Between babysitting, work, and company at our house, I had had little time to prepare let alone create other things and blog about them in the days leading up to the launch. However, I will be sharing a series of blog posts about what I created for the launch later this week.
One of the things that is most fun to plan for the launch is the food and decor. This year my daughter created a wonderful cake for our party, complete with the five new In Colors! Though she was not too happy with her creation, my ladies and I loved it! The cake looked stunning on the food table since the rest of the food I had to purchase rather than make due to time constraints.
After Christmas this year, I was lucky enough to purchase some of the lovely Heidi Swap Marquee Letters at half price. They looked great after I added some of the Pop of Pink DSP to them! Here is a close up of the letters:
Also prepared as treats for each lady was a Mini Crate–in her favorite Stampin' Up! color. It was created by stamping card stock with the Hardwood stamp and then constructing the crates after die cutting with the Wood Crates Thinlits. The crates were loaded with a Catalog Survival Kit, two un-inked Ink Spots, a door prize draw ticket, and a T-Shirt magnet. These were accompanied by a pen filled with matching DSP.
Here are close ups of all eight crates:
Now for the evening's activities! As you can see from one of the previous photos, I had a full agenda planned for the night!
After a few brief highlights of the new catalog, (it was not brand new to my ladies since all but two had received theirs in the mail earlier) we moved on to some team events.
The ladies drew pieces of ribbon from a bag to determine teams–either Tranquil Tides or Berry Bursts–and this was repeated before each of the three activities.
The first activity was a Catalog Scavenger Hunt where the ladies had to hunt through the catalog for the products shown in cropped catalog photos and write them down on a sheet. They only got 15 minutes to find all 20 items so they had to work quickly!
Following the Scavenger Hunt, and after choosing new teams, the ladies had to work as a group to design a card and then create their individual copies of it as one of their projects for the night. Each group was given the same card stock, patterned paper, ribbon, stamps, stamp pad, and embellishments to use. Brian, our host Carolyn's husband, acted as a judge and decided on which group's design was awarded first or second. Both groups came up with lovely designs!
After a bit of an intermission for refreshments and some of the gorgeous cake, we reassembled for the third activity of the evening. New teams were chosen and the ladies had to decipher clever word clues for 30 of the Stampin' Up! colors within a 15 minute time limit!
Next, they were able to relax after competing on teams and complete their remaining project for the evening.
A piece of Thick Whisper White was debossed using the Celebrate folder from the Celebrations Duo Embossing Folders. The image was then stamped, using the five 2017-2019 In Colors, with a splotch stamp from the Happy Celebrations stamp set.
The sentiment was stamped with Basic Black ink. The stamped piece was then distressed using the now retired Distressing Tool and then adhered with Fast Fuse to a thin, Tranquil Tide matte.
A piece of the Berry Burst Finely Woven Ribbon was folded and stapled to the top of the matte using the now retired Handheld Stapler. The matte was then adhered to a Lemon Lime Twist card front using Dimensionals. Three sequins were adhered to the card front using Glue Dots.
For inside the card, the larger splotch stamp was stamped with Lemon Lime Twist on a Whisper White matte and then the sentiment was stamped on top using Basic Black. The matte was adhered inside to complete the card.
While the ladies were busy completing their cards, I calculated the final results of our three activities to determine a first, second, and third place winner. Since I only had three prizes, I had to use a special method for determining these rankings.
Prior to the launch, I chose two envelopes–one for First and one for Second. Inside each envelope I placed four playing cards–6, 7, 8, 9 and 2, 3, 4, 5, respectively. With each activity, each team placed either First or Second. I had each team member draw a card from the appropriate envelope and I recorded the number. This was done after each activity. I then tallied the scores for each person to arrive at a First, Second, and Third. In the case of a tie (or ties), I simply had the participants draw a card from the deck with the highest card promoting that lady up a rank.
Prizes for First, Second, and Third were sets of cards and envelopes that I had created. Blog posts will be done for each of these later this week.
Finally, we had the draw for the door prize to complete the evening. Don't these ladies look happy with their prizes?
It was such a fun night but also somewhat bittersweet as some of the ladies will not be able to return for classes in September. We will definitely miss them!
I hope you have enjoyed reading about our 2017 Catalog Launch! If you are in the Winnipeg area and would like to craft with us, please get in touch–we'd love to have you join us!
