The company was great, the food delicious (both the catering and baking done by the attendees of which I ate far too much!). The venue worked very well and I think everyone had fun. Megan deserves a big shout out for organising the event - she did a great job so far as I am concerned. Crafty Tart provided us with retail therapy - I think they got a shock at us rabid shoppers but never mind!
Furthermore, I did get some scrapping done which I suppose was the whole idea! LOL! It was nice to have some me time - a big thank you to my long suffering DH who had to deal with poopy nappies and a grumpy little girl who missed her mum.
*Edited to add: blogger has chopped off some of the photos so you'll have to visit my Flickr stream to see them in full glory. Just click on them.*
My Table
Angela and Sandra
Tracy, Annelie, Hannah, Megan, Sam, Faye, Michelle & Sarah-Jane (both obscured)
Delys (great to finally meet you!), Angela, Danice (*I think* standing), Bronwyn, Rachel, Carolyn, Cheryl, Jodi (obscured), Delwyn, Ann and Lisa at the end.
Table opposite
Not all the girls are facing the camera but Debs, Louise, Lesley, Carol, Lianne, Lisa and Kelly are visible.
Faye teaching her class - a mini album.
Nic teaching - a cool layout with a mini book on the layout
Faye's mini-album class
Little Halloween bag that Kelly made for everyone! Very sweet. :-)
A layout of mine - very basic
My LO from Nic's class - awesome design
Scrapbook Outlet's Challenge pack Layout - one of them anyway. I did another with I left to be judged in the competition...
I didn't get photos of the Halloween dress ups but there were some very creative ladies there! This was reflected in their work as I cruised around looking at the tables. It got quite intimidating actually! Some famous names attended the Retreat. But when I got home I realised that I need to change my attitude and instead look at what I admire about the work from those creative ladies instead of feeling lacklustre.
One thing I noticed is they do a lot more layering than I do, and there is more detail in their layouts. I would like to do a bit more of these things in my layouts. I tend to do things that aren't so busy with lots of elements. I admire the textured look they achieve with ripping, tearing, inking and so on too.
Another thing I'd like to do is more classes - bit tricky when my time is so full so I'm not sure how I'll fulfil this. Maybe online classes will have to be the go.
By the end of the Saturday night I'd started to wilt - I have a yukky cold and it was getting the better of me. Plus I'd run out of card stock suitable for the remaining photos I had and no motivation to get some from the shop. So I wended my way home and I was very glad to see my family and bed!
Thanks for everything Sketchbook, Megan and fellow scrapping women.
Penny, looks like you all had so much fun, and very productive.
ReplyDeleteWhats the stripey paper you used for One sunny day, that is so cool, and would help feed my addiction to stripes.
I know what you mean, when you say you look at others work, and feel under 'embellished/layered/etc'. I do a page, and then wonder what else could I do, but never seem to have the answer, so just leave it, LOL. I really like your pages, you've got the moments down to remember, and they look great!
sounds like a fun weekend despite you having a cold. Great pages, love the mini album!
ReplyDeleteIt was lovely to finally meet you, Penny. I noticed you "fading" a little last night, but didn't realise you were so sick. Sounds like an early night was just the ticket. Some girls were up til 5am!
ReplyDeleteI loved the layout you left to be judged (Megan has it, by the way) and the other one you did is lovely too. Great job getting 2 done from that challenge pack! Your mini album is looking fab as well ... don't you love that paper, I am enjoying adding the wee mushrooms and clouds to mine! ;-)
Hey Penny looks like it was a lot of fun and well done on getting so many layouts done!
ReplyDeleteLooks like lots of fun! I know what you mean about comparing yours to the "names"; I feel the same. But I scrap for the memories now and that's fine by me. Hope you're feeling better today
ReplyDeleteThanks for sharing the photos ... it's almost like we were there with you! Pity you weren't feeling well ... hope you managed to rest since you got home. I agree that you shouldn't compare your work to others ... although it doesn't hurt to look at other's stuff and notice what you like and what ideas you could use in your own work. There are lots of on-line classes, tips, tutorials that you can use to help develop your skills ... but personally I like what you do!
ReplyDeleteWhat a lovely way to spend some 'me' time - good for you.
ReplyDeleteI long ago gave up stressing about how others scrap compared to how I do. Sometimes I do awesome pages but mostly I don't. It's for me/us not for public viewing so who cares!
(Live the hat pictures)
Sorry to hear you were not well but sounds like you had a ball, loved looking at the photos of who was there and what you got up too. Sounds like going home was just what you needed, phew at living in Auckland. I know its hard not to compare your work to others and know how you feel, so now I just tell myself, as long as I like what I put in my album then thats all that matters. I do like weekends like that so you can be inspired or challenged to try things, but like Beverley said personally I like what you do.
ReplyDeletePenny! I can't believe youa re feeling down about your scrapping~!
ReplyDeleteI LOVE these pages, you tell the cutest stories are great at putting paper together adn FAB at the little details, look at the flowers on the 'Towel Top' pages of Lydia! I do think we all feel a bit like that sometimes, I just think about how much fun i have creating and how much my family like looking at my pages :)
I hope you're feeling better!
Wow Penny love your layouts the classes looked really great.
ReplyDeleteI am sketch book Green with envy lol so pleased you had a wonderful time and thankyou for sharing..
Yeah it certainly does look like heaps and heaps of fun!
ReplyDeleteSo pleased to hear that you enjoyed yourself so much.
LOVE your layouts! Shoe chick, lol - so cute! And I have one of those wannabe kindy kids here too, hee hee.
PS. I hope you are feeling a lot better now. :)
ReplyDeleteLooks absolutely fab!!
ReplyDeleteWow you got alot done and such fun. And just for the record I think your pages look great, you intimidate me!
ReplyDelete