Google+ House Revivals: Secret Sisters and Book Exchanges and Field Trips, Oh My!

Tuesday, March 15, 2016

Secret Sisters and Book Exchanges and Field Trips, Oh My!

I shared last week about what to expect when you attend a blog conference.  Today, I want to share a little about the "extracurricular" activities at SNAP conference in 2015.


Several weeks before the conference, registrants had the opportunity to sign up for a Secret Sister (or Brother). We were tasked with stalking (in the nicest possible way, of course), our secret pal, by following their blog and their various social media accounts.
Then we were to choose and wrap three gifts (one for each conference night), with about a ten dollar budget for each gift. The gifts were labeled with the recipient's name and the day it should be given, and the final gift had the gift giver's name, as well.


I had so much fun shopping for my secret pal. I decided to shop at our local Daiso Japan store, where almost everything is $1.50. For the first day, I gave her a "blog survival kit", with a notebook, hand sanitizer, water bottle, sewing kit, etc.


Next, I gave her some origami paper, paper chain paper, colored pens, and washi tape.


Since my secret pal does lots of food posts, I also gifted her with cool food packaging and garnishes. Daiso Japan has such fun pretty stuff!  I found bamboo food picks with curly ends, and food bags with fancy twist ties, printed deli paper, and sushi garnish grass in Easter egg colors.


Everything was "wrapped" in reuseable neoprene bags. It was super fun putting all the gifts together!


From the secret pal who had my name, I got some cool and quirky gifts, including a post-it note holder that looked like a hamburger, and this awesome little kitchen timer! Plus, in true recycler fashion, I saved all her neat packaging to repurpose in future projects.


On the very first morning, a local blogger took a van load of gals to all her favorite thrift shops.  I wasn't able to sign up for that, but my friends who went had a wonderful time and found lots of treasures.


On the last day, there was a book exchange.  Somehow, I hadn't known about it until the night before flying out, so I grabbed a charming antique book from my living room, with great cover graphics called A Very Naughty Girl.  For some reason, I did not remember to get a picture of my book before the exchange. I tried using Google to find an image of the cover to share with you, but uhm, yeah.... Don't Google "A Very Naughty Girl". Just saying.

I did come home with a nifty little book called Fabric Remix, which I have enjoyed thumbing through and being inspired by.

If you haven't attended a blog conference, I would encourage you to give it a try, you will have so much fun, learn a lot, and make great friendships!

To see how I customized my business cards I took to SNAP, click here.

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