Better Late Than Never! Part 1 (Chinese Whispers)

Today I am going to share the first of the Chinese Whisper Groups from our Retreat - hence the title Better Late Than Never as I had intended to add these in the weeks after the retreat rather than months after!

So for those of you unfamiliar with the Chinese Whispers Challenge it goes like this:

The group starts off with a sketch. This group started with this sketch used with the kind permission of Miyuki Kawakami.

The first person in the group works from this sketch to make their layout and then photographs it and posts the picture of just their layout to the next person who uses that as the basis for their layout.

As the chain progresses elements will inevitably be moved around, swapped for other items and the layout design is tweaked.

When the retreat comes around everyone puts their layouts for the challenge up on the wall in order and we all get to see how the design has evolved as the challenge has progressed.

So without further ado here are the layouts from this group.

Layout 1 by Mel Hand

Layout 2 by Antonia Sturt Hammond



















Layout 3 by Flick Rogers

Layout 4 by Louise Squires



















Layout 5 by Tracy Annunziato



















Layout 6 by Mel Eagles



















Layout 7 by Debbie Jewell



















Layout 8 by Helen Howden


















 
Layout 9 by Erin Muir




















I think you will agree that it is fascinating to see which elements have been taken by each designer to use in their own layout and which have been set aside. The final layout is very different from the starting sketch and that is the fun of the Chinese Whispers challenge!

I have two more groups to post, it's taken me a couple of months to post these but hopefully the wait for group 2 will be a little shorter!!

Just another manic Monday

Many of you will start the week on half term, with the kids home from school or certainly less traffic on the roads! Here at ATDML we are all systems go preparing for the retreat this coming weekend.
Kits are being packed, instructions are being written and its just another manic Monday.

A few of the team having been posting some sneak peaks of their class projects over on Facebook, giving a tease of what is to come and here are a few of those.

This is a snap shot of the second layout of three that forms part of my Simple Stories Pumpkin Spice class. Just search for Pumpkin Spice in the store to find these papers.

Another of my classes is Echo Park The Story of Our Family and this is my share of what is to come from one of two layouts I will be teaching with these lovely papers and stickers.

I am almost too excited by these cork bows that Karen will be using in her Dear Lizzy Documentary class by American Crafts - how cute are they?

Katherine has also been tempting us with her Kaisercraft Time Machine sneak peak - this will be my first class of the weekend!

And be still my beating heart at the goldness on our Debs Summer Vibes page - papers by Simple Stories.

Mel is keeping us all in suspense on her classes so no sneak peaks from her as yet but I for one cannot wait for the weekend and this Monday can be as manic as it likes - we are just one day closer to a weekend full of inspiration. Be sure to keep your eyes peeled over the weekend as I am sure there will be many photos and plenty of inspiration being shared. 

Have a great week.

More Prima Coffee Break Goodness!

Following on from ym post about the Prima Coffee Break class which inspired me to sit down and actually scrap while at the retreat (in my defence I wasn't slacking it was between midnight and 3a.m on Saturday night \ Sunday morning and no one needed me to do anything for them!) I wanted to share the other layout I made with this paper range.

I was inspired by the "Quiet Moments" wording on the background page as it seemed so appropriate for this photo of my daughter Isabelle and her two friends reading during her birthday sleepover. I had been rather suspicious as it was VERY quiet upstairs and I wondered what on earth they were up to. It turned out they were all reading their books together. (oh please let this continue - if this is as Rock n Roll as her parties get I am totally ok with that!)

I love that even though this range is coffee break themed there are plenty of other options - there is a sub theme of books and reading which I obviously used here, but also some bits that work for a general "relaxing" theme and some which are fairly generic.

Coffee Break Class times Four!

One of the many "Sold Out" classes over the retreat weekend was Ann's Prima Coffee Break class which featured one of my all time favourite class layouts. I was not the only one to fall in love with this class and many of those not booked on the class were rifling through the Prima papers in the shop to recreate the layout (including me!)

This was Ann's Class Sample:

and with their permission I wanted to share a couple of variations on the class.

The first one is by Sarah Keerie, she went for a slightly "cleaner" look with less of the gold spray but added a little more glitz with a few more of the Say It In Crystals coloured gems.

