Scrapbooking Retreat @ The Briars

I was lucky enough to attend a Scrapbooking Retreat with my scrapping buddy Diane this past weekend.

It was held at the Briars in Mount Martha.  We had a huge room to scrap in and the catering was amazing.  We did sleep on bunk beds however.. but that was fun.. haven't done that in years.. LOL.  Luckily only Diane and me shared a room..

Here are some pics of the venue and the eating / shopping area:

As it was a Cropping weekend, no pages or classes were taught which was very strange for me as I am normally going to weekends like that.. this is my first crop weekend.  I did however get 8 double layouts and a single layout completed.. (pages to follow in seperate posts).

The girls really scrapped up a storm and wore their pajamas all day long.. was weird !  We went to bed at 2h30 in the morning and the girls were still scrapping.. on Saturday night we went to bed early and they were still busy until about 4 in the morning.. eeek..

The venue itself was amazing and Diane and I braved the cold and took a walk to get some photos.. froze our tushes off.. LOL

The only structured item of the weekend was a Scrapping Challenge.  We were each told to bring a black and white photo (Di and I forgot..LOL) and these were handed out in sealed envelopes together with a pack that you had to scrap.  So you got to scrap someone else's photo.  You also had to do a card with the scraps.

All 33 ladies took part in the challenge and I won !!  Woo Hoo.. cannot believe it still as I really didn't put in 100% effort as I didn't bring a photo, so knew I wouldn't be getting one back..  but they loved it.. so yay me.. LOL..

Here is my layout and the card that I made:

My winning layout.  I used all the papers to create a sunburst and as we didn't get ribbon, I used thin strips of paper to make a bow in the tags.. It didn't come out too bad..

Closeups of layout:

Part of the challenge was to write journalling on the layout about the couple in the photo, even although we didn't know who they were, we had to make something up.. there was even a prize for the best writeup.

The remainder of the layouts..once the judging was over, the layouts were shown to the ladies and the cards.. some really lovely attempts:

It was nice to get out and play with the girls.  Met some nice ladies too.

Will post my layouts done soon.

hugs, Mich