Can you say Scrapbooking Goodness?

We are back from the Craft & Hobby Association convention (CHA) and we have LOADS of great things to share with you! TWO CAR LOADS!

We left for Chicago on Thursday, July 17th. After visits to a couple scrap-stores on the way down, we arrived at a reasonable dinner hour without touring the O'Hare Airport arrivals gate, which was our major navigation blunder last year! Success!

We spent 3 full days on the show floor: Friday, Saturday & Sunday...and here is just a partial list of the companies who have donated to our event!

• All My Memories
• American Crafts
• Around the Block
• Basic Grey
• Clip-It-Up!
• Colorbok
• Doodlebug
• Glue Dots
• Imaginisce
• Kaiser Craft
• Making Memories
• Melissa Frances
• Sandylion
• Tattered Angels
  

Seriously, this isn't even all of them!

We'll post more companies who donated as we go, so check back for more information about others involved in our event. We'll also share our scrap-celeb sightings, and we'll show you sneak-peeks of some of the goodies!

We hope you're excited to join us in October! We can't wait for another successful event raising money for the Young Survival Coalition!

Eleven days and counting

There are only eleven days before your intrepid crop-masters visit the CHA trade show in Chicago. The preparations are underway for bringing home lots of scrapping goodies!!! We are driving two (count 'em, two!) large, gas guzzling (okay, we're not proud about that!) vehicles down to Chicago in anticipation of bringing back a large load of donated items!!! Wish us luck! We are going into this with our eyes wide open from last year! We weren't prepared at all last year! We didn't even have a rolling bag!!! We were such CHA virgins. This year, we are doing it up in style. Julie and I asked the scrapbooking gods for a shopping cart, and our prayers were answered! It was a miracle! Seriously, we were driving in the car one day after just having talked about needing a shopping cart...and lo and behold...there was one... by a dumpster, no less! (Seriously: that's our story and we're sticking to it.) So, yes, you may have seen us hurriedly loading a shopping cart into the back of Alane's station wagon. "Why the shopping cart?" you ask. Because we have had a stroke of genius! (Although Kim suspects it might actually BE a stroke.) We are fixing up that shopping cart to use as our mode of transportation and show-stopping eye googling get-everyone excited fanfare! It is at an undisclosed location (in Julie's garage) being spray-painted PINK! Then the fun really starts...we are going to bling it up (or tart it up as my mother would call it!) Right now Julie and I are in the throes of some major decisions...do we go with crystals and tulle? Disco lights and feathers? The possibilities are endless!!! Stay tuned to see what we decide! Of course, I should mention that we are moving forward with this idea despite Kim's groans of apprehension. I admit that we still suffer from a lingering fear that we, along with our shopping cart, are going to be thrown into the CHA hoosegow for creating too much of a ruckus. (We'll look darn cute, though!) Kim is the classiest member of our little organization, if you haven't noticed. She is planning on not touching the shopping cart and keeping a respectful distance. This is probably wise since Julie and I will need someone to bail us out or at the very least bake us a cake with a file in it. Preferably a pink cake. With bling. Maybe a smoke machine.

Inaugural blog!

Hello, everyone! This is so exciting! This is our first ever blog post for the Duluth, MN Crop For A Cure! We are new to this whole blogging thing, but we are going to do our best to make it work. We want to make this a great place for everyone to stay up to date with the plans for this year's event, share information, and hopefully get some *sneak peeks* of what we have in store!!! We are already busy planning the 2nd Annual Crop For A Cure! But more on that later...first we have to take a moment and say a HUGE
THANK YOU
to all of our sponsors and participants for making the inaugural Crop For A Cure such a big success! Thanks to all of you we raised over $8,000 for the Young Survival Coalition - Duluth Community Volunteer Group! We think that is absolutely outstanding!!! (Especially since we're kinda new to this whole fundraising thing!) Most importantly, we are so grateful to Elena Etcheverry and her team at Scrapbook Royalty. We absolutely, positively could not have done this without them. They are a non-profit charity that helps other non-profits raise money. I contacted Elena last year to pick her brain about how to do a scrapping fundraiser and she was so incredibly generous! She offered to have us work as an Affiliate of Scrapbook Royalty and held our hand all the way through the process. But the absolute, most mindblowing part of all was thet she fulfilled a dream and sent us all to CHA!!! It was awesome!!! We had so much FUN organizing, planning, and executing the Crop last year that we couldn't wait to get started on this year's!
The MOST exciting thing is that we will be traveling again (thank you, Elena!) to CHA in Chicago (the Craft and Hobby Association trade show) in just a few weeks! We went to CHA last year and met representatives from all of your FAVORITE scrapbooking companies (Doodlebug, anyone? American Crafts?) We are going to ask them for donations again this year. Last year they donated over $20,000 worth of merchandise to our event! Yes, I said $20,000!!!! We had the most AWESOME goodie bags, prizes, giveaways and auction items you have EVER seen! Seriously, the generosity of these companies was overwhelming and we expect nothing more but the same this year! So, get ready, get set...GO mark your calendar for Saturday, October 25th!, 2008!! That's the date for the Crop For A Cure and this year we are CAPPING REGISTRATION! So be sure and register early by visiting http://www.scrapbookroyalty.com/ . Registration opens on 8/8/08! (How's that for easy to remember?) Check back often! We'll post some pics of some of our donations. (But not enough to ruin the surprise!) And just wait till you hear more about the FUN we have in store!