We will be holding a raffle fundraiser and a donation drive at the September retreat! Please know that participating is completely optional. If you are interested, here are the details:

Raffle Fundraiser: Buy however many tickets you would like and drop them in the bag next to items you wish to win. The raffle drawing will happen on Saturday night!

All money collected from the raffle fundraiser will be donated to the National Alliance on Mental Illness. NAMI is the nation’s largest grassroots mental health organization dedicated to building better lives for the millions of Americans affected by mental illness. We will be donating directly to the Buffalo & Western NY chapter of NAMI. Click here to read more about this charity.

Please bring cash or check to pay for any tickets you wish to purchase. We will come around the ballroom selling tickets on Saturday at 4pm. Also, from 7-8pm on Saturday we will be at the registration table selling tickets, and collecting donations for the donation drive as well. Drawings will happen during the 8:30pm announcements on Saturday evening!

Since several people have asked: If you wish to donate a raffle item to the raffle fundraiser, please just let me know that you will be bringing something and bring it with you to the retreat. All raffle items need to be brand new, not used. Baskets of items are welcome as well. If you are a consultant, feel free to include a catalog and/or business card along with your raffle item.

Donation drive: On Saturday from 7-8pm, we will be collecting donations just outside the ballroom. At this retreat we are collecting: bar soap and/or bodywash. Bring in a brand new item for the donation drive and receive a raffle ticket for the raffle fundraiser! (Items from the dollar store are perfectly fine and much appreciated.) I will hand deliver all donations received to the Health and Wellness program at Foodlink.

The Health and Wellness program at Foodlink distributes baby care items, cleaning supplies, and feminine and personal hygiene products to families in need. Foodlink currently serves 10 counties in the Rochester and FingerLakes area and their reach keeps growing! Click here to read more about the program.

Our March 2027 retreat will be held at the Hotel Canandaigua, in Canandaigua, NY. It is located at the northern tip of Canandaigua Lake, near Kershaw Park.

The dates are March 11-14, 2027.

You will have the choice to book a room at the hotel or to stay elsewhere and commute for the days. There will be a discounted block of hotel rooms available. I will share that link when registration opens. If you choose to book a room not using the discounted block, you may use Hilton Honors Points towards your stay. As always, one Hilton Honors account per room may earn points for your stay, regardless of whether you book through the discounted block or on your own. This is a courtesy block of rooms, therefore there is not a guaranteed number of rooms at this discounted rate. The discounted rate is $149 per night (plus sales and occupancy tax) for a King non-lakeview room or $159 per night (plus sales and occupancy tax) for a two Queen non-lakeview room. There will be options for lakeview rooms as well.

This event will follow the format of my normal retreats, and therefore will not be a “bare bones” event. You will have at least 6 feet of table space, an on-site store for shopping, goodie bags for everyone, a door prize drawing, raffle fundraiser, milestone gifts, bingo prizes, donation drive, optional chair massages, etc.

There is an onsite restaurant and an onsite bar, plus many places to eat nearby! We are not permitted to eat outside food in the ballroom or lobby on the main floor. The hotel is allowing us to eat outside food in the public lounge area on the lower level. We will be allowed to eat small personal snacks and have covered drinks in the ballroom. There will be a water station set up just outside of the ballroom.
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Registration will open in August 29th at 9am. Retreat pricing info and other details can be found on the Weekend Retreats, March  page.

Happy Summer and Happy 4th of July!! I hope your summer is off to a great start!

I wanted to take a moment to jump on here and let you know about something that has happened in the scrapbooking industry. Some of you may have heard that Notions Marketing sustained a fire in their main warehouse a few weeks back. Notions is one of the places I order from for goodie bags items, prizes, and the product I sell in the store at retreats, including Bazzill cardstock. Notions is the largest distributor of craft products in the industry and I have been ordering from them for many years. Notions has done a great job at informing us (the retailers who order from them) of the incident a few weeks ago, and providing updates along the way.

Unfortunately, Notions let us know that they are going to be stopping operations for an indefinite amount of time while they assess the damage and get back on track. Since this fire happened in their main warehouse, lots and lots of product was damaged. Sadly, Notions laid off many employees last week as well, while they work through this. Needless to say, this will cause a huge disruption for both online and independent craft stores. This will undoubtedly change the course of the scrapbooking industry in one way or another. If you are interested in hearing more about how the scrapbook industry works and how this incident could play out, Stacey at Scrapbooking Made Simple does an excellent job at explaining it. My heart goes out to everyone at Notions Marketing and everyone else who has been or will be affected by this event.

Click here for Stacey’s explanation.