The next layout is by Tricia Edie and you can see she has added a large colourful title to complement her photo in place of some of the journaling. She has also swapped out the choice of paper for the frame in favour of a yellow one to work with her photos as well as adding some yellow splats as well.

Finally, here is my take on the class. I loved Ann's original and wanted to recreate most of it as she had designed it but I couldn't help myself and had to add a few chipboard embellishments (hearts, stars and arrows from the October Afternoon Daily Flash series.) I also added a little extra journaling in the form of a journaling card peeking out from behind the photo.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing the different take three people had on the same class. I was so inspired by this range (which considering I don't drink coffee or tea I didn't think I would be) that I have another layout to share later in the week using the same range!

Cards on Sunday - Pop Up Box Cards

One of the most popular things at the retreat was a make & take which Ann led making a box card. Lots of people really enjoyed this card and I was inspired by the creations.

The day after the retreat Elizabeth and Jez sat in our dining room making a beach hut version as a wedding card (I will try to get some photos of that) and I made my Aunties birthday card also in this style.

I used papers from the 6x6 My Minds Eye Record It Pretty Things paper pad to make my card with Kraft Bazzill cardstock as the base.

 

 The card is relatively straight forward to make but very versatile in how your decorate it.

 

Here are a few close ups of some of the details. I used a ticket punch to write on, a Stampin' Up stamp for the greeting and then a cut out flower layered up with the greeting.

 

The butterflies are punched out of co-ordinating paper. To create the illusion of them flying I used strips of acetate to attach them to the card . On the larger butterfly I used some pearls for a body.

 

One of the things that I really like about this type of card is that although it is so dimensional when it is standing up and open it all folds nice and flat to go in the envelope!

One of our retreat delegates was so inspired that she has made several since the retreat and shared them on our facebook group. She has kindly given me permission to share a few of them. I love them both but the bottom one with the flying pigs from the Graphic 45 Curiosity Shoppe range really makes me smile :)

Thanks for allowing me to share them Tina

By Tina Kelson

By Tina Kelson

If you would like a go at making this card you can download Ann's template HERE on our site.

Retreat Photos and the challenge winners

I had a super time at the ATDML retreat, loads of super classes, great food and scrappy friends to share the time with, plus an enormous shop filled with loads of beautiful goodies.  Mel and Jill always set us some challenges to have a go at on the retreat, and here are the pages/project that won.

The first photo is Jackie Da Silva who joined in our photo swap challenge where you scrap someone else's photo making a beautiful page for someone else's album.

Here is Debbie and her lovely calendar page.

This is Denise's page and her take on the sketch challenge, I love the bunting.

Here is Sarah Hunter and her altered butterfly...the photo doesn't do it any justice she turned a wooden butterfly into a jewellery holder....there are rumours she even found a drill to make the holes with!

Sarah Meacher showed us her wonderful doodling - she used some thickers as letter templates and doodled around the edge.

Here is Joanne Perry who's used the mystery kit to create this page, I love all the blocks of colour and different patterned papers.

Here is Carol with her lovely (clever opening) card.

If you want to see some more of the creativity then join our Facebook group here.

Preparing for a retreat

This time next week the shop and many customers will be scrapping up a storm in Stoke-by-Nayland as we gather for the second retreat of 2013.  I have been busy preparing my two classes, my make and take, writing up instructions and photographing items and as always I suddenly arrive close to the event and realise I have prepared very little for myself.

So I thought I would do a quick blog post on preparing for an ATDML retreat. Nothing clever about this but it might serve as a reminder to some so in simple bullet point format here we go

1. Photos for your classes, extras for challenges
2. Basic tool kit (scissors/trimmer/glue/foam pads/journalling pen)
3. Fave die cuts (the Sizzix machine will be there) and punches
4. Inks/paints/sprays and fave stamps
5. Baby wipes (if you've plenty of #3)
6. Blank kits made up with papers/card/embellies/photos for quick pages
7. Few sketches/scraplift images to kickstart mojo if needed
8. Cash/Cheque book for shop (remember no card machine!)
9. Overnight bad/washbag/change of clothes (always last min)
10. Snacks/nibbles/tipples
11. Raffle prize donations
12. Anything else you are bringing for someone else!

Am sure there are many more things, though given how little time I have left to prepare I'm hoping not too many more.

What item do you take to a retreat or crop that you cannot live without?

