Maple Leaf Time and a Recap of the Crafty Stampers Retreat!

Hello Stamplings!

Ready? Have you been to the bathroom and grabbed your favorite beverage? I mean, not that you keep your favorite beverage in the bathroom, but you know what I mean.

For those of you just here for cards, first up a quick coupla cards for a few challenges. And an example of one of the new-to-some-of-us techniques we did at the retreat:

Just before I left for the retreat, I saw this post on my friend Verna's blog and I checked out the video made by David (the owner of Poppy Stamps) where he shows how to die-cut and watercolor plain white napkins. I borrowed the Poppy Stamp maple leaf die from Brenda and demonstrated the technique at the retreat. It was fun and easy to do, although we found that we needed to add bits of liquid glue here and there to keep the compressed layers together, especially if we were heavy-handed with the water part of watercoloring. 

On the left below are closeups of the leaves I made and used on two other cards. If you look closely at all these leaves, you can see the great wrinkly texture you get from watercoloring on the napkin die-cuts.

Challenges

• CAS Watercolour Card Challenge: Maple Leaf. Happy 3rd Birthday and best wishes for many, many more!!
• Day of the Month Card Club: Celebrating Word Card Making Day.
• Less Is More: Rainbow.

 

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Crafty Stampers

October 6-11, 2019

Top row left to right: Linda [Oregon] (Lin's Craft Corner), Greta [Oregon] (GG Creations), Kara [Wisconsin] (Bright Hope Creations), Maria [Ohio] (Maria's Merry Makings), and Colleen [Oregon] (One Smile Lifts a Spirit). Front row left to right: Brenda [Indiana] (Inkspired to Stamp), me [California], and Sharon [Indiana], Brenda's sister-in-law. Brenda got us each an apron with pockets and Sharon embroidered the retreat name "Crafty Stampers" and personalized one for each of us!

The Farm House Brenda rented was set in the idyllic outskirts of Nashville, Indiana. 

The house was charming, with plenty of room for all of us and the weather was absolutely gorgeous every day except Friday when we had to make several trips to load up the cars. Then it poured buckets, of course! You had to climb a steep hill to see it, but there was a lovely pond on the property and a shelter house with a swing, which Colleen enjoyed. There was also a well-disguised butterfly and bushes laden with these amazing cup-like clouds of spider webs (bottom center.)

Here are some shots of all of us:

Top left: We covered the picnic table with beach towels and enjoyed cocktail hour every day in the beautiful outdoors. Top right: We turned the living room into a dining room. Bottom: Lunch (after craft shopping) in the town of Nashville, IN. Greta invited two crafty Indiana friends to join us for our outing. On the right foreground are Kathy and Linda.

Small group shots:

Left to right, top: Kara and Colleen (what's a few ants among friends); Maria and Greta. Left to right, bottom: Brenda, Linda, Kara, and Sharon dining at the Bird's Nest; and Linda, Sharon, and Maria lounging after dinner.

Hard at work play:

Col letting me know my shirt was on backwards. (Yeah, so?) In the photo on top left are Kara, Colleen, Maria, and Brenda. You can see the enormous wood dining room table which was perfect for crafting. Top right is Brenda and Greta at the die-cutting station and it appears Colleen is checking to make sure Greta's shirt is not on backwards.

Bottom left we see the beautiful smiles of Linda and Colleen. That's me in the bottom right playing the role of a waitress taking Kara and Linda's orders for ooey-gooey sticky buns. Yes, that's right. Haven't you heard that calories don't count during stamping retreats? Brenda's doctor told her that, so that's the truff!

And last, but definitely not least:

Hammy has a new lady friend! I must say he wasn't much help with winking during the week, unless you count his winking at Cassie Kitty, who is Brenda's wee crafting helper!

I'd like to thank Brenda for an enjoyable and productive craft retreat where lots of happy memories were made! She planned everything to a tee and we wanted for nothing! I had a blast and I miss everyone!

Thank you, too, for staying until the end. I've said it before and I'll say it again: if you ever get the chance to meet, greet, or retreat with one or more of your crafty friends, don't let the opportunity pass you by. Because we've gotten to know each other over the years by visiting each other's blogs and commenting, we get along as if we've know each other personally for years!

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Enjoy your day! No, seriously, enjoy! LITS!* While you're at, how about making two designs for the Twofer SWEETS challenge which ends near midnight on the 24th? I know you all have cupcakes and/or cakes!🎂

As always, thank you for coming by to visit the Playhouse and special thanks to you if you take the time to join as a follower! Please let me know you came by so I can be sure and return the flavor!

*Life is too short!

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