Wednesday, May 07, 2008

Dear Friends of Ekcetera,

Could Winter finally be gone? Spring brings new life in nature and in the Garrett family as well! My husband, Dan, and I are so blessed to be expecting our first child on May 21. My pregnancy thus far has been going well. Over the last several months we have prepared for the coming of our daughter and we couldn't be more excited for her arrival in a few short weeks.

What does this mean for Ekcetera? Only a few (hopefully) minor inconveniences. I am not taking a formal maternity leave, but rather, will recover at home for a short while and be available on a limited basis. I am confident that my staff will do a fantastic job in helping you, our cherished customers, with your needs. We sincerely appreciate your patience while I recover physically and get acquainted with our new little one.

I would also like to take this opportunity to let you know about some exciting things happening at Ekcetera. As you may have noticed, we have not been sending out a workshop calendar in the last few months. I have been the primary instructor for classes and have been using the time to rest. We have some fantastic ideas for new workshops and classes. We hope to try some of our ideas in the Fall. In the meantime, feel free to schedule a one-on-one session with myself or one of our staff to learn more about your topic of interest.

The Design Studio ~ Coming Soon!
Many of you may not be aware of our commercial graphic and web design services. For the past two years, we offered these services from our design office in St. Paul. Now, our design studio is moving to Inver Grove Heights! Watch for the studio to open inside the Inver Grove Heights store. We will continue to offer all of our commercial and personal design services such as small business design, as well as wedding invitations, baby announcements, etc.!

In addition to the exciting move, there are several other things happening in the near future:
  • New merchandise arriving all summer
  • Expansion of paper and stationery offerings
  • A new website featuring community message boards
  • New Ekcetera-designed products

We are very excited to see how these changes unfold over the next several months. We ask for your patience with my pregnancy and the other items. We'll continue to do our best to provide high quality service to you however we can.

Thank you so much for your business! Your support means so much to us.

Sincerely,