HilltopMemories

2012 Calendar

Weekend Crops 

Winter Retreat East Kenilworth Sebring Fl. Jan 13-16 
Winter Retreat West Sun n Fun Sarasota Jan 27-29 

Spring Crop Sun n Fun Sarasota April 27-29 (Pavillon) 

Birthday crop Sun n Fun Sarasota July 13-15 (Pavillon)

Fried Green Tomato Crop Kenilworth Sebring Fl. august 24-26 (Cabaret Room)

Creep Over Sun n Fun Sarasota October 19-21 (Pavillon)

Here are the dates I have requested for the Sarasota crops- I don't always get what I want but they are super to us. As soon as I get this confirmed I will let you know. Right now everything after Jan. is in pencil.

jan 21st Definite!
feb 18 
march 10 (or 17) 
april 14 (or 21) 
may 12 
june 2nd (or 9th) 
July 7th (or 21) 
Aug 4th (11 or 18) 
sept 8th 
oct 13 
Nov 10 

These are the firm dates for Lake Panasofkee, Crop in the Country. These crops are great and we would love to have a full house there!

March 23-25
May 4-6
June 29-1
Sept 14-16
Nov. 16-19

Sue Neal

CreepOver!!!

Oh my gosh!!  I still cannot believe the hats.  I am still in awe of all the fantastic entries.  The creativity is just so unbelievable.  I am going to try to post the pictures now.  Fingers crossed.  I am so dense about this Windows 7.  All those commercials just make me feel like an idiot.  

Here is the winner!!  Kelly West won the contest with this great hat.  She used duct tape on the hat and found a great pattern for the shoes online.  The feet looked just like mine when I used to have to wear heels and hose.  

Here is Kip's entry.  The crackle paint looked really really good.  

Next up is Patty Chiszar.  She was one of a couple that used the Wizard of Oz theme.  She said glittering the shoes was fun and didn't take near as much glitter as she thought.  The accordian album was great.  

This was done by Patricia Reed.  The play on words was great.  Sand witch?  look at the sandwiches! they were very realistic.  I love the sand all over it. 

Laura Walkers hat.  She made that huge spider!  I love the orange and black.  and the little pumpkins. I have yet to see anything Laura creates that I haven't loved.  She is very talented.

I am not sure this photo of Cathie McKenzie's hat does it justice.  Frightfully Elegant it was.  It was much more elegant and beautiful IRL.  The black and purple with the tiny lights was truly gorgeous.

All the way from Pensacola.  Ann made this hat.  Look at the masking on the hat.  You look at all these hats and see technique after technique.  Seeing flowers makes me think it could have been Kips!  Love the fringe.  

Gerri Ann split her hat and added hinges. The witches hands open it up where she put a "teepee" shaped album inside it.  See I told ya'll the creativity was off the charts!

Here is Sonia's.  Look how she opened up one of the diamonds and had a ghost coming out.  I also see a "Kathy Original" stick pin at the top. Love how she tore and inked the paper.

Susan Shaffer put feathers all over her hat and cut a door. Inside the hat was a complete room, with tables, chairs and a dead plant.  it lit up inside.  It was really really tiny in there and she did a fantastic job making the furniture out of wine bottle corks!

Betty Hugh's hat was a salute to the black cat! Google eyes, feathers and silver tinsel.

Janet always does the hard to beat entry!  This hat was a crashed witch with arms and legs.  She had a great round album in a tin.  She used a lot of the Graphic 45 papers and we know those are the best.

Sharon had a cute kitty on hers too.  I love the fabric torn around the brim of the hat and the woven fabric.

Here is another Wizard of Oz themed hat, this one by Ginni Carrican.  She has all the cute little characters and red slippers and a broom.  And a great photo of the Wicked Witch!

Dawn's hat was a wall hanging.  Don't you just love the sign??  I wish I had found out what she covered it with.  Painted but it looks like something else added to it for texture.

So you can see it was very hard to pick a winner.  I am so glad its not my job.  I think next year we are going to display them longer. There were so many things I missed the 1st time I looked at them.  Next year I hope I can find paper mache boots!  I can't imagine what everyone would do with those!

CreepOver was so much fun.  Now we look ahead and get ready for Sarasota, November 12th and the following weekend we are at Lake Pan to see Ginni and Christina.

Both Winter Retreats are up, East and West.  As you probably know Sue Neal will be at WR East in Sebring teaching card classes.  We will then be back at Sun n Fun for WR West!  Can't wait!!

 

Dear Tim

It is sad as a long time Tim fan and store owner to walk into a Michael's store and see Tim Holtz products on the shelves.  I don't have a problem, or not a big one, seeing "older" stuff on the shelves but to walk in and see new stuff for sale, well below MSRP, is disheartening.

It is very hard for us to compete with the constant berage of 40% off coupons, in your bag, in your mailbox, in your email box and forwarded from all your friends. 

I have taken your classes, I have carried your products. I have demo'd your inks, stains and Vagabond. 

I am also trying hard to stay in business. 

I remember a while back there was a boycott by LSS's who decided to stop selling products from companies that sold to the big box stores. 

