What a weekend.....

This weekend Belle and I attended the lovin Ink weekend retreat up in Bolton Abby. It all began on Friday afternoon after sitting in 2 hours of traffic we arrived at our destination a bit stressed. But after stepping out of the car all the tension began to melt. Such a beautiful peaceful place with Rolling fields in all directions.

Then there was the retreat place. The Beamsley project. It is a converted church.

And here were our wonderful hosts Michelle and Janet.

There were even homemade buns for Birthday Boy Neil. How cute are they? and scrumptious too.

So What was the retreat all about you ask? Well we began on Friday with a bag full of supplies and a box. This retreat was so much fun and packed full of tantalizing techniques in every turn. Friday we made our box and learned lots of layering techniques. Here is Belles Box. And here is my completed box.

And inside.....packed full of some of the goodies we made over the weekend. (Sorry for the turned photo, Blogger seems to not like this one) There were so many techniques over the 3 days and we came away with some really wonderful items and the best part was that everyone had made totally different things. Michelle and Janet just showed us a technique and we went at it. The hands were inky the fingers painty and the artistic concentration was in full swing throughout the room it was awesome. I have to say I think this was the most relaxing creative weekend I have EVER been to. We even managed to fit it a little shopping with a trip to the stamp Man on Saturday. Inbetween all the wonderful techniques of course.

If you are looking for a artistic getaway where your imagination is the limit then you have to check out the next lovin Ink retreat scheduled in September. I would definately make a return trip...I am hooked. Oh almost forgot, We were also treated to a wonderful series of Meals from Chef Andy who also spent the weekend with us. There was so much freshly made food we were definately well fed.

So now onto some of the goodies we made. Here are some of the flowers. there are paper and lave ones, Organza and more. Aren't they fab? Here is a closeup of some. We all used own own ideas and played around to make our own custom flowers. I used some Fusible webbing, lace, Distress inks, stamping and more.

And here are some of the buttons we did. We got to play with so many fun techniques from Fimo clay to paper and pro markers to Friendly plastic he sky was the limit. Here are some of my clay, altered, chipboard, stamped, Embossed and hand panted ones. My only regret was that we did not have another weekend to play even more.

To sum it up it was just an amazing weekend of crafting, making new friends and bonding. What more could you ask for right. I cannot wait to play some more during the week.

If you want more information on Lovin ink retreats you can click here. I am also posting links to some of the groups blogs. Why not Stop by their blogs and see how the rest of the projects came along.

Some of the groups blogs can be found here: (Although since everyone came from al over you might want to give teh a day or so to blog it)

Michelle

Janet

Emma

Neil

Belle (will blog about hers on monday)

I will post some links for the rest of the group of crafters as soon as I get them. Now I am going to head off and try and get some sleep as it is back to work tomorrow. Thanks for stopping in and have a wonderful evening.

Angela