideas Forum. I will say this AGAIN, I have the BEST team EVER and THEY are the ones doing these challenges. There is NO way, I could right now. So you can thank THEM for that one! I left it completely up to them! :)

That is all for now yall! I reallly, REALLLY DO hope you understand WHYY we are having these issues and I MOREEE SO hope your realize that is is NOT normal for it to happen. Sure we may end up having to expand more in the VERY near future and are prepared to do so. But anything else we could have done at this point would have ONLY caused even MORE problems!!!

HUGE HUGS! Thank you for your support! :)