A litte creative time....

I am sitting here watching it snow once again and wondering where the heck spring is.  I am also wishing I was back on my retreat being creative instead of staring at a large load of laundry that needs to be folded.

Last weekend was my Spring scrapbooking retreat.  I spent 3 days playing with paper, glue, ink and not worrying about a thing.  I love retreats.  They are a dedicated time to be messy and let myself go. I don't really worry about how much I get done but this weekend I was surprised by how productive I was.

The little loops of black are feathers that I tied in a loop so the barbs spread out.  The background is mandala pattern stamps that I had picked up earlier in the day.  I don't know what it is about new supplies that tend to jump start your creativity but they do.

I also bought these fantasy eye and butterfly stamps when I picked up the mandala stamps:

I decided not to do a layout but just something that could be put in a shadowbox frame instead.  The wings of the feathers are popped dotted to add more dimension.

Sometimes is it a good idea to dig into your old supplies as well.  I was looking for anything that was a sword.  I really wanted to emphasize the Legend of Zelda theme of his shirt.  I went through all my ephemera and embellishments to see if there was anything I could use.  I, then, dug into my dies.  I had completely forgotten that I had the Spellbinders Heraldry dies...and low and behold, they were absolutely perfect for this layout.

I toned down the pattern on the paper with some gesso and used matching paper from the same line to coordinate a more monochromatic layout.  Tim Holtz's swirls die is one of my gotos.  I find I reach for that die with almost every layout that I use flowers.

I am starting to channel my friend Michelle with this layout.  Her style is streamline and elegant whereas mine is over the top and heavily embellished.  It is nice sometimes to break from your style and try something different.

At the retreat, we do a make and take.  I don't know what it is about me but I have a hard time doing the make and take as is.  It is like I can't colour inside the lines.  This was this years make and take:

I like the colours of the paper and strangely enough I ended up using this paper for a layout about my son not my daughter.  I had to make it my own and this is what I ended up with:

Now that the kiddos are older, I find that I want to use "young" paper - cutesy, kawaii and silly.  I could use older pictures of them but there is a perverse pleasure in using them for teen layouts.

I really like what Doodlebug has been putting out lately.  It is very kawaii.  Whenever I see it I pick up whatever they have and usually multiple sheets of it.

That is all I ended up making but for me this is quite a bit.

Have a Happy Saturday!

Time Slips Away...

Time slips away so quickly and lives get so busy.  Blog posts become lower priority items and the next thing you know 2 years has gone by.  I rarely craft anymore which I really miss.  I basically get two weekends a year that I dig all my supplies out, load a choice selection in my car and head to my scrapbooking retreat 3 hours away from home.  I am far enough away that I can concentrate on being creative but close enough if anything major happens, I can be home relatively quickly.  If I didn't have these weekends, I think I would have gone insane long ago.

My next retreat is coming up soon and I am so looking forward to it.  I am already digging through supplies trying to figure out what I want to take and what I want to work on.  I don't tend to get much done but I am always happy with what I manage to get finished.

My last retreat was in November and I managed to get 4 layouts done.

This one is of my father doing a demonstration in the forge for Pioneer Days.  Using a lot of metal embellishments and twisted wire made sense for this layout.  It is also a cleaner layout than my usual style.

This next layout is more me - lots of layering, fussy cutting, flowers, die cuts and embellishments.  Basically, the more the merrier.

When we were home last, we did a session of family photos.  This one is of my mom, me and the kiddos - three generations.  There are three lady bugs incorporated into this layout.  When I was growing up there were always three wooden lady bug magnets on my mothers fridge.  It just seemed right to add them to this layout.

Every retreat, everyone is given the same paper to use in a challenge.  It is always fun to see how everyone does something different with the papers.  The next two layouts are made from that challenge paper.

Two very different styles of layout but both are "fan" pages and are using photos taken at ComicCon.

Hopefully, it will not be two years before I post again.  I have started bullet journalling but I am using it more for keeping track of my life than being creative...although, I can't resist every once in a while adding doodles, embellishments and some kind of over the top decoration.  In many ways I am hoping that it will lead back to more scrapbooking and card making.

Have a good Saturday.