Confessions from a Scrapbook retreat attendee...

Well HELLOOOOOOOOOOOO,

(warning-very very long post)

Been back almost a week and thought it about time I put something up about the wonderful weekend away I had last week (17 to 19 August 2007)

First off, no matter how much or little you pack there will always be something you forget and there will always be way too much stuff you take and never even bother to get out to use.

My travel buddy has strict instructions next year to slap me up the side of the head if I dare take as much as what I did last weekend ROFL. The only good thing about taking too much with me, was that it had to be put away when I got back. And by that I mean everything had to be resorted and new spots for new 'bootie' be found.

This forced me to clean up my craft area (sadly it hasn't got as far as the actual desk top YET, but it will trust me, I WILL DO IT!!) I came home with a ton of wonderful new paints by Matisse/Derivan and Kindyglitz by the same company. I also won a raffle that saw me with even more Matisse paints than I bought as well. Needless to say, I had to purchase another set of 3 drawers to go under my desk and one is chockkas full of Matisse products now. Hmmmm beautiful colours!! (thanks Michelle!!)

Our weekend was out at the Meroo Convention Centre, Kurrajong Heights. Not too far north west of Richmond in outer north western Sydney. It's a beautiful part of the country side, so quiet and you knew you were in the country when you could hear the bell birds and their unique sounds as we drove into the convention centre's property. It was a pefect setting to get creative. We had heaps of room to set ourselves up at our tables.

Loads of room to put all our gear around us without too many people tripping over things. That's not to say the stair railings didn't give some of us 'short people' a few bruises as we tried to manouvre around them, ouch, and yes I have the best bruise on my upper left arm Deanne, still getting darker even now.

We had twin share rooms with our own ensuites so there was no queing for showers or running down corridors to go visit the bathrooms in the middle of the night. Each room had it's own heating too so we were quite toasty and snug.

We arrived around 4pm the Friday afternoon, got all our gear out of the car and trundled in to find a table. The DT team and Cath were there setting up the shop. Once we'd got our possy for the weekend we pitched in and helped finish setting up the shop.

The advantage here was we got to see what was going to be for sale later. Man did my eyes pop out at some of the rub ons and yes, even though I had 2 big orders waiting for my collection later that evening, I did manage to by more bootie to bring home.

Once most people had arrived, the fun began, getting to meet people we'd only ever spoken to online or reaquaint ourselves with those we've not caught up with in ages (Altered Ego, AT, Owl, Karyn, Deanne to name a few).

I must say here I soooooo feel for the ladies on the bus from the airport. What a welcome to Sydney they got - NOT!! I think it took the mini bus, what, 4 to 5 hours to get from Sydney airport out to Meroo. Unbelieveable, we were getting quite worried at where our Melbournian and other interstate ladies had got too.

I think it was around 8pm when they finally arrived, through several accidents on Sydney's congested roads and general peak hour traffic, not 'ceptable really but they did finally arrive safely.

Friday night we handed in our baby layout entries for the guessing comp. There were wonderful creations to be seen. The other guessing comps, jar of ribbons and jar brads was announced and everyone set about checking them out and working out their guesses and choices.

Our first challenge, "Time to Reorder" was announced. We were given a small kit with 2 sheets of patterned 12 x 12 paper and the same sized chipboard. These papers were the last in the pack and therefore had printed in big black letters "Time to Reorder" across the centre of them. Our challenge was to create LO's or OTP items using these. It was a lot of fun seeing what people came up with. I surprized myself with what I did. And what luck that I had just the photos to go with the papers given to me!

Sketch challenges were announced, so many got stuck into doing them too. We were introduced to the wonderful Michelle Roberts from Matisse/Derivan who had a paint and ink station set up with every product you could think of from her company. All for us to experiment with and learn techniques from Michelle over the weekend. Fantastic! I was certainly converted!

Saturday started with breaky at 8am and the judging of the Miss Bed Hair comp for 2007. You had to be there to believe this, it was just so darn funny! I didn't go in it, couldn't stand going down to breaky with the 'mop' on my head, I had to wash and blow dry it. The winner was Karyn, a resounding hands down winner and she'll be handing her crown and septur over in 2008 at the next retreat!

At 9am we did our Retreat 2007 ATC swap. My there were some wonderful swaps to be seen. I was going to have mine on a ring but they are just to beautiful for that. I'll be making some kind of container or 'book' to display them in. Nearly everyone put a photo or sketch of themselves on their swaps. What a great way to rememer who everyone was.

9.30am our first class was with Alison Shearer. Alison's handmade Mini Album with tabs was a great hit. Our kits had all the instructions and seven sheets of gorgeous Sandi Lion patterned papers to use. I have the kit here, didn't get started on this one because not sure what I was doing, but I was engrossed what ever it was.

In the afternoon we had our 2nd class with Lisa Pate. Another mini book but very very different to Alison's. This one I've almost completed. It was a Maya Road mini chipboard album held together with silver rings. Now I saw loads of people having fun with trying to get the rings off then put them back on once finished. I carefully tried a couple of different ways and worked out how to do the glueing without pulling it apart. Whew, coz I really found it quite easy once I'd thought about it.

I didn't have photos exactly the size I wanted for this project. So I'll be finishing it off in the next week when I pick the perfect photos. My book has come out beautifully, I used matching Urban Lily Papers and 2 lovely Autum Leaves Stamps on it, (the stamps were in the kit!) so I want to make sure the photos go with it well.

Both these projects were ones you could add the photos to later, so that was really good.

All day Saturday most of us spent creating away in our pj's, it was soooooooo nice not having to get properly dressed. Scrapping and stamping in your pj's is the only way to go! We had our Pajama Party fashion parade in the evening and what a sight to see. I've never laughed so much in such a long time. The kind of laughing were you are crying it's just so darn funny. We know this is going to be a yearly event for sure. I also think SpikeyJen is now the official PJ Party MC, what a legend she is!

Saturday night after dinner the baby LO winners were announced then we played scrap bingo, too funny!! If anyone's been to one of the online bingo games, it was much faster in real life.

The rest of the evening was spent scrapping, chatting and playing over at Michelle's Paint Station. I painted my first canvas, preparing it to scrap a cute photo of my boy on it. Loads of people stayed up late, I think it was nearly 2am when I went to bed. My room buddy didn't even make it, she was up all night, another legend, way to go Altered Ego!

Sunday after breaky was our third class for the weekend. It was with the talented Rebecca Erickson. Rebecca had another fantastic book kit for us to make with everything included, right down to the binding of it. I actually finished this one!

I've not taken photos of everything yet, but when I do, I'll sprinkle them through this post seeing as it's such a long one.

All during the weekend, Cath had the shop open at set hours so we could nip in and grab things we wanted for projects or just generally splurge some more on things we 'had to have'.

All too soon it was time to pack up and say goodbye to old and new friends. Since coming home, the forum has exploded with more people posting who were a bit shy before the retreat. Yay, welcome to the world of forums girls!

Cath has the best sence of humour and throughout the weekend had other people taking photos as well as herself and has gone through and given us all new avatars. Too funny, you have to look at them. I'm going to be printing some of them to add to my Rebecca Erikson book, it's special as!

Thank you to Cath, The Little Scrapbook Shop's owner for a wonderful time. I'm all booked to go again next year, deposit paid. There were so many hillarious and wonderful moments over this weekend, too many to mentioned them all. Pop over to the LSBS's forum and have a read of the threads and look at the photos and avatars, you'll see what I mean!

whew, what a post! Byee for now,
Wirg.