Wednesday, August 24, 2011

Stamp Camp rundown

I had an awesome weekend at Hunter Valley Retreat. I'm still on a Stamp Camp high I think...and I think I'll need at least a week to catch up on sleep too! The weather was perfect for stamping. We ventured outdoors only to dash to the dining room for some yummy food and then back again to stamp some more. It's an amazing feeling to be in a room of 30 ladies, all busy making different things, and hearing the chatter, laughter and singing (and this year I'm happy to say it wasn't just me singing either!)
This year as everyone arrived, I gave them a to-do checklist. This will give you an idea of how busy they all were. Most people checked off all the items on the list, and worked on their own projects too! This was their list:

Stamp Camp To-Do Checklist
Make a name badge
Wear your name badge every day
Complete Christmas Challenge
Bring Christmas Challenge to Saturday Dinner
Pay someone a crafty compliment (make it genuine!)
Complete Punch Art Challenge
Bring along something for morning/afternoon tea
Complete Renovate-a-card Challenge
Sing out loud so everyone can hear
Complete Black and White Challenge
Chat to someone you’ve never met before
Complete all 10 Shoebox Swaps
Watch all 4 Presentations
Laugh out loud at least once
Stamp your Bingo Sheet
Play STAMP Bingo (Saturday night)
Play Stamp-tionary (Saturday night)
Play Stamp-in-your-sleep (Saturday night)
Vote on the Challenge entries (Sunday morning 11am)

The 'name badge' was just a wooden peg. Who would have thought a plain old peg could look so great? As you can see we had several challenges. Since there are so many renovation shows on TV at the moment, one of them was to Renovate this very beautiful card I made:
I tell you, it was quite a challenge to make this one. I was aiming for the ugliest card in the world, and I think I succeeded!! Their challenge was to make a new version of it, changing whatever they wanted. The new versions were all a huge improvement on my ugly duckling.
We had at least 25 entries to each challenge and voting for our favourites was extremely difficult.

On Saturday night we had a Christmas in August dinner, with games afterwards. We played Bingo (with Bingo cards that we stamped ourselves) followed by Stamp-tionary (ever tried drawing stamp images? We had some true artists in our midst!) and then a game of Stamp in Your Sleep, where three not-so-willing volunteers had to make a card while blindfolded and being directed by their team mates. Hilarious!

We were also visited by the Stamp Fairy each night while we slept. She must have known that all stampers like chocolate! We all got a gorgeous chocolate slider box one day and then these cute little purses on the next: What a clever fairy!
I was even visited by a special fairy of my own. On Friday night I left an unfinished project on my table (I was making 40 bookmarks mass-production style) and on Saturday morning when I sat down, the stamp fairy had stuck them all together for me. Now if only I could find a housework fairy...


6 comments:

  1. Kathryn Brennan24/8/11 8:11 pm

    Sounds like lots of fun.

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  2. Oh wow Marelle, that sounds fabbo. Makes me think I should quit and re-join your downline now that my dear Jayne is quitting (sob). Glad you all had a lovely time. Luv KimT

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  3. P.S. I never thought I would make such a post on your blog about one of your cards but that card is pretty ugly (ducking and weaving here).

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  4. Sounds like a great weekend and a huge success. I will have to make sure my diary is clear next year way ahead of time.

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  5. Marelle, thanks for an awesome weekend and treats and shoebox swaps etc. The only bad thing was the renovation card, truly as terrible as you were aiming to make it! Everything else was wonderful! Lisa

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  6. Thanks again Marelle for a wonderful weekend away. You go to so much trouble organising all the fun and games and the day to day running of the camp. I am sure I speak for all the participants when I say that we really appreciate all your hard work and creativity.

    x manda

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