Hostess Appretiation Party

I just had my 2nd Hostess Appreciation Party and it was a lot of fun!

I started the tradition last year (july) to have a very special party for only my hostesses. It was a very fun evening where I gave them a bag of goodies: click here and more details here. They also got prizes for games, and I did an "Awards" ceremony-where I gave a brand new stamp set to the one with highest sales, best attendance, etc. That was last year.

This year I still wanted to give them some things I made with new In Colors and some other little things. I always wanted to make these Totally Totes by Leigh O'Brien, So I thought I would for this party! They were kind of a bugger to start out with, but ended up pretty cute. I made each one a little differently (I only posted my favorite ones here) and I made 7 of them.

For the inside of the purses, I made section tabs for their new catalogs (here) and also stuck in samples of all of the new In Colors + Basic Grey.


Recipe for purses:
Stamps: Baroque Motifs, Priceless, In the Spotlight
Paper: Soft sky, Wild Wasabi, Confetti white
Ink: Soft Sky, White Craft, Chocolate Chip, Cameo Coral craft, Apricot Appeal Craft, All new In Colors for the last purse.
Accessories: Vintage brads, Chocolate Taffeta Ribbon, Wasabi Ribbon, Soft Sky Ribbon


I also made some of those big paper clip bookmarks to match their purses.











Recipe for Clippies:
Paper: All new In Colors
Accessories: Fire Circle Brads, Spring Bouquet flower punch, 1 1/4" circle punch, big clips from Walmart.


I made these product/inventory checklists for each of the girls. It seems like at every party they just are not sure what they have at home and not exactly sure what they should order, so I remember seeing the idea in an issue of our Stampin Success. The file that Stampin' UP made was from a year ago and was outdated, so I had to make them on my own in Excel.
Man, were these things time-consuming! I spent about 2 weeks trying to line things up on the computer and I had to make sure it was going to print double sided perfectly. Then I had my computer savvy hubby help me to get the margins set up so I could print. I really owe him big time :)
I then stamped each color and punched out a flower for each color. (You can see what the inside looks like below.)
And of course I had to make a pretty cover to decorate it. Aren't they cute??! I think they really liked them.


Inside of the Inventory Chart Checklists:


Recipe for inventory charts:
Paper: Le Jardin (mellow moss), Linen Prints (close to cocoa), Flowers For You (tempting turquoise & Lovely Lilac) Cutie Pie (rose red)
Stamps: Baroque Motifs (Cherish) 3 for You Punch box single flower.
Accessories: Chocolate Taffeta, 5/8" Certainly Celery & Brocade Blue, Sky Blue Double Stitched, and Fairy Tale regal rose scrunchy ribbons.
Brads, eyelets, and buttons. 3 for You punch for flowers.

ETA: I forgot to mention that I also gave them each a new stamp set for their "award" for highest sales, etc. They are just hostess sets and SAB sets that I've earned throughout the year.
And if anyone placed an order, I put their name in a Mystery Hostess drawing.
I had a couple m&t's and good appetizers too! I'll put my recipes up later.