This Saturday marks our fourth and final Basket Auction here at F.E. Warren. Somewhere between $15,000-$20,000 is usually raised for scholarships available to anyone connected to a service member assigned here. Most organizations donate 1-2 baskets for the live auction, and there are always lots of items donated for the silent auction (I'm donating a photo shoot for that).
I love putting together these baskets. And not just because they help fill up my 52 Projects albums (which are sorely neglected, working on that).
The 321MS is donating two things this year with fingerprints of both the Ebay King and the Pinterest Queen all over them: a collection of six original vintage postcards from this post/base (framed), and the Pink Party For Six Basket. I'll let you figure out which person goes with which item.
I forgot to take a good picture of the finished banner I made (gah!) but
you get the idea. Special credit goes to Nicole Willis, who gave us the
original collection of "pink books" so long ago, and to Candice
Stringham, who throws the best parties and shares the details about them on her blog. Maddie came up with the idea to include the finger paint and paper as a party activity.
I always have a strategy for putting together baskets. Wanna know what it is?
1. I make kid baskets because kid baskets do really well, mostly because they're different from what everyone else puts together.
2. It's always good to have a target demographic in mind—it helps to know that the target demographic's purse strings will be attending. : )
3. You can't just put stuff from Target in a basket. It must follow this formula:
+ items that are common
+ items that are harder to find but can be found with effort
+ items that are handmade/one-of-a-kind/extremely difficult to get a hold of
4. Tease the purse strings in advance that they might not be able to resist. Heh.
Last year's basket went for $410. Hopefully this one will do well, too! I'll update the 52 Projects album with the selling price next week. We're cutting it a little close with the framing job on the post cards but those should be ready by tomorrow morning at the latest. Local history items also do really well : )
