Best of Hometown Raffle Basket

Tomorrow is our annual Winter Warmer at work and we are all very busy getting it ready. Each division is asked to donate a raffle basket by the Winter Warmer Committee, the basket that receives the most raffle tickets earns a week of wearing jeans. Last year our team was second place with our Lucky Tree, so I knew we could win this year! We wanted to do something that we haven't seen at previous events, and knowing that gift cards/certificates are usually the biggest winner, I came up with the Best of Our Hometown idea. We selected several of the best known locally owned restaurants, businesses, mall, and museums and purchased gift cards/certificates to display in a basket.

I purchased a fun basket at the local craft store and added Styrofoam to the bottom to help keep the dowels in place.  I then covered the Styrofoam with pretty snowflake tissue paper.

Next I added red package confetti and added pictures of all of the gift cards/certificates location along the sides of the basket. I wanted it to look like those vintage suitcases with all of the travel stickers. 

For the gift cards/certificates I taped them to the outside of their envelopes, so everyone could see where they were for and how much they were. Once taped, I taped each envelope to a dowel to stick into the Styrofoam on the bottom of the basket.

Lastly after all of the gift cards/certificates were in place, I added a few more hometown themed gifts:  map, key chain, magnet, and coffee mug, that I picked up at our local gift shop and covered it in a heat shrinking bag. Once the bag was shrunk into place and I tied a pretty bow. 

Are basket came out so great and  am really proud of all of the wonderful locally known places in my hometown. I'm know we are going to win best raffle basket!!

UPDATE:  I'm so excited that we won the best basket!!!