My first Craft Retreat

Good morning everyone, 
This is actually a scheduled post, written by me in the early hours, as there isn't enough time during the day to fit everything in. I thought you'd waited long enough to hear about the rest of my craft week away.
I'll apologise now as it's rather a LONG post - quite a few photos I'm afraid.  So grab yourself a cuppa and away we go.

As most of you know I was lucky enough to go on the recent Secret Craft Retreat run by Indigo Blu.
Wow! Wow! Wow! is all I can say - When's the next one?, and book me on it!!
I had a ball.  It was two days, with overnight accomodation, absolutely crammed with craft (with a little bit of mischief and fun thrown in too!)
It was all organised by two lovely ladies Kay Halliwell-Sutton and Sarah McCrossan.

Kay

Sarah

Ooh mustn't forget Alfie too, Kay's hubby, who worked very hard in the onsite IB shop and coped extremely well with 27 females who wanted to purchase just about everything in there!

We stayed at a beautiful place called Stephen Park in the heart of Gisburn Forest.  I could have stayed there all week it was so peaceful - well apart from us!
My first day was spent with Sarah, and she had two projects for the group ....

 

 ........... a lovely notelet/writing set and a canvas.

Everything in the writing box was handmade, notelets, gift tags, we even made some decorated tissue paper and put some of that in here.  It was so much fun, and by the end of the day, even though we'd all done the same, everybody's projects were different.

Here are my creations ......

Everything was decorated using the fabulous Indigo Blu stamps (of course!) and you can find them all on the website, along with a great range of wooden stuff to alter.

The second half of Sarah's workshop was the canvas.  This is where the tissue paper came in ...... we used the stamps to decorate plain white tissue then once it was dry we covered a plain canvas with it, and what was left went into the writing box.

I must confess that I didn't get this project finished on the day - the tissue was on and a couple of the squares were done but I put the final touches to it last Sunday! 
By the time it was finished there was a bit of everything on the canvas - here's a closer look at some of the panels.  

embossing with UTEE

 

 

heat embossing

lots of rubber stamping

Well, that was Day 1.  Busy or what!  I was ready to relax I can tell you.
After a lovely meal, we all met in the lounge for a quiet night in - Yeah!  That happened!  We were up until the early hours - some longer than others - drinking and playing games.  We did all sleep ...... eventually.

Day 2 was spent with Kay, and it was a workshop full of techniques.  We got messy, with paints, and Flitter Glu and flakes, it was fab!
This was Kay's project .....

This is sooo sweet, I love it.  We started off by painting the houses in one colour then each one was decorated using various techniques.  We used Flitter Glu and flakes, stamps, PanPastels, acrylic paints, mini canvas, old book pages, the new Indigo Blu Wishi Washi tape (love that name), beads, trinkets.   Again once we'd all finished (or nearly finished .....) each one was completely different. 

I decided to go completely out of my comfort zone and use colours that I wouldn't normally go for.
This is how it turned out .....

There's a little bit of bright blue on there, turquoise, and orange!  I quite like the result and I had so much fun making it.  Here's some close ups of the houses ....

We even decorated our own beads to hang on the bottom, using the Wishi Washi tape, which is fab by the way, and comes in loads of different colours and designs.


Ooh, almost forgot to say, we were all given a goody bag when we arrived, which was full of fabulous Indigo Blu stuff,  but THE BAG .... it's going to become a collectors item within the craft world for sure .......

how gorgeous is this ....

There you have it, my 2 days in the middle of Gisburn Forest.  I can't wait for the next one, which I believe is sometime in March next year.   My name is already down on the list, (along with a few more I think) and the idea of a three-day retreat next time was put forward - watch this space.

taken on the 2nd day........ that's me sat on the step!!

If you're still with me, well done! and thank you.   It's nice to know that it's not just my other half that reads my Blog.

Have a great day, and I'll be back again soon.

Linda

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