The impact must have been minor no one noticed. I guess the overall consenus is this:  we really don't need the LSS when we have the big boxes.

 

I think we have a decision to make based on the decision you made.

 

Linda

Calendar

Here we go.. what we have planned for the rest of the year. 

August 28th  Sarasota  9-9p

Lake Panasofkee  Crop (store only)  email  ginni for more info  (tiggerkiss1@yahoo.com)

Sept 18th or 25th  Sarasota  (should know today or tomorrow which is approved)

October 2nd  Charity Crop in Bloomingdale

October 9th Sarasota (pending approval today or tomorrow)

October 22-23-24  CreepOver   Sun N Fun Resort 4p Friday until 3pm Sunday

November 13th  Lake Panasofkee Crop   Email Ginni at  Tiggerkiss1@yahoo.com for more info

November 20th or 27th Sarasota  (exact date expected later today or tomorrow)

Bo Bunny

I just got home and see there is an email notifying me that Bo Bunny has shipped.  I am sure it will be hitting stores Tuesday or Wednesday.  Make sure you run to your LSS and buy it!

Card and Recipe Swap

 I would like to propose a theme for both.  I would like to do   Cream Cheese as the theme for the recipe swap.  Your favorite cream cheese recipe.  I am from the south and firmly believe that anything with Cream Cheese or bacon is good.  I will save bacon for another recipe swap. 

 

The September card swap I would like to be  Christmas.   I loved our Christmas cards last year and would like to do this a bit earlier this year.  Perhaps we will do it two months this year.

 

So we will have them due at the Sept. Sarasota crop as usual.   The date is still pending but I am hoping and planning for the 28th of Sept. 

 

Let the sign ups begin!

 

 

New in the Store

Little Yellow Bicycle  Boardwalk Collection.  Papers and some embellishments.  This line is my favorite summer paper line to come out this year.

 

there are also some embellishments-  like canvas stickers and dimensional stickers.  All in the store.

Also added last night was some Tim Holtz.  Like Tissue Tapes-  Nostalgic, Traveler, Symphony, and Marketplace.  Also the Ruler Ribbon, buttons and charms.   I also picked up 2 of the spinner racks for foam brush applicators.

All in the store and ready to go!

Coming Soon-  Bo Bunny lines  Whoo-Ligans, Noel and Olivia.   And yes finally Bo Bunny has done  collection packs just like  Basic Grey.  We will have the Noel and Olivia packs.  These won't ship until after FGT's, unfortunately.

 

 

Announcing Winter Retreat 2011

As we grow and change over the years we sometimes make the decision to try something new.  Come out of the box, venture into new territories and thats what we have done with Winter Retreat.  Oleno State Park has served us well but was not by any means perfect.  We had issues after issues and there comes a time when we have to make a change.  In April, after 2 months of nagging voices in my head, I decided that I really didn't want to go back to Oleno.  I didn't like the week we had, even if we never have a repeat of the winter we experienced last year.  I was tired of trying to make the Craft Hall work, with its cold, dampness and poor lighting.  I was tired of dealing with the clean up man. And we won't even get into the primitive cabins and the bath houses, or breaker boxes. 

With all that said I must tell you that I loved Oleno at the same time.  I loved the park, the bridge, the scraproom and the kitchen.  Well except that 1st year the heat didn't work in the scraproom was not one of my fondest memories.  I loved seeing the deer and the many birds.  I loved hearing about the ravine adventures, bridge stories and the walks on the trails.  I never made it to those places but I am glad some of you did!

After our weekend at Sun-N-Fun and how perfect it was in so many ways, I thought why not give it a shot?   I went up to check out and book for next year.  I know it is heavily used in the winter but what is lost by just asking?  So we checked dates and decided on a weekend. 

Winter Retreat 2011 will be held January 7-8-9 2011 at Sun-N-Fun Resort in Sarasota.  It will start at 3pm Friday and go continuously until 3pm on Sunday.  The cost will be $85 for the crop portion.  Reservations for vacation homes will be made through them at 941+371-2505.  Connie is our group consultant but I am sure you can speak to anyone and tell them you are with HilltopMemories.

It is important to make your vacation home reservations by December 15th. We are in the Winter Season and they will release any unbooked units to be available to others.

I hope you will all find our new location fun and very comfortable for scrapping.  Yes, it is much different but sometimes change is good.

Birthday Crop!

Oh it was wonderful!  We were in the Pavillon at Sun-N-Fun Resort and it was a fantastic room.  We were fortunate to have the room set at the perfect temperature and the lighting was right on. It was perfect for scrapping and socializing and eating and scrapping and socializing and eating!  The units we slept in were just the same, clean and very comfortable.  It is rare to have a crop where there are no snags or complaints about something, even minor things.  But we didn't hear anything but wonderful reviews and everyone was happy. Thank you Michelle McGuire once again for finding us our new home for what we hope will be a very long time.

We had just the best time with the best bunch of ladies.  We thank you all for coming and continuing to support Hilltop Memories.  Looking forward to next year!!