Hey, Pumpkin People!

The wait is over to find out who won our Decorated Pumpkins Contest. In fact, today's our chance to share all the great entries we received! But before anything else and any more wait, let's have a look at our winners!

First up we have Natalee C. who goes to Camp Huawni as our First Place Winner! Congratulations, Natalee! That's some tasty-looking pump-corn!

 l

Hey, Scare Enthusiasts!

Keep the spirit of Halloween alive within the spooky walls of our Seasonal Halloween trunks. These trunks are great for safekeeping all your Halloween decorations but it’s an eye-drawing piece of decorative furniture as well. Keep it out in your hallway or at the front door for Trick or Treaters to see!

And when the season comes to its close, you can pack up all your fake spider webs and lawn ghouls and trick or treat baskets and pumpkin-carving tools and keep them organized in one, tidy trunk! These Seasonal Trunks are sure to frighten your friends and family (especially your baby brother or baby sister)!

Made of heavy-duty birch plywood, these ever-watchful, harvest-spirited camp trunks contain cats, bats, goblins, and ghouls of colossal creepiness as well as cuteness featured on our DuraShell exterior with an extremely scary and high-definition print UV-cured directly onto it! It's pretty cool.

Our Seasonal Trunks are the same size as our best-selling Happy Camper trunk and they include the same high-quality metal hardware to keep the lid securely shut. Use the trunk for day camp, Halloween storage, Fall décor, and more. The Creep Show Designer Trunk also includes extra wide handles on the sides to make carrying your ghoulish goodies even easier.

Keep your cavernous trunk neat and orderly by snagging a Grab a Glide & Go Tray and LidMate Organizer. The accessory organizers are perfect for pairing with your trunk to bring some order to the chaos. If this trunk doesn’t scare you too much, go ahead and order a Seasonal Trunk for yourself today… I DARE you! You can get a closer look when you click right here. Happy Halloween! And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Camp Folks!

Our website is our home. We invite our customers in to browse around and enjoy any time spent in our store; naturally, we want the place looking nice. And we’re always improving. Our photography is one of the best means of showing you the camping gear we offer in its natural habitat—summer camp! To do this, we work together with Kamp Kenwood, a local camp that’s just a 20-minute drive from our workplace in Boyd, Wisconsin.

Kamp Kenwood is a gorgeous camp that sits alongside Lake Wissota. We brought a couple of photographers out there and a bunch of summer camp-age children to recreate the summer camp scene. Let’s take a look behind the scenes of the Everything Summer Camp 2022 photo shoot!

The Directors
We’ve done photo shoots a handful of times—the last time being in 2017 and this season we decided it was time for a fresher look. This photo shoot was at least a month in the making with all the planning involved. Our Graphic Artist Amy, the Shipping Manager Anita, Vice President Mark, and myself worked together to brainstorm all the different shots we wanted and

Anita and Amy went up and down the aisles picking out product that we wanted to bring along, ironed out all the apparel we brought, and got trunks packed and boxed up. All in all it was about a week-long process to think of everything and get it all packed up!

The Photographers
Davin and Imani were our two photographers. Davin is the brother of our Marketplace Manager Drew and Imani has been summer help for a handful of years at Everything Summer Camp. Imani has been developing her passion in photography since she can recall.

Davin told me he bought his first camera about a decade ago to capture sports photography when his brother’s started playing sports. He’s been slowly building his collection of photography equipment with some rather intimidating apparatuses with him for proper lighting techniques as well as a slew of lenses.

Drew shot a number of videos himself including an attempt to do one of our C&N Amazon livestreams off-site for the first time. Unfortunately, it couldn’t work from the remote area we were in. But they still shot a video so everyone could get a good look around at Kamp Kenwood. Check it out below. 

The Models
Amy, our Graphic Artist, had the final say on the models that we used. We had eleven, excited kids who were great at taking part in fun for the day. It got hot out there—especially for the shots around the campfire—but the kids were troopers!

