Like For Ever Retreat - Layouts

Hello everyone, I'm back with my layouts that I managed to do at the retreat, as well as teaching a class, I ended up completed 5 and one half finished, which is a lot for me.

For all of these layouts I used kits from LFE

Love New York (January 2016 kit)

This was a scrap lift from a layout that Morag did, and when she saw it she didn't even recognise that it was, as I had used totally different papers.

I cut the title from white cardstock and colour blended some Tim Holtz inks over the top

I found this wood veneer piece, already embossed in my box which went perfectly with this layout.

Let's Celebrate (January 2016 kit)

I love how I captured my champagne glass and the wing of the plane in this photograph, and even though I've used this photograph before I wanted to give it its own page.  This is a 9x12 size page.  Patterned papers from the kit, with bites and pieces from my travel stash.

Found the perfect stickers for the page as well, from Shimelle True Stories collection.

Today (March 2016)

   

This collection is from My Minds Eye - On Trend2 - I wasn't keen on it when I saw in on screen, but when I got it, it was better than I thought so, as I've got a backlog of kits to cut into I decided to get struck in right away and create another 9x12 layout, which came together really quicker and will be used as a filler page within the album, as it doesn't really have a story to tell.

Again found some words and stickers that suited the photographs really well.

Love the gold heart piece - which is from the Becky Higgins - Project Life - themed card pack


XOXO (February 2016)

This was the layout that Julie designed as her pillow present, so it came with all the cardstock and I just added patterned paper and bits and pieces from the February kit, and also changed it around to suit my style.

Leave Room for Magic (August 2015)

This was one of the challenges, again something I struggle to do when at retreats, but has we had the 3 challenges before we got to the event, I found it easier to prepare for it.  So for this one I cut out the phase on white cardstock, and backed each letter. The papers are from Crate Paper - Wonder collection.

I cut the white cardstock down slightly and mounted it onto some Kraft cardstock, as this will be going into my Harry Potter album and I've used Kraft Cardstock with all those layouts.

Thank you for stopping by again, hope you like what I did whilst away.   

Hey Little Magpie - March 2016 Blogpost

Just wanted to put on that my layouts for this month are up on the Hey Little Magpie blog (here).


I've used the lovely collection from Pink Paislee - Cest La Vie.

Hope over the the blog to see how I put this and the two other layouts together.

Please note that at the time of writing some of the products are out of stock, but as Pink Paislee is under the umbrella of American Crafts, re-stocking of all the new products had been put on hold whilst AC moved warehouses in the USA.  Hopefully by the end of March AC should be back to shipping products to all stores.

Thanks for stopping by.

Like For Ever Retreat - March 2016

This was the first retreat that Nicola from Like For Ever (LFE) had done and was just opened to the LFE Subscribers.

She had chosen a great setting in Licestershire, which was a new venue and was idea for our weekend of crafting.  Apologies for the the photo heavy post, but here goes.

    

There was no chance of us getting lost, the venue staff had placed many signs leading us to this ...

A beautiful logged building, that was plenty big enough for us all and self contained, so we didn't have to wander far from our scrapping room to have our meals.

The room was soon set up and ready for the delegates to arrive.

My spot - yeah !!!

And of course us crafters never travel light, 

These are my bags - I did had several kits that I'd hadn't even touched, and was determined that I would try and make a few layouts over the weekend, using these kits,  as well as 'all that necessary' stash I needed - not !  lol x

One of the welcome gifts from Nicola, was this lovely mug, full of sweets, wood veneer and washi tape.

We also had a 8x11 album with some inserts along with a a selection of products from Pink Fresh Studio - the Felicity collection.

It was lovely meeting the others in person, as we have talked online for over a year.

We had all done 'pillow presents' I mentioned in a previous post about my 2 versions for the pillow presents, anyway we ended up with a bag of crafting and chocolate goodies.

Part of our evening meal - which was totally yummy !!!

Then it was time for me to put my class kits together, as my class was to start straight after breakfast on Saturday morning.   I couldn't do it before the weekend, as I had half the class kit and Nicola had the other half, but it didn't take me long to put together.

Julie had made Nicola a sign for her room, which everyone loved.

   

Woke up on the Saturday to a very misty morning - this was our view of the treehouse from our snug.

There was only 27 of us but the breakfast was as they say ' fit for a king' and plenty of it.

