Scrapping Retreat

Popping in here just back from our annual weekend retreat! I have had such a fun time at the seaside. In fact, don't think I've laughed so much in ages. Of course, when I say ‘weekend', we actually stretch it to a 4 day extravaganza...... well with shopping, scrapping, fun and games - 2 days just wouldn't be enough!


We mainly chat, scrap, laugh and shop together but we are lucky enough to have some very talented ladies in our group so most years we call upon someone to do a class for us. The layout above was designed by Ali who demonstrated endless patience in teaching us nervous newbies about "messy scrapping" and the joys of spraying with abandon! It took me totally out of my comfort zone with scary amounts of inking and misting but I love the end result. It looks fabulous - thank you Ali :)

I was moderately productive by my standards ie I completed more than one layout! Here are some of my finished ones from the weekend (heck - who I am kidding - these are ALL my finished ones from the weekend!)

This one is a complete scraplift from a layout I saw in a magazine years ago. The original was in French so I am not sure who created it but I loved it so much that I hung on to the design to try out one day. Having a Cricut on hand at the retreat gave me the chance to finally cut a gorgeous tree shape and have a go. Can you tell - I am now a Cricut Convert?!


This is a double layout using very very old papers. I am trying to be good at the moment and use up papers that I bought when I first started scrapping. This is no mean feat as some of them are very themed and very twee but the faux canvas / eyelet design of these papers actually worked quite well to get a bit of a nautical feel going.


And this is my layout from the "Mystery Kit" challenge. The lovely Gaye, who organises the retreat every year, brings us each a bundle of papers and embellishments to create a layout or anything we fancy. This year we were given the new Harvest Market papers by Lilybee. I used mine for the wedding layout above. Between us, we came up with a huge range of designs which you can pop to the Gotta Craft Shop Blog to see if you fancy :)

And finally there was Saturday night. Saturday night is always fun and themed. In previous years we've been pirates, we've been characters from Alice in Wonderland and some of us have even been Christmas cakes! Next year some of us may well be radishes or potatoes. But for this year, we were 50's themed and very glam!


Only 360 days to go now until the next one. I can't wait :)

Saturday Scrapping

I love our Saturday crops although October's was tinged with some sadness for our friends who have had bad news or who are going through a hard time just now. We are a very tight-knit bunch, and have been lucky enough to share some wonderful celebrations together over the years, but just now it seems we are sharing quite a few sorrows. We were all thinking of the ladies who couldn't be there and thinking of ways we could help them along, cheer them up and of course keep them updated with the gossip!

I also (shock horror) got a layout finished. And a double one at that. Mind you, I didn't have Sandra's handbag to shovel all of my paper off-cuts into so it took me ages to tidy up afterwards!!

Its DD's 8th Birthday Party held jointly with two other Year 3 girls with Summer birthdays. All of the children really enjoyed their pottery painting afternoon and we are now the proud owners of a silvery-red fighter jet and a blue/green patchwork penguin (complete with glittery beak!).
Thank you to Gaye for the yellow alphas - they were perfect :)

A very old fashioned holiday...

We are well and truly nearing the end of the holidays now and we've made the most of the traditional August weather (torrential rain this week) to do some old fashioned family things together.
Today was cake baking. In fact quite a lot of our activities have had a bit of a retro theme - mainly because its cheaper than doing modern activities! Even our cakes have an air of the 1960's cook book about them - green coloured butter icing flavoured with orange zest!!

We also had a few days at the seaside earlier in the month when the weather was sunnier. We went to Bournemouth and did all the things DH and I loved doing when we were kids namely burying family members in the sand, going for cliff top walks, playing the arcades and riding on minature trains.
You can tell my two are city kids though: "Why are those people waving at us? " DD asked as we sailed past the beach huts on our little locamotive. "They're being friendly," I replied. She didn't look convinced and neither did DS - around here people elbow each other aside and avoid making eye contact on any occassion that involves catching trains so waving happily at strangers was something neither of them are used to at all!

Here is little DD buried on the beach (she dug herself free though quicker than we could escape :))

Celebrate....

I have a celebration theme to my recent crafting. I took part in a really good class at John Lewis with my Mum this weekend. It was an introduction to sewing machines and involved making posh bunting: 2 double sided and top stitched flags, one split flag, one patchwork flag and one appliquéd flag with satin stitch. It was a pretty intensive course but we learnt loads. The sandwiches and pastries certainly kept us going! Apparently they do lots of courses there – knitting, sewing and crochet at all different levels but this was the first one I’d heard about. The teacher, Erika, was excellent and worked miracles considering most of us hadn’t so much as threaded up a sewing machine before. Everyone finished and everyone’s bunting look gorgeous. DD has claimed mine for her little bedroom alcove and I must admit I am very pleased with it as a first attempt.



The big family celebration this Summer is a family wedding and I wanted to do a personalised card for the bride and groom. Their colour scheme is champagne and ivory so I have tried to fit in with that. After a lot of faffing around getting the wording to print in the correct place, the rest was quite straight forward. I found a gorgeous acetate frame from one of Gotta Craft’s past Dabble Kits and added a buckle, ribbon and card stock and that was it.

Now don't all faint.....

...but I've done a layout!



When I saw the Gotta Craft February kit with gorgeous vintage shades and the new Prima papers that Sandra has just uploaded, I just had to combine the two for this layout. The photo was taken on my Mum and Dad’s 40th Wedding Anniversary. The Bazzill Wheat, the matching alphas, all of the buttons and the Glitz paper in the kit went so well with the Prima Madeline and Botanical ranges - they were very easy to mix and match. And being double sided meant I could totally indulge my love of layers, use them with border punches and cut elements out of them for framing and embellishments.

What Was I Thinking?.....

All this moving house business has obviously addled my brain because for weeks now the Craft Room has been neglected, left unpacked and not given the very high priority it deserves. Instead I have been foolishly cleaning the cupboard under the stairs, unpacking shampoo supplies and hanging pictures. What was I thinking?!

So this week I got my Ikea desk and chair (no Expedit book cases yet - I will have to save up a bit longer to get those) and got everything moved in.
It is a fabulous space with lots of natural light and my DD obviously agrees. She has moved in all of her paints, sparkly stick on gems and reams of coloured paper and is happily explaining the benefits of sharing our stash. Noooooo!