…camp care packages…

With no camp this year, I was spared the annual panic-sewing-marathon that is quilt camp gifties. You would think after a decade of camp being held at roughly the same time of year every year, that I would get my act together and get things done in a timely manner, and I tell myself every year that I will…and the next year rolls around and once again I am up until midnight every night the week before camp getting the gifts finished.

This year, however, there was no such panic. I couldn’t however, let camp go completely unnoticed, so I decided I would make a little care package to send to everyone, with all the essentials for a camp-at-home experience. Back in 2018, one of our OG campers wasn’t able to make to camp for the very first time since 2011, so I sent her a box full of goodies and in-jokes and camp essentials, and it was the memory of that that inspired this year’s little bundles.

Like all good camp gifts, I decided there should be some kind of handmade element to the parcels. I am currently obsessed with black block printing on calico, and that sounded like an easy option to replicate five times over. While the children were away over the school holidays, pulled out a lino cut master I’d carved up a few months back, cut five little bags, and got busy printing. Then, in the way I am so good at, I started overthinking the construction and the content and the everything else, and away they went for a couple of weeks.

Crunch time was coming though. I knew I had to get cracking if I was to have a chance at getting them in the post to arrive in time for what should have been camp weekend. I sewed up the bags. I started making the watercolour dot cards. I picked up a couple of boxes of choccies, because what girls weekend is complete without a pile of snacks in the middle of the action? I made up a pair of essential oil rollers for each bag – a blend called “cry me a river”, and a blend called “oh happy day”, to help us get through the rollercoaster of the weekend. With the basics together, I hit the shops and started looking for the last bits and pieces that would really bring it together…and that is where it all fell apart. The downside of rural life is that one’s options can be rather limited, and in my infinite wisdom, I’d left my run too late to be able to order anything in.

By Monday, I was out of time, and on my way out of town to a homeschool event, I swung by the post office to drop off the parcels, and then began the anxious wait for their arrival. Yesterday afternoon, the messages started trickling in, and in the end, all five arrived on the same day, and with perfect timing. While they weren’t as chock-full of fun as I’d hoped, and in the end the watercolour card seemed to be a weird inclusion rather than one cute thing in a range of mini craft inspirations, the girls all seemed to appreciate the goody bags. And when it comes down to it, it’s the though that counts, right?

Day two of Camp Covid is well underway here. I’ve knocked out two chapters of my book over a brekkie of smashed veg & egg, and a couple of coffees as well. I’ve pressed the fabric for my top. I’ve screeched at the children to pleeeeeeease do their chores. The rain has settled in for the day so it’s looking like the perfect time to pull out my blanket and do a couple of rounds of crochet. Music on, happy owls in the diffuser, adulting cancelled, sugary snacks at the ready. Creative productivity dialled to level:camp. Happy Saturday friends, I hope you have a fabulous one!