Bull and Boots Decorations

We decided to rent the lodge at Oregon Ridge for our Bull and Boots Benefit. The lodge is very rustic--thus, we went with a "rustically chic" theme. There were two heads mounted on the wall in the main room that were just crying to be decorated.

This is the main room where everyone ate and danced the night away. We used the boots from a previous fundraiser and Rutland Beard Florist donated the flowers for the boots (we had to arrange them). We also took mason jars and glued burlap around the jars. We tied the jars with twine and put a candle inside. They were really cute. The icing on the cake was a silver horse shoe that would hang down from the twine....only problem is that I failed to notice that I was ordering them from Turkey and they arrived the Monday after our event!

There were benches that lined the room. Since they were rather stark, we took pillows from our houses and wrapped them in bandanas. (BTW: Walmart has the cheapest bandanas at $1 each!) We tied each corner with twine.

We all gathered buckets, jars, crocks, etc.from our homes and we used them for additional flower arrangements. We used Forsythia, Cherry Blossoms, twigs and grasses that we found along the side of the road...again, at no cost to us!

We also got western playing cards that we had on the table. Our hope was to have a list of games that people could play along with the rules for each game on the tables, but we ran out of time...oh well!

One afternoon after working for hours (We were quite punchy), we looked over and saw Chico sitting in the corner of my office. I pulled out a western shirt, jeans, a bandana and a hat. We decided that all "he" needed was a face. Since our assistant principal, Pat, was unable to attend the event, using her face was only natural. Our plan was to move her all over during the event and take pictures--like Flat Stanley. Flat Pat was born...only she didn't move all night because if you lifted her up, she was likely to lose her jeans and boots! None the less, she was a huge hit and people stopped to take pictures with her all night long!

One of the coolest things that we did was the boot pin raffle. We found wooden boots, decoupaged them with scrapbook paper and then hot-glued pins on the back. We then blinged them up with scrapbooking gems. We sold them for $10 each and everyone who bought a pin, won something of equal or greater value. (some prizes were a total bust, but we had a lot of great gift certificates and gift cards that were upwards of $50 each.) This was the perfect way to use those donated items that didn't fit in with the auction packages. We had 57 pins and we sold out in 28 minutes! It didn't hurt that they were so stinkin' cute!

Our committee minutes before the event started! This is the first committee that I have ever worked with where everyone did what they were supposed to do. It was a true honor to work with each of these awesome women.

You girls rock!