Surprise!

Look what came in the mail last night! Let me back up….. A few weeks ago I came across the blog of Karen Russell, a well known scrapbooker and designer in the industry. She was doing a fund raiser for Women for Women International, an organization that provides woman in conflict and post conflict areas with loans to begin their own business, skills and job training, and business support. For example a woman who lost her husband and livelyhood in a civil war could apply for a loan to start a business selling mangos to support her family. WforW would provide the loan and skills to start her "micro-enterprize". Anyway if you donated to the organization you essentially bought a raffle ticket from her. She had 96 famous scrapbookers who were going to scrapbook pages for lucky winners and tons of companies willing to give prize packages (actually over 200 winners in all so the odds were really good). I was REALLY hoping to win a layout by Becky Higgins so I donated/entered. Well, when the winners were announced (She raised over $12,500 on her blog by the way!) I was disappointed not to have won a layout by BH but when I scrolled down to the prize package winners I saw my name in that list. Initially I was excited once again until I realized that my package was going to come from Quickutz. I don’t own a Quickutz tool (a personal die cutter) and all Quickutz is notoriously expensive.

Well last night I got this box in the mail and Greg and I couldn’t figure out what it could be and then I remembered MY PRIZE. When I opened it was found a complete “Abigail” alphabet set and a black tote bag. I really like the alphabet set. It is a nice classic font that could be used on all kinds of layouts. I was disappointed they didn’t send the hand tool since you can’t use the dies without the hand tool which cost $55-$105 depending on the style. Greg suggested I get rid of the prize if it meant I was going to have to spend money to use it. The companies that were donating prize packages were asked to supply a prize package valued at $50. When I got online last night I found out that my prize package was worth over $200. That was very generous of them. The alphabet set alone retails for $170! So I turned to eBay and found a hand tool on an auction that was ending in 10 min and I bid on it and WON which allowed me to save a few bucks. So I am keeping the prize and am actually kind of excited about it. Look for these letters in my future layouts!