Straight after breakfast it was the start of my class, I was nervous, but felt at ease once I'd started.  As I was teaching on my own, I had sorted a table out with all the extra things I needed which help me to keep on trace.

 Heres my class in full swing … I loved that they enjoyed my class - it filled me with joy.

I'm normally well organised and like to make sure things are planned way in advance, but not this time, on the day before (Thursday), I had the idea of us all clubbing together and getting Nicola some flowers as a sign of our appreciation to her for all the hard work in organising this retreat.  

Thankfully we have Facebook - yeah! and I was able to send a group message to everyone, asking if they wanted to contribute and that I would organise it if they agreed.  They all jumped at the idea and so I ordered some flowers to be delivered on the Saturday, and got her some chocolates as well as a card - that I had to get everyone to sign without Nicola seeing - this I even did whilst walking around her class and talking to the ladies, and Nicola thought I was just being nosey - lol x.

Love this photo of the Woodlands at night 

These are the pillow presents that I received, when we got back to our sung (Julie, Kay and me) we emptied our bags on the floor and we each choose the same present and opened them together - there was loads of crafty goodness - most of it I will be including in some pocket pages about the weekend - got some idea, - just need the time to do it.

Throughout the weekend, there was 3 challenges to do, and it was great seeing the 'challenge' wall get full of our layouts.

As a thank you for teaching the class, Nicola got me a small gift, well it wasn't small it was only a Kikki-K large planner and I love, love, love it.  As of typing this,  I've only stroked it several time, but I will be using it, once I can get over having to actually write in it, that is.

I didn't take loads and loads of photos this weekend, but I did insist we had a group photo on the Sunday, before everyone was packing up ready to go home.

Big, big, thanks to Nicola for organising it, you hard work definitely paid off, also thank you again to the ladies who did my class, it was lovely to see how your layouts all looked different, yet we all used the same products.

A last thank you to everyone, for making it the weekend it was, it was lovely to meet you all in person and I hope that we can meet again in the not too distant future.

I will be back soon with the layouts I did over the weekend - I managed to do 5 and start another - which I'm so pleased with.

Thanks for stopping by.

Thank you gifts

As I mentioned previously I was a bit nervous about teaching my first 'retreat' class, but I also was very pleased that people had booked onto the class, so I decided to give them each a small gift as a thank you for choosing my class.

I stamped a thank you message onto white cardstock and cut it out, layering a piece of patterned paper underneath the sentiment and cut that into the same shape as the sentiment, then I punched 2 different sizes of pattern papers and layered on top of a dollie, adding some silver thread messily between the sentiment and the circles.

A close up of the finished embellishment.

Then I added the embellishment to the front of some bags and filled the bags with sweets and closed it with a some washi tape.

As I only had a maximum of 11 in my class, these didn't take me long to assemble.

I loved how they turned out.

Thanks for stopping by.

LFE Retreat - Pillow Presents

For the recent retreat I attended, we where asked to do a small gift for each of the delegates, so it in total we had to do 26 each.  Easy, I hear you say but what can you do that is easy, quick and doesn't cost a lot of money.  Well I had several months to decide what do, and as we where getting a album with divided pocket pages in, I decided to do a 3x4 card to be inserted.


So last October whilst on holiday in Norfolk I took some supplies to make a start on them.

And I even got James to do a few.

Then when I was home I added some washi tape, wood veneer stars, and gold mist and I thought great they are done and packed them away feeling very accomplished with my presents.  Until, samples started to appear in our retreat group chat, and sneak I was like OMG! my little cards are so boring and simple, and what an understatement.

So after having a good think about it, seeing some of the other ones, and looking on Pintrest - I started on version 2. 

I picked out a couple of my 6x6 pads and set about die cutting some feathers, not really choosing any particular colour, I just cut away till I had a large amount of feathers in various sizes and designs to work with.

Then I cut lengths of bakers twine and make some bows - it was at time like this that I wish I had a bow maker.

The using the same 6x6 pads I die cuts some large label

and folded them in half.

Then it was time to put them all together, I glued the top of the feathers to the label, then using the mini attachers I stapled the bow to the top of the feather, and added a enamel dot over the staple to help disguise the staple.

Here are all the toppers together.

then I added sweets to some plastic bags.

Put them all together and added up with this.

I was happy with version one but feel a lot better with version two, only wish I'd thought about it a bit more at the early stage.  Anyway, they are done and given out now.

I will be back shortly with my layouts from the retreat.

Thanks for stopping by.