This weekend I held my first Stamp, Scrap & Create Escape Retreat at my house.  I enjoyed a wonderful weekend with friends and can’t wait to plan the next one!  Today I’m going to share some pictures that I took before everyone arrived – all the “getting ready” and set up.

Greg went out of town on a golf weekend so we were able to set up in the basement everyone’s workstation.  Everyone had a “spot” to work on the projects they brought for the weekend.  Some brought scrapbooks, some cards, laptops to work on My Digital Studio, and various other things.

The big green table is actually the pool table and it is covered with a Ping Pong table top that is flipped upside down.  Then we added two 6 foot tables at the far end and had a 4 foot table at the close end (not in the photo).

Each spot was set up with Grid paper – with a welcome message from Cindy& I, a goody bag, a pail, and some information about our weekend.

The goody bags had all the project materials for the Make&Take projects plus any optional projects that they signed up for.  Cindy created tags in My Digital Studio using the Sent with Love digital kit and printed them out at home.  Then added card stock and Designer Paper from the Sent with Love pack and some Island Indigo Baker’s Twine to tie them on the bags.  They turned out super cute!

I found these cute little pails a few days before the retreat and decided they would be perfect to put on everyone’s “spot”.  I had Chalkboard Vinyl left from when Stampin’ Up! used to sell it and cut it with the Oval Framelits die to put on the front of the pail.  I added a flag banner using the Pennant Punch and the Sent with Love Designer Paper.  The flags are strung together with Baker’s Twine and tied to the pail (I punched holes with the Crop-a-dile).  You can’t see it in this picture but each bucket had a piece of chalk tied to it – I wrapped the end with a strip of the designer paper and tied the baker’s twine around it.  Then everyone can write a message on the front of their pail.  Inside everyone had Stampin’ Dimensionals, a bottle of the all-purpose glue, a Stampin’ Sponge, and a threader.  As it turned out it made a good spot for everyone to keep the tools they needed to carry around to their make&takes and a place to keep the tickets that they earned throughout the weekend (I’ll tell you more about those later).

We gave everyone a “ticket” itinerary created in My Digital Studio – that had our schedule for the weekend.  A blank Bingo card – printed with My Digital Studio and a piece of card stock.  These are were all clipped together with a clothes pin that was covered in the Sent With Love Designer Paper.  I’ll share more about bingo in another post.

We set up tables in my sun room to create a “cafe” where we could eat our meals. It was nice to have the view of the backyard with the birds and the animals.  The weather turned out being ok even though it rained Friday and got really cold.  A cool night Saturday worked out well for our campfire.

And finally we had a candy/snack table set up –

Originally I had it all set up on the server upstairs which is where this picture was taken but then I moved it down to the little bar in the basement.

Well that was a lot to share and that’s before any one even got here!  I have more pictures, projects and “pillow” gifts to share another day!  So be sure to come back.