My First Creative Christmas Crafty Retreat!

Hi there friends, I wanted to share photos of my first retreat I held yesterday at the Elks club lodge in Ballston Lake, New York.

Let me give you the backstory, part of the training program I have been a part of for almost 3 years, encourages us to hold a creative retreat. I wanted to see one in action before I tried it myself so back in August I went with my friend Elizabeth to go to Massachusetts to Selene Kempton’s retreat. I got a lot of great ideas and saw it in action, and while I was there everyone encouraged me to plan my own. With only one free Saturday on my calendar for the month of November I came home from Selene’s retreat eager to plan my first one. Everything came together and I feel so blessed. The day I had available was yesterday, Saturday, November 17, which was the 2nd anniversary of when my sweet mother went to heaven. I know she was with me and helped everything to go so smoothly.

I first invited my team, I have 30 downline that was my starting point. I knew I only wanted to have 30 people at my first one. Not everyone could attend so then I opened it up to some great friends who I thought would enjoy attending an all day event like this. I had 25 people pre-register, and unfortunately one was sick the day of the event but we made her all the projects.

I had these canvas tote bags made up as I wanted everyone to have something to take all their prizes in projects home in. Everyone received one package of the festive farmhouse Christmas DSP, the striped burlap ribbon, and a package of metallic pearls. My theme was farmhouse Christmas and I wanted everything to coordinate. When I was shopping on Amazon for the wood slice ornaments I even found a T-shirt to match my theme so I had to get it for myself.

I don’t know if you can see in this photo but there is a fabric coaster for under their hot cocoa mug that I made, the Santa scissor charm I made with Shrinky dink material (I cased from Carol Hickman), the wood slice ornament I had help from my friends/team Kara and Laurie, and you can see all the Stampin’ Up! products that were included in this event as well as all eight projects we made.

In the first two photos, the gift card holders, I modified these from the projects we made at Selenes’s retreat. I love the simple idea of decorating our gold striped bag, and our Kraft pillow boxes, I just used the farmhouse theme to spruce it up for my event.

In the third picture, I would like to thank my friend and downline Amye Speirs for designing that card for me.

The fourth photo, with the sled, I just cased the catalog.

The fifth photo with the mini tea light lantern, I modified the tutorial from Allison Okamitsu, and her blog is called Nice People Stamp, she’s a wonderful demonstrator from Canada and her directions were perfect. I just changed the paper and ribbon to match my theme.

The little joy stocking was from November 2017 paper pumpkin kit, unfortunately it’s sold out now but I bought a bunch back in September to use for this event.

The last two photos showcase our beautiful mini gable boxes one is in silver and the other is a shimmery white. I just created these two designs using the farmhouse DSP & wanted this to be fun treat holders, I had candy on every table that people could take to fill their little boxes.

 

I did not have very much money to spend on decorations after ordering all the supplies needed for these projects and the little goodie bags. So my wonderful sister-in-law Kathy loaned me all her farmhouse Decor so I could decorate the tables at check-in and where we ate our meals.

We had a little hot cocoa station, I had a lending library set up where people could borrow my stamps, dies, and punches as well as the big shot set up.

I rotated the projects to each table every half an hour so they could comfortably stay at their seat and I then returned all the projects to a table in the back if anybody arrived late and needed to go make their projects- they had the rest of the day to complete their projects.

Everyone received one raffle ticket for attending the event, I also gave raffle tickets every time they finished five projects they brought to work on, I gave one raffle ticket for each $10 they purchased from me from my retired table or my adhesives, or a catalog order they placed with me. Then I had five bundles of wonderful product and they put the raffle tickets inside the bag of the items they hope to win. I also sold raffle tickets individually, or an arm length for $20. I drew the winners at about 8 PM,  Kara won the Stamparatus, Jessica won the farmhouse Christmas bundle, Amye won the alpine snow Bundle, Jackie won the Snow is Glistening bundle, and Linda won the Winter Woods bundle. I used all the hostess rewards, and my commission on the sale of all the products I ordered for this event as the prizes.

I arranged for my wonderful friend Wendy to come and do chair massages, 19 people enjoyed a relaxing massage, poor Wendy was exhausted after four hours, I am so thankful she was able to come and I know everyone enjoyed their massage! Thanks friend! 😘

I have to say the food was delicious, and I’m so thankful to Mike Bloss from the Clifton Park Elks, what a fantastic job he did and we really enjoyed the spread for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. I only remembered to take pictures of the lunch buffet but the set up was the same. It was really nice to get up from our crafting table to go to the lunch table.

It just warms my heart to see this room full of special ladies who came out and supported me with my first retreat, everyone shared an 8 foot table, and we had them all near the walls so they could plug in their lights or electronics.

I had some ordering specials for my attendees, and will be placing their orders today. I also still need to unpack my car and now get ready for bingo next week. Just wanted to say thank you to everyone who attended, all my helpers, most especially my team for joining Lynnzcrafters and coming out to this event yesterday!

Thank you for taking the time to read this blog post today, I would love to hear from you! What was your favorite project? Would you like to attend an event like this? This was a 12 hour day, we were open from 9 AM to 9 PM… Although we did close up a little early last night everyone was fatiguing myself included.

Please leave me a comment, I am going to do a giveaway I have an extra canvas bag from this event and I will send it to one lucky winner who leaves a comment on this post by Wednesday 11/21 at 6 PM.

If you are thinking of ordering anything this month please use Hostess Code:  TAB9VTSP

~Lynn Streifert

Independent Demonstrator, Stampin’ Up!

Shop my Online Store 24/7 on my website: http://LynnStreifert.stampinup.net

Email: Lstreifert@nycap.rr.com

Workshops and Classes offered in your home or mine featuring: Memory Keeping- aka scrapbooking, card making, paper crafting, Big Shot fun and a variety of 3D objects and gift items. Think of me for Birthday Parties, Kid Crafts, baby and bridal showers, weddings, and special anniversaries or parties where you need customized invitations or decorations!