Time Flies

Well, after an extremely busy week, I'm here to report back on our mini Retreat near Bedford. I went with my fellow bloggers from http://craftstampingquartet.blogspot.com/ Elaine, Jo and Lesley. We hired two adjoining apartments on a farm near Bedford, and spent a few days together just chatting and crafting. The accomodation was excellent, as we had two large tables, which meant that we coukd split up and work on our circle journals, or leave one table cluttered with craft stuff, and eat on the other one! We also booked a day class at LB Crafts with Linda Elbourne, and had a fabulous time with her, and then browsed around the shop afterwards. We may have made one or two purchases as well! I have almost finished my project from the class, and will post a picture of that when I have, as it is gorgeous.

While we were on the Retreat, we taught each other a few bits and pieces, and tried to work on some projects as well as our journals. Some projects were finished, and some things have been saved for next time, too much chatting I think! I showed the girls how to attach beading to Stampboard with jump rings and headpins. Unfortunately, I don't have any pictures of their projects, but here is one of mine. I have used Tattered Rose, Milled Lavender and Dusty Concord DIs on the stampboard, and then used a Lavinia stamp with Imperial Purple Versafine Ink. I have then atached an assortment of toning beads, finishing off with a pretty toggle clasp at the back.

I managed to get two lots of circle journal pages finished, first Elaines, based on a Secret Garden theme, as she is a nature lover at heart. I used a gorgeous green paper from a K & Co pad as my base. I made a handmade flower with book pages, and stamped a door with a Crafty Individuals stamp, placing another CI image behind of ferns and flowers. I used  larger versions of the ferns and flowers to stamp around the edges of the pages from an Elusive Images set of stamps. I used the words Secret Garden from the new Paper Artsy Hot Picks Stamp set. I used various Tim Holtz ideology pieces to finish off my pages.Apologies about the background of my photo, we worked in a right mess while we were there!

For Jo's pages, I went for a Venetian theme; we both share a love of Venice, and Italy in general. I used some Darkroom Door stamps as the basis of my design, and wanted to include mosaics in my design. I painted some Terra onto the top half of one of my pages, and brushed wild honey over the top, to give a plaster effect to the page. Lesley very kindly donated the perfect colour mosaics for me. Again, I made some handmade flowers with Italian newspaper this time! I used one of Jo's own masks to make the background for the second page by inking through with Wild Honey DI. I made these pages with a migraine, and really struggled to pull them together, but page number two with the mask went better than page number one, and I think that it shows. I used the word for 'friend' in Italian, a little ticket, and a motivational Crafty Individuals stamp to finish everything off.
We had a lovely time together, and are already in agreement that we must go again. We think that we need a month next time to get everything done...I'll be back soon with more bits and pieces to show you, Judith xx