Packed Camps and Upcoming Auctions

Wow! Amazing! Fantastic! The turnout for this month's stamp camp was awesome. What an excellent compliment to have stampers enjoy it so much they are bringing friends who then bring friends. While it was a little packed on Friday night, it seemed to flow better than I had anticipated. I will try to set out a few more chairs for March, although my friend Kathleen is insisting that I expand my set up into the garage and have tables and chairs out there as well! We'll see about that, it's still a little chilly, and if you know me at all you know that the garage is our constant 'project', but someday it may actually be clean enough to expand out there.

I have added the Friday afternoon stamp camp which is open to those who are child-free during that time, although immobile infants are welcome. This month we had 6 stampers during that time and it was a very relaxed event that was a lot of fun. I hope it continues to be a popular time choice. I also am willing to offer a Saturday morning stamp camp if anyone is interested. I have posted a poll on the next evite, so please be sure to let me know if that is a time that may work for you!

As always, I really enjoy the feedback I get from those of you who are attending stamp camps regularly. Knowing what you enjoy and what could use work helps me to adjust if possible to make stamp camp consistently enjoyable. I may not be able to please everybody all the time but I will sure give it my best shot! I will be done with school at the beginning of March and after that things should get a little easier for me and I can start to really look at Stamp Camp and figure out what I want from it and how I can improve.

A few of you have asked about having private stamp camps in your home. At this point I am not offering that due to time constraints, but I am thinking about it and I may be willing to start that this spring. Keep an eye on the blog and I will keep you posted to the progress of that idea.
In the meantime, I am donating a Stamp Camp to the PSCNS Auction at the end of the month. It's a private stamp camp for 10 in my home. The host and I will choose a date and they will invite 10 friends to attend, each stamper will make 5 cards with coordinating envelopes, and will enjoy refreshments provided by April. The host will be able to pick and choose what kind of cards they would like to make at their camp and it should be a very fun evening. If you would like to attend the PSCNS auction, it will be held on February 29th at the preschool, tickets are $10 and include dinner catered by the Vault. Let me know and I can put you in contact with someone for more details!

**Update - I also am donating the same for the Firgrove Elementary auction, so look for one there too!

Thank you again to all of my stampers, it's so much fun to get to know you and be able to share this love of stamping with you!

Memory Can

I love that I am able to share the creativity of others via the web. It allows me to take my own creativity to a level that I may not have reached without learning tricks and techniques from other stampers. Another great Splitcoast Stampers idea is a memory can, which makes a very unique and wonderful shower gift. I made this one for my cousin Felicia who is due with a girl in April. For anyone out there who is a parent, we know how unexpectedly hectic life can get after baby, so these cans are a great way to keep track of those milestones or anecdotes without having to dig out the baby book every time. Just jotting it on a scrap of paper and tossing it in the can, keeps those memories safe until you have a chance to write them in the book. I wish I had these when my kids were little!

Valentine Teacher Gifts

The Target $1 spot is a great place to find little containers and odds and ends to doll up with stamps, scrapbook paper, and ribbon, like these adorable red and pink mailboxes! My best stamping resource - Splitcoast Stampers - always provides great ideas for cards and projects, in their member gallery, and once these started popping up I knew it was time to take a trip to the Target. I picked up a few and just used some paper from the Spring Stack and some extra ribbon and scrap paper leftover from stamp camp to decorate them. They came out pretty cute, and once I fill them with a few goodies, they will make great gifts for the kid's teachers for Valentine's day.

Stamp Camp snacks...

I always have great intentions to enhance my cooking skills by providing tasty treats at stamp camps and eventually I may reach the point I can do that, however, as is typical everything gets rushed at the last minute and I wind up serving whatever is handy. Sadly, those themed treats and tidbits must stay in the realm of my imagination for now *sigh*.

A solution presented itself when my good friend and regular stamp camper, April, signed up to sell Tastefully Simple. If you haven't tried thier products they make some great tasting easy to throw together dips, breads, sauces, and more. These quick snacks take the guess work out of what to serve. I asked if she would be interested in providing snacks for the stamp camps in exchange for being able to have catalogs available in case anyone would like to order and she thought that was a great idea! She will feature some seasonal items as well as some great standby's. Their website has the full line of products as well as recipes and ideas for what you can do with them. Tastefully Simple I am sure that if there is anything you are interested in trying, April will be glad to feature that if she is able to, just put a note in your evite response!

Evite glitch

If you are supposed to be on my evite list and did not recieve an invitation to stamp camp this month, I was experiencing some technical difficulties due to a glitch with my evite address book. If you can take a minute to send me an email Make sure I'm on the list! and I will fix that. I think I was able to get everyone on the current evites and update my address book so next month there should not be any problems. Sorry!!!

Done for the year....

Finally, school is over, I have a 3 week break from work and don't plan to take on as many classes next session, I finished my stamp camps, I was able to get out my December birthday cards and my Holiday cards for stampers, and finish my teacher and boss gifts! I'm done for the year!

You may have noticed I'm already dreaming about next year. I have a line-up of camp themes for next year already and in my head I am already coming up with ideas. My goal for this year is to focus even more on the Stamp Camp business and keep improving how it works. If you have any suggestions for ways I could improve Stamp Camp I would love to hear it, and if you leave me feedback you will get to choose a gift from my gift bucket at the next Stamp Camp. I am working on improving the lighting which I know is a problem and I'll do my best to have that kink worked out by January's camp.

For the 2008 year I would like to make Thursday nights "family friendly" nights, meaning that kids who are 12 & up could attend with their parent. I am also going to try to update my blog every Monday, so keep an eye out for new posts.

Another thing I would love to start for 2008 is doing kids stamp birthday parties at their location. I'm trying to figure a good cost and the details for that, so again, any suggestions would be welcome and can earn you treats!

I hope you all have a wonderful holiday and I look forward to stamping with you in the new year!