Party Ideas for Hosting Scrap Night?

I am hosting a scrap night at my house and have about 10 ladies coming. A friend of mine that sells Creative Memories will be there, but everyone is just bringing their own project to work on for the night.

I am planning on making dinner and having snacks and drinks. I'll also do a raffle for a few prizes.

Any other ideas on what I could do that would be fun?

Thanks for any tips!

Lisa

There's been threads on this before ... one that I remember from one of the past threads is that the organizer shouts out a letter and the first person to show something that starts with that item wins (i.e. B and someone shows Bazzill or Basic Grey).

Sounds like a lot of fun. Seems like you have everything covered.

Maybe a page contest.

This question has come up before (several times) so you may not get a lot of responses but let me think if I can remember what the responses were...

Most people said the best food to serve was something that was not messy and people could just go and grab when they were hungry. Pizza was often mentioned but a crock pot of something works too. The snacks should also be simple, easy to grab and not too messy. Chocolate was a must!
Individual drinks in bottles with screw-on caps is recommended. Cups and cans can get knocked over.

If you want to have an offical "Dinner Break" I would say something right at the beginning of the evening. Example: "Hey everybody there are snacks & drinks, help yourself. Pizza & salad will be at 7:30ish."

Raffles are fun but they can get disruptive. It's a small group. Take you cues from the group. The dinner break may be a great time to do a few raffles.

AND if you have any "extreme" house rules, just left people know at the beginning of the evening. An example might be...my dog is in the backroom.

I went to one crop where everyone shared their favorite techniques, I came out with some great ideas. There was also a grab bag at each spot, with brads, buttons, ribbons and other fun little things both scrappy and non-scrappy pretties.

But like it was mentioned, non-messy snacks, lids for drinks.

Simple works for someone like me! Also, if the laadies coming over don't know you that well and you have a pet, I would certainly mention that--I always appreciate the warning as I'm allergic to cats and dogs (even if they won't be in the same room, the fact that there's one in the house is enough to set off my allergies...)

And remember to have fun yourself!

I used to go to an evening crop regularly and dinner was the first thing we did. Since it was a buffet style dinner, it allowed everyone to mingle, etc. as people arrived, since not everyone got there at the exact same time. Then, you could wash up and get to scrapping without being interrupted later (unless, of course, you wanted a snack). The hostess would have enough little gifts (usually just little things from like the $1 spot) so that everybody could choose one and got to go home with something. We didn't usually do too many games or anything, though. Sometimes the hostess (who was a consultant) would show how to do a technique or something. But since there was only a few hours together, we mostly just wanted to scrap and talk and not be interrupted too much. I was sad when she stopped having the crops. I've also gone to an all day crop where they had several games like: get a ticket for every layout you finished, the hostess would name an item (say, buttons, for example) and you got an extra ticket for every time you used that item, another ticket for every layout you did using more than 4 pics, etc. Then the tickets were put into a basket for a drawing for the raffle prizes at the end. I, myself, didn't get into the games that much. I found them to be kind of irritating because they kept interrupting us. I have since stopped going to that one. The all day monthly crop I go to now on a regular basis doesn't have all that. They do have a swap/donate table where you can bring in things that you know you won't use and swap it for something on the table that someone else has left. The rule is bring one item, take one item and it has to be something complete (not just a sheet of alpha stickers with nothing left but the x's and q's which everybody has at home! ) Anything left on the table at the end of the day gets donated to the preschool there (the crop is held at a church). Snacks are available whenever, and dinner break is at a certain time. The only "games" we do is periodically the hostess will name a product and then you name a way to use it. If someone isn't familiar with the technique or way you name, then you can demo it. There's no tickets or anything like that, it's just for fun in sharing. That feels better for me. I agree with an earlier poster that said to take your cues from your group. Seems like scrappers are such a wide variety of different kinds of people, and everyone has their wants/likes/dislikes about what crops need to be like.

And try to have fun yourself!

Love the swap/donate table idea, that's awesome!

Thanks all for the input! (I did try searching the topic, but couldn't find much.)

I like several of the ideas! I never even thought about cups with lids. Good call.

Thanks again so much! Hopefully it will be a success so I can do it again!

Lisa

Not sure if this would help or not, but what about goody bags? I did some writing on them after asking around here. And you don't have to do them all yourself. One of the best responses I got was about having each person bring something small to put into each bag. Hope that helps!

http://www.squidoo.com/scrapbook-retreat-goody-bags

Personally, I like the 'games' or challenges (i.e. use buttons, 4 photos, etc). They help inspire my pages. Like others have said though...follow the lead of the group. One thing I've done at crops and crops I've attended is taping a brown paper bag to the table next to each scrapper for their scraps while they work. Of course, this doesn't work well on regular dining tables, but for folding tables it works great! Have fun!