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.