Yee Haw!

Just back from a fantastic time away at the November Retreat. It is pure bliss to spend a whole four days just scrapping and chatting. The ladies who came down for the day on Friday noted that we barely moved for the whole weekend this time - the hotel kindly set out our dinner table in the same room as our cropping tables (mind you, I am not sure that was so much for our convenience as to spare the other guests our Saturday night antics!) This year's theme was The Wild West which was as enthusiastically embraced as ever. Gaye's costume was a particular hit - not many people can say they've had Christmas dinner in November with a human cactus! I cannot comment on Debbie's costume since we promised that what happens on crop stays on crop. MA’s country playlist for the weekend was brilliant - I am converted! And here's some of what I did:

A simple Saturday night layout using lots of scraps and some 6x6 papers used too. It was loosely based on a sketch from a magazine ages ago - as were most of my layouts this time - not that it speeded me up much! I have been trying to keep a book with notes as and when I see things.

This was my LO for Gaye's scary challenge: no patterned paper, no pre-made embellishments and only one sheet of white, a sheet of kraft bazzill and some fabric to use. In fairness to Gaye, she did bring some fantastic technique samples for us to see and taught us how to make our own stamps with lace and heat blocks which was pretty impressive. That is how the blue and red patterns are created, the rest is conventional stamping, painting and border punches

This was for the Quick Draw challenge (see that Wild West theme again). My doodling is hampered by my inability to draw and reluctance to commit anything to paper until I have faffed about a lot first! The finished result is a lot busier than I'd normally go for but I think it is O.K as the photo is uncluttered.

This is my favourite LO of the weekend and is Claire's class. Claire's layouts are always so elegant and well designed but I think she has excelled herself this time - I just love it. It involved sewing and misting and inking and embossing and the finished result is just beautiful - thank you Claire.

These photos have been in my tote for ages so I am really pleased to have finally used them. The little basket was cut on the Cricut and embossed on the Big Shot (I just love having all the tools on tap) and the rest is very simple but cute with the bunny / chick papers.

98 days.....

There are only 98 days left until Christmas according to my friend Sandra who has an app to notify her of these things (she's a bit Christmas mad is Sandra!).

As if that weren't scary enough, it means my layouts are now officially running 997 days late because I am still only up to Christmas 2010!

At this rate, I'll be scrapping my Olympics ones in April 2015!

Before & After

I am feeling very thrifty and ever so slightly Kirstie Allsopp-ish this week. I have overdosed a little on eau-de-nil paint to turn an unwanted piece of furniture into a pretty bedside table for DD's bedroom.

Make It Show

I was lucky enough to win tickets to the Make It Show in Farnborough with Knit Today Magazine so Sandra and I headed off there today. It was a very good show for crafters with lots of cardmaking and scrapbooking stands. Some other craft shows seem to get a bit taken over by cheese stalls, washing ball demonstrations and hair pieces for some strange reason - us crafters aren't interested in such things..... well maybe the cheese!

And these are the cards I made as soon as I arrived home armed with my new brayer and stamps. They're very simple to do but it was nice to see some demos and get some new ideas. I think my crafting mojo might be returning at last :)

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 :))