Back to Back Retreat ATCs ....

PHOTO HEAVY!!

.... Hi! As this post goes live, Kat and I should be landing at Heathrow airport in London. We've left Jonathan to fend for himself and we're going to visit family and friends for a couple of weeks. So I thought it would be a good idea to schedule a few posts for while I'm away.

I'm starting off with a quick review of the Back 2 Back 2018 Retreat organised by Michelle McCosh of Everything Scrapbook and Stamps. B2B ran from 13th - 15th April, in Delray Beach, Florida - seems so long ago now. We had classes from Dyan Reaveley and Dina Wakley - both wonderfully talented and inspiring teachers. It was my third time attending B2B and it is always a pleasure to mix with a group of crazy and wildly artistic women, some of whom were returning like me, and many new faces too. Our classes were so much fun - we made books - but those I'm saving for later, when I've finished them!!

One of the traditions (of a sort) is an ATC swap. In past years, I've not got my act together to make any ATCs, but this year I was determined to make up for it. I started my preparations in plenty of time to get them all made - about 60 in all.  I made the backgrounds using Dyan's inking techniques and put the cards away to decorate at leisure.

Unfortunately, time got away from me and I realised about a week before I was due to leave that I still hadn't decorated the ATCs!! So instead of a nice relaxed time, it was a crazy time. I used a mixture of Dyan and Dina's stamps, words and techniques to make the ATCs. Here they are:

Inks: Dylusions - Postbox Red, Laidback Lilac, Pure Sunshine, Bubblegum Pink, Squeezed Orange, Polished Jade, Vanilla Custard, Mushy Peas, Fresh Lime, Periwinkle Blue, London Blue, After Midnight, Vibrant Turquoise, Calypso Teal, Tangerine Dream, Melted Chocolate; Various Archival inks
Stamps: A mixture of Dyan and Dina sets
ATC: Ready-made Strathmore Bristol Smooth ATC card blanks

I ended up making a total of 80 ATCs so I was able to swap with everyone and still have some left to give to people who'd swapped with me in previous years.  I still have a few left - ready-made cards for my art journals.

Here's a photo of the whole group from this year taken in the Zen Garden:

Michelle is organising Back 2 Back 2019 Retreat - Delray Beach, from 29th to 31st March 2019. Once again, Dyan and Dina will be teaching us new and exclusive classes. This is one of my "me time" breaks and I'm already signed up! That's all for now.

Journal spread - a la Teesha ....

... Hello from a sunny Northville. I think I've finally caught up with my lack of sleep from the Back to Back Retreat and hopefully should get back to normal soon. I don't have a card to share with you this afternoon, but I do have a finished (at least I think so) double page spread from the weekend.

Supplies:
Dylusions Square Journal
Dylusions Paints - various
Teesha Moore Collage Sheets
Pens - many and various
Pan Pastels

We had two fantastic teachers at the retreat - Dyan Reaveley and Teesha Moore. I am very familiar with Dyan, and absolutely love her and her style. I think her paints and inks are just wonderful - and the stamps too. But it was the first time I'd come across Teesha Moore. I did have a brief look at her work online, but seeing it all in real-life was amazing.

We spent some time colouring pages in our journal using Dyan's spray inks and paints, and then adding texture with ghosting and stencils and doodling. Teesha's style is to simply paint a background page in one or maybe two colours and then add lots and lots of collage and doodle like mad! I had such fun.

The double page spread above is complete - at least I think it is. I painted several solid blocks of colour on the pages and then went over them with some white paint to lighten them a bit. Teesha gave us a selection of her collage pages and I spent some happy hours cutting out and gluing in. Here are a couple of large photos of each page:

I think the figure is either a fairy or a genie, as she is going to grant my wish. Or at least provide me with the means to fulfil my wish!!  She was built up from a number of cutout images. I went round the image with some pan pastels to blend the image into the page. I also added some doodling to her face.

On this side of the page I added the word WISH from the collage sheet, and the more I worked on the page, the more I realised I was humming the song "When You Wish Upon A Star" from Pinocchio. So I decided to write down the words on the page! I also drew in some more swirls and curls, along with another tree in the Teesha style. I'm going to submit this to Love to Craft Challenge Blog - LTCCB#08 where the theme is Anything Goes and they like to see all sorts of papercrafts.

I had such fun making this page. The journal that we started at the retreat is going to be used exclusively for my Dyan and Teesha style work. I'll share more, when I've finished some more pages. That's all for now.

Crafting Weekend ....

.... Hello!  I've been meaning to write this review of my weekend in Florida since I got back last Monday, but it's been crazy busy in our house.  However, I've got an hour before the next guy comes to give me a quote for house removals, so I thought do it now!!! These are a couple of photos of my Dyan style folio and Dina style art book:

This photo shows the front and back covers of the book we made in Dina's class.  First time I've attended a class with Dina and had the chance to use her wonderful paints.  It was fantastic!  I still have work to do as I have some blank pages to fill!

This is the outside cover of my folio.  I had such fun using Dyan's paints - they dry so quickly. Usually I end up making things in shades of green, so it was such fun playing with blues and the wonderful new Cherry Pie paint!  Still lots of work to do on this folio - more late.

I was fortunate to be part of the group who attended the Back to Back No Rules Retreat from 19th - 21st February in Florida.  The retreat was organised by the amazing Michelle McCosh, owner of Everything Scrapbook & Stamps, a wonderful store located in Lake Worth, Florida.  Michelle's shop is a treasure trove of goodies and well worth a visit if you're in the area.

The No Rules Back to Back Retreat featured the brilliantly talented Dina Wakley and Dyan Reaveley.  Many of the people attending the retreat were here for the second year, with just a few of us being newbies!  Howver, I have had several classes with Dyan, so was able to keep up.  All the sessions were fast, furious fun - I had a blast!  Here are a few photos from the weekend - if you want to see all my photo, you'll find them on Facebook here.

