Longaberger!!

Hi! Sorry it's been so long since I've posted anything. Honestly there has been NOTHING to report! Until yesterday - I went with a group of my girlfriends to the Fort Hood Longaberger Fest! We each got to make our own basket. Now, I must admit that I was a bit nervous about making a basket. Longaberger baskets are gorgeous, and I just had this image of mine looking like something a first grader would bring home from summer camp! I think it turned out pretty darn good....

There were different colored handles for different "types" of people. Non-ID card holders got plain handles, military ID card holders got blue handles, and Longaberger Collector's Club members got red handles.



This is Mark. He works in the large basket division at Longaberger and he helped me make my basket. He wove the first two rows and I did all the rest! He was super friendly and very helpful. I learned a lot about Longaberger in the time it took me to make my basket.




I'm not a big Longaberger collector. I have a few baskets and some candles and pottery, some of which I've received as gifts. When I heard about this from my friend April I was like "ehhhhh....maybe", but then I saw the picture of the basket we would make. I LOVED the colors and knew I had to have it! And of course after making my basket I had to buy the liner and protector and I even splurged and bought the lid. I've never bought a lid for a basket before, but this one is special. You could get it engraved with a unit crest or name or whatever, but since Ed was never stationed at Fort Hood, I just left it plain. Here's a close-up of the lid....



Here is the basket with the lid and the front plaque that says "Fort Hood Basket Fest 2007". I also bought a tie-on that says "Make a basket, make a memory", but I haven't tied it on yet! :)



And here is another exclusive basket that was available for purchase along with the basket I made...



And one more pic. They had this huge basket we could get into and have our picture taken. This is the entire group that I went with, along with our baskets and that's Gary Longaberger in the center of the back row!