We had Quinn and Raegan, our Sales Director Matt’s kids. Everyone else found us through our Facebook request. There was Amy and Shylo—sisters who often enjoy modeling for photo shoots in local parks. Another group of siblings came: Pressley, Max, and Delaney. And there was Chloe, Izaiah, Marcus, and Easton.

Our time out there was strenuous, hard work, but—thanks to everybody’s help and cooperation—we had a lot of fun out there! How could we not in such a beautiful, natural location A big thanks to Kamp Kenwood! And, as always, thanks for reading!

- John

Hey, Guys and Dolls!

You can enlist to do LOTS of different things during your stay at summer camp! Camps tend to offer lots of the same, more traditional activities like Archery and Zipline and typically a variety of more unique options. Perhaps the camp that you’re going to offers something you’re interested that’s a bit more unique such as Guitar Playing or Doll-Making. Let’s take a peek at the latter today and dive into the world of dolls.

The term ‘dolls’ refers to a wide variety of craft products. Most commonly thought of are probably baby doll toys. But this is just a drop in the bucket of the possibilities to what someone is referring to when they say call something a ‘doll’.

The vast majority of other types of dolls are more so along the lines of a figurine than they are a baby doll. The difference between a doll that’s made to cradle and burp is a crafted toy whereas many other styles of dolls are more like crafted collectibles. Here are a few different types of dolls you can make right home.

Who You Callin’ Mop Head?
Purchase a Mop Doll kit and follow simple instructions to make some cute dolls that are made using yarn that gets wrap around a dowel on a small base. You can put one together quickly and they are simple to make. They make for some adorable bedroom decor and toys for soft playing—they’re not action figures!

These Old Rags?
Rag dolls are another type of doll you can make that relies a bit more on your creativity, whereas Mop Dolls are more cut and dry. Like the ever-famous Raggedy Ann and Andy dolls, this duo was made of rags. These traditionally homemade figures made of cloth are typically made from and stuffed with spare scraps of material laying around the house (though a trip to a supply store can help it along).

Bottle Baby
Lastly, we have water bottle dolls. Really…it’s an anything-that-works doll. With a similar concept to the Mop Dolls that use a wooden base and dowel for the body, this idea uses a water bottle (or, as I said already—anything that will work). Add a head with a wooden bead or whatever else you have layin’ around. Throw on some pipe cleaners or paperclips for arms. Add some felt for hair or clothing. There’s really no limit to your creativity for this one!

It will help move you along with a project to check out some ideas of what other people have done but be sure to add your own creative twist on your dolls. That way, they’ll be special just to you! Have fun with these potential projects and enjoy your doll making! As always, thanks for reading, Camp Fans!

- John

Hey, Snail Mailers!

Writing letters is really in the spirit of summer camp, but it’s such an appropriate activity for right now in the winter season—a great time to flex your writing muscle and practice this therapeutic and cheerful indoor activity as we venture into the holiday season! Here are some great reasons to sit yourself down today and write a letter or two to some of the people you have in your life.

Process Events
Writing things down is an extremely useful means of people cementing events as they come to pass during the course of our lives. All of the people you meet, skills you learn, and things you do—it’s great to review all of those new experiences you’ve had to help yourself process and reflect on what you learned. Writing about your personal perspective can allow you to explore what you’re feeling.

Say What You Mean
Writing letters gives you an opportunity to write down your thoughts and express your feelings. We tend to feel more comfortable saying things to someone by means of written word that might go unsaid in other forms of communication such as talking face-to-face or texting.

Preserve Memories
Don’t leave your memories behind! Put them down on paper. Write about your school, home life, memories of summer camp, etc. Sharing fun memories is a great way to cherish a friendship or family relationship you have with the recipient of your letter! It’s always good to revisit a cool moment or an inside joke we may have shared with someone close in our life!

These are just a few of the many benefits there are to writing letters to people. Make the connection and spread some cheer as we venture into the holiday season! Put your pen to some paper and see what comes out! Happy Letter Writing Day and, as always, thanks for reading!

- John