7 Gypsies Class - My Original and Denises Version...

Tonight I wanted to share with you one of the class layouts I taught at the retreat. I used the wonderful 7 Gypsies Off The Wall and Global papers and combined these with collage tissue and a few other products to make this layout:

One thing we always make clear to all our delegates is that no one is precious about their class layouts and whether you want to walk out with an identical layout but with your photos, something adapted from the layout or something just loosely inspired by the original it is absolutely fine.

I always find it fascinating to see what the ladies end up with at the end of a class. The layout below is the one by Denise Holmes who took the class and adapted it to suit the photos she had and then made further adjustments to cover up something she didn't like (a wrinkled frame I think) I like to think that was a happy accident because it led to the butterflies flying up the right hand side of the page and the beautiful stamping.

Come back soon to see a little more of what we got up to and of course the fabulous challenge entries and winners :)

Good Students?!

One of the fun things about the retreats is that amongst the many lovely ladies we have attending there are always a few from our Design Team. Spending the year emailing back and forth with them and sending out little packages of loveliness to them it is really nice to spend some time with them.

They are often teaching but they also take classes themselves. This most recent retreat we had Ann, Jane, Suzanne, Karen M & Karen C all teaching plus Debbie with us as a delegate so almost a full house (Dawn was missed by all as she couldn't come this time)

I was trying to get some photos of the delegates working away in classes and this pair were sitting together engaged in a deep and meaningful crafty discussion while working in Suzannes class.


And here they are again teaching their own classes!

Jane was teaching her fabulous ABC Primer pencil bound book...

and Ann was teaching her beautiful My Little Shoebox layout as featured on the blog hop.

More to share over the next week including some more classes and the fabulous challenge winners! Apologies for the photos, I have a new computer and NO photo editing software installed so they are straight out of camera and clearly the setting were a little awry!

Altered Challenge from the retreat

We always have a number of optional challenges at our retreat weekends which delegates can take part in, seven was the count of last weekend including a sketch challenge, a top 10 challenge, a mystery kit challenge and one of the most popular - the altered challenge. This retreat the object to be altered was a small brown gift bag.

It never ceases to amaze me the variety of entries we get to these challenges and this year was no different. Projects ranged from minibooks to lined wine coolers, from festive reindeer to spooky houses, from mini Calendars to miniature stages, not to mention some very pretty decorated bags retaining their original use.

As always judging the challenges was not made simple by the very talented delegates who gave so many options to choose from and all so wonderful in their own right. Jane's post on Halloween showcased her witches house a little further. The overall winning creation however was this one by Denise.

More retreat projects and photographs to share in the coming days along with another Thirsty Thursday challenge

More retreat winners as promised

As promised in my post last week we have more retreat winners to share with you. Denise was the lucky winner of the scraplift challenge - where delegates were challenged to scraplift one of several layouts created by the design team.

Pat won the sketch challenge prize with her very funky layout.

My class was a single layout class as previously shared and used the Prima Madeline range. There was plenty of papers within the kit to create a second layout and instructions for an example second layout were included in the class. One of our delegates Claire managed to finish her second layout during the weekend and I loved it so much I thought I would share here in the blog.

Only 29 weeks to go until the next retreat at the end of October 2011! But don't worry - we have a little special something up our sleeves for between now and then sure to keep you all in scrapping heaven!

Retreat Challenges

It is always so amazing to see what a group of crafters can create when given the same remit. One of our retreat challenges was to use a mystery kit to create a layout or project with a restricted list of additional items that could be used and the creations were all so different and included a double sided calendar among an array of layouts. The winning layout was however by Nikki who won a lovely stash prize from the shop.

The altered item challenge is, quite possibly, the most amazing in variety of finished products and IMPOSSIBLY difficult to judge and pick a winner. The item for altering was a small cardboard jewellery box which in itself was lovely in pearlescent cream with a cute ribbon tie...but then our super talented ladies got creative...items included Wendy the Robot, a musical circus, a tiny treasures wardrobe to name but a few. Just take a look at these!! (Click on the photo to enlarge) Helen was the very lucky winner with her Alice work of art which features one of the mini bottles new from 7Gypsies.

Tina won the card challenge with her very pretty feathered creation.

Jane (creator of the mini circus in a box) won the Charts top10 challenge with her gorgeous canvass entitled "Born this Way".

More challenge winners tomorrow.