Tropical Cropical in Oxford, MI

My aunt and cousin invited me to join them at an all day crop event a few weeks ago.  They had gone a few years prior and having had a good time wanted to go again and figured I would enjoy it as well.  It was put on through their local community recreation center and was held at the senior center in Oxford, MI.

The sign up cost was $60 and if you were one of the first 20 people to sign up you received a "tushy cushy".  Because of everything going on in my life I did not decide until the last minute that I was going to go.  Even though I signed up on the last day, I still received the tushy cushy and come to find out, there were only about a dozen or so people signed up for the event.

A picture of my tushy cushy.

Now some of you might ask, "What did you get for your $60?"  Well, I received a letter in the mail after signing up that stated everyone would receive:

• 6' table
• access to electricity
• a chair
• trash bag
• bag FULL of goodies
• lunch, dinner, and an evening snack
• coffee, iced tea, two liters of pop, and water

We were also informed that there would be raffles and handouts through out the day.  Also, if we wanted to bring a snack to share, we could, and this would earn us an extra raffle ticket.

Later on via email, we were informed that there would be a massage therapist on hand for massages, at $1 a minute.  However, this email went to my aunt and she didnt check her email before the event.  So we arrived unprepared for this.  The email also let us know that cricut machines and cartridges would be available for our use.  But not knowing this I carted my machine along.  Ah well.  No harm done.

The event was on a Saturday and ran from 9am to 9pm, though you were allowed to arrive at 8am to begin setting up all your supplies.  Since it was a bit of a drive for me to go to the event, I went the night before and stay at my aunts house with my cousin.  After staying up pretty late, we awoke around 7:30am and made to the hall by 8:30am.  When we arrived there were already about half a dozen woman there with their tables set up.

The tables were set up together in groups of four, so my cousin, aunt, and I all got to sit together, along with some other random lady.  She was kind of quite and kept to herself.  We took our time, got set up, and jumped right into our projects.

I brought my camera along with me, though I didnt take many pictures.  I wish I had though to take more. 

Here is my cousi posing for a picture.

My aunt browsing some idea books.

My cousin hard at work.

My aunt hard at work.

The crop turned out to be a lot of fun.  We receieved a large reusable tote bag full of goodies.  Im not going to go through and name everything, but here is a picture.

We also received extra little handouts throughout the day that I threw in the bag as well.

Since it had been so long since I scrapbooked, this was the first time that I was able to use my Scrap 'n Easel, which I wont on line and you can get more details about in my previous post here

Scrap 'N Easel

There was a creative memories consultant there whom we could purchase supplies from.  The massage therapist came around 2pm, and luckily I had $20 cash on me, I almost never have cash.  So I got myself a 20 minute massage.  I am ashamed to admit, it was my first professional massage, and boy did it feel good.

When we arrived they had breakfast foods set out, muffins, fruit, bagels, juice, and coffee.  For lunch we had sandwiches and chips, with pie for dessert.  Dinner was pizze, breadstick, and salad, with a late night snack of sundaes.

Raffle drawings took place throughout the day.  Most of the raffle prizes were items donated by local community shops, some were scrapbook related, but most were note.  My cousin won the first prize and she walked away with a really cute purse.  Because we had such a small group almost everyone received three prizes.  I ended up with a movie night bucket, which consisted of a popcorn tub, popcorn, box of candy, two bottle of pop, and two movies.  I also got a bottle of sprakling lemondae, and a pack of scrapbooking pages from creative memories.

All in all we had a really good time and it was well worth the $60 we paid for the day. 

Though I have to admit it wasnt necessarily a very productive day.  At the end of the day I had 2 complete 2 page layouts for my wedding day scrapbook.

Looking forward to going again next year.  In the mean time I think we will be going to a cropping event at St. Joes in Oxford, as well as the cropping weekend held at Frankenmuth.