Graphicus Paradise Weekend Retreat

I've been a little quiet for a couple of weeks, because I was busy preparing for, and taking part in, the first ever Graphicus weekend retreat and how lucky I was! I had to make some ATCs to take - I had never made any before, but I quite enjoyed doing it!

On Friday 13th November, after a long trek north, I was one of 40 lucky ladies who descended on the Blackwell Grange Hotel in Darlington for a weekend of some of the most intense crafting most of us had ever experienced!!

Starting at 4pm we were greeted by Glenda and Lynn of Graphicus, who were to be our tutors for most of the weekend. Our craft room was at that point beautifully tidy for the only time over the whole of the weekend, all tables laid out and covered with waterproof covers and all essentials for the session to come. Each of us had a goody bag containing most of our materials for our weekend projects, plus lots of treats of Graphicus papers and other delights.

Our first class was a foundation class and preparation for projects the next day. This was followed by a three course meal, and then we continued crafting with Lynn until 10pm making an accordian book with pamphlet stitching. This was a really useful skill to learn as I love making little books. Not content with this late finish, my room-mate Jo, next door neighbour Judith and I did some essential crafting until not far off midnight!!

Bright and early the next morning, we were raring to go and after a hearty breakfast, we embarked on an ambitious project - a diptych book. This incorporated an amazing number of techniques, using gesso, tissue, fresco flakes, paint and gold leaf to distress a cardboard cover. We also distressed and stamped the inside pages and made a mosaic edged acetate cover. We learnt how to use the amazing Golden gel medium to achieve a photo transfer technique which we then mounted on a tag. I cannot show you my finished book yet, because I was one of the class tortoises and it has yet to be completed!!

After another filling lunch, the afternoon session was to decorate four 6" x 6" canvases and make them into a wall hanging. This time we used paint and stamping on tissue paper as the main techniques. The ideas was to join the canvanses to make a hanging. Again, me being such a slow coach, I only managed to get part way through my project which I decided to base on the four seasons. This is how far I got, but I was very pleased with the start I made, because I have always considered myself to be completely useless in the art department!!

I mainly used the brilliant Ranger paint dabbers applied with baby wipes and little brushes. Little bits and bobs of ephemera were added and stamped images on tissue paper applied with Golden gel which help make the tissue edges disappear. As you can see I still have quite a lot to finish, but so far so good!! All these projects were decorated using the beautiful rubber stamps from the Elusive Images range from Graphicus.

After another meal - yes we did get fed very well (and I haven't mentioned the cookies and glittery cupcakes in the coffee breaks or the chocolate to keep us going during the evenings) - we continued crafting again until 10pm with Lynn and Glenda teaching us various card making techniques including gold leafing and direct to paper inking. As you can imagine by this time we were quite tired, but very happy crafters.

Sunday morning and we were, of course, all bright eyed and bushy tailed again, ready for a brilliant session with Jean Hardy of Crafty Individuals who a guest tutor for the morning session. We transformed a simple little wooden box into a delightful little shrine project, which I did finish and here it is!! We had a great time in this session using the fabulous CI background papers, images and stamps, which as anyone who reads my blog knows come from one of my favourite product ranges along with Elusive Images so I was indeed in my crafty element with the programme for the whole weekend!! For those who were fast enough, they also made a tag with a CI image and one of their new swirly frames that are popping up on many blogs and in articles like the latest Craft Stamper magazine.

After lunch our last session of the weekend was a Stampbord class with Glenda and Lynn and the main project was a pencil pot. I has tinkered with Stampbord before, but this gave me much more confidence and the simple idea for constructing the pencil pot was excellent.

Finally, we had our graduation session and I think many of us felt really sad to be almost at the end of what had been a brilliant weekend. As we started to go off our separate ways, many of us headed first to Graphicus for some late night shopping. This was indeed a treat for me as I had only ever ordered from them through the post before, so it was great to see the products they have to offer and the beautiful artwork on display in the shop. Of course I also had to do some essential shopping while I was there!

A small group of us with longer journeys stayed at the hotel on Sunday night, so we got the chance to have a good chat - mostly crafty topics needless to say.

The weekend was wonderful and I wouldn't hesitate to do it again in a flash! Glenda and Lynn were great tutors who worked hard to deliver some excellent sessions. The helpers for the weekend Lesley, Annette and Cath who espcially looked after us on our table, were tirelessly helpful and the weekend wouldn't have been the same without them. David, Lesley's OH who became water pot monitor extraordinaire, who always got the right brushes back to their owners deserved a medal and Adrian who carted stuff back and forth to make sure we had the supplies we needed and acted as photographer with loads of cameras at the end, also deserves special thanks.

I need to say a special thanks to Jo and Judith who were my special companions over the weekend - it was great to spend special time with you, but also to the many others I met and shared such a great time with. Here are some of the ATCs I swapped - the styles of everyone are so different which is one of the fascinating things about us crafters.

I had a long journey home on Monday and it's been a long week at work since. I just managed to do a little crafting in front of the TV with a new stamp plate from Elusive Images that we were allowed to use at the weekend. Using Coloursoft pencils I have coloured some huge butterflies, slightly embossed the edges and mounted them on a lovely lichen covered branch that came down in my garden in the high winds last weekend.

These stamps will be a lovely reminder of a brilliant weekend. My only regret was that it whizzed by in a flash, after the weeks of excited anticipation I can't believe it is over already!