Scrapbook Retreat

I spent last weekend in a sprawling house at Phillip Island with 7 like minded scrappy ladies - there was lots of food, lots of laughter and to my surprise lots of scrapping.

Photo taken at The Purple Hen winery on a lazy Saturday afternoon. Sharlene is missing since she stayed up all night Friday scrapping and needed a nanna nap.

Here are a few of my creations from the weekend.

First up we were set a challenge by the lovely Leesa to decorate a pillow box that Sharlene die-cut for us. Although its not what I would normally work with I went about it in my usual manner and crafted a little flower using Nestabilities dies, some calico and glimmermist.

To add some sparkle a dropped clear seed beads into my dimensional magic while it was still wet and was very happy with the outcome. In the right light it looks like little drops of dew have fallen onto the leaves (in my head anyway!).

Pillow box challenge

Aren't we clever? Every pillow box was decorated differently, with a little bit of each personality shining through.

I got busy scrapping some layouts and to my surprise I finished quite a few. This is unusual for me, since I can start a layout at home and simply push papers around for the whole weekend. Come Sunday night I'm sick of the sight of it all and just stick it all down, wherever it may have ended up.

In addition to completing my layouts for Kraft it up and Scrapbook Savvy sketch with a twist challenges I managed to finish some layouts just for me.

The kids' first day back at school for the year is always a momentous occasion and in response to Connor's cries of "Mum, didn't you take this photo last year?", I grabbed out camera and started snapping away. In grades 3 and 4 this year they won't let me walk them into their new classrooms so I clicked madly before we left for school.

This is the resulting layout - First day back @ school

In a challenge to myself I am going to scrap a layout for each month of the year. January was crazy busy for us; we managed to fit in a Queensland holiday, Australia Day celebrations, Chinese New Year celebrations, a birthday (love you Scottie) and the usual day to day comings and goings.

With so many photos you would have thought it would be easy to create a dynamic and exciting layout showcasing all of our fun? Correct? Far from it. Yes, I have met the requirements of my challenge, but really hope I can do a better job of presenting it next month.

January

I'm feeling pretty good about my Australia Zoo layouts. Since I like to mix up the page sizes in my album I used a smaller layout size as a kind of 'cover' page for our adventures. I tried to keep some continuity in the pages that follow by using the same patterned papers (by Bo Bunny Zoology) and lots of textural elements.

Saturday morning on retreat some of us ladies sought out the local haunts looking for a bargain. Lucky for me I picked up some hessian place-mats, an old curtain remnant and doilies at the op shop (plus some great CDs to listen to in the car on the way home at the garage sale). We had a coffee at the Cobra Lily florist and cafe at San Remo and they sold me some cool floristry mesh that was almost Khaki green - a tribute to Steve Irwin himself.

My op shop finds were quickly chopped up on our arrival back at the house, and I had instant tactile, frayed, outdoors-ish lollipop flowers ready to go. I was so glad I kept the badges we got on the bus trip there, they scrapped up a treat.

Australia Zoo

Thanks ladies for a really nice break away from the ordinary. It was great fun to share ideas, tools and products, meals, bunk-beds and lots of laughs.

I learnt that Skinny Milk does not come from the cows who run to the milking shed and that you haven't had too much to drink while you can still fussy cut.

Bring on Retreat 2012 Part II.