The retreat take place at the Duncan Conference Centre in Delray Beach, Florida.  It's a lovely place with super staff.  It's calm, quiet (when we're not there) and we were all made to feel so welcome. The food was fantastic.

After class on Friday 19th, some of us headed to Michelle's shop, Everything Scrapbook & Stamps, in Lake Worth. Thanks to Shari for driving us over.  The shop is full of wonderful goodies as well as the most gorgeous displays, here are just a few photos of the displays:

Thanks to Dyan, Dina and Michelle, to all the staff at the Duncan Centre and also to all the wonderful ladies I met - it was a fantastic weekend.  Can't wait to do it again next year!

Exciting news ....

.... Hi all!  No card to share at the moment; busy doing various challenge admin duties.  This would normally be my post for 52 Christmas Card Throwdown, but we've extended our holiday break. However, we do have new DT members joining us today - see full details on our blog.  We are being joined by Kaja, who lives in Slovenia, and we are so pleased to welcome Jacqueline back to the team. The challenge was originally created by Jacqueline and Mynette in December 2011 and it's still going strong!  Our first challenge of the year is back next Saturday 9th January - don't miss it.

I've more exciting news to share today.  I'm going to the Back to Back No Rule Retreat with Dina Wakley and Dyan Reaveley from 19th to 21st February in Florida.   Yes, so, so excited!!!!

I've been lucky enough to attend several weekend classes with Dyan, so am looking forward to seeing her again,  This will be first time at Dina's classes - can't wait to play!!  The bonus is that the retreat is in Florida where it will be hot and sunny, and not in Michigan in the winter!  Can't stop grinning :)))

Now that I've given you all the news, I'm off to my craft room to have a play - enjoying the last weekend of our long Christmas holiday.  Take care xx

Diamonds are a girl's best friend ....

....sang Marilyn Monroe in "Gentlemen Prefer Blondes" and that song is the inspiration for my art journal double page spread.  I joined the  Facebook Dylusions Challenge (a closed group, but you can ask to join) back in June, but haven't been able to play along with any of the challenges until this month.  The challenge prompt for August is to use YELLOW, PURPLE AND DIAMONDS.  I thought of several quotes, but settled on Marilyn's quote after watching a clip from the film.  Here's my finished double page spread:

Stamps: Dylusions - Pin Up Queen, Clearly Alpha; Cas-ual Friday Stamps - My Precious
Inks: Dylusion Sprays - Lemon Zest, Pure Sunshine, Black Marble, Crushed Grape, White Linen; Dylusions Paints - Crushed Grape, Lemon Zest; Archival - Jet Black, Violet; Stampin' Up! - Craft Whisper White
Accessories: Dylusions - Large Art Journal; Stencils - Dylusions - Shattered, Flower Medley, Suits (Diamond); Kite - Hishi; MFT - Graduated Diamonds; Tim Holtz Deco Sheets - Silver; Signo - White Pen; Sharpie - Black Pen; Glossy Accents; Copic Markers

A quick step by step guide to how this spread was created:

1. Spritz the right hand page with water and liberally spray on both Lemon Zest and Pure Sunshine inks.
2. Close other page over and press together, open up and dry off any excess with kitchen roll.
3. Create some ghost images using stencils and water.  Leave water to stand for about 30 seconds and dry with kitchen roll - see ghosted images.
4. Add more background pattern by spraying through more stencils using Lemon Zest and Pure Sunshine.  Allow to dry.
5. Using my diamond mask as base, I created four more masks 1" and ½" bigger and the same smaller.  I lay these over the yellow background and sponged on Crushed Purple paint.  The paint is reasonably translucent, so I added a second layer of paint.
6. While the paint dried I stamped the Pin Up Queen images on white paper and coloured with Copic Markers and then cut them out.  I added Glossy Accents to the skulls eyes and nose - they are, after all, diamond cabochons!
7. I stamped a variety of gem images onto silver Deco Paper, allowed them to dry and cut them out.  Love the sparkle on the gems.
8. Once the purple paint was dry (very important as writing on paint that's not dry will kill your white pen) I drew some white lines around the diamonds and added Marilyn's quote around the largest diamond.
9. I added more pattern to the spread by adding some yellow paint through diamond and flower stencils, and then spritzing white and black inks through stencils too.
10. I stamped the quote "Diamonds are a girl's best friend" in archival ink and added definition by drawing around the letters in black.
11. I ran the Pin Up Queen through my Xyron and adhered her to the spread and added a large diamond in her hand.
12. I finished the spread by adding more sparkling gems, gems stamped in white directly on the pages and some words.

Here are a few photos showing how the spread progressed.

Only one layer of Crushed Grape here - you can clearly see the patterns underneath.

 Colouring the images with Copic markers - I usually go outside the lines if I'm cutting them out.

 Checking layout!

After the second layer of Crushed Grape - you can still see the patterns underneath which is fine, 

but the depth of colour is much better here.

Beautiful sparkly gems!

 Almost finished here - quote stamped, more background patterns added.

You can see the glossy accents on the eyes and nose here,

they are diamond cabochons!

Close up of the finished left-hand page.

Close up of the finished right-hand page.

I had lots of fun creating this page and found the challenge prompt a great help.  And today I'm off to our regular monthly meeting of the Scrappy Chic Kitchen Roll Stampers where we'll be revisiting some of the techniques that Dyan demonstrated in March.  And I get to see what else everyone has created since our last meeting.  And some news too - Dyan is coming back to see us all in October - my classes are already booked and I can't wait!!  That's all for now - have a good weekend.

What a weekend that was ....

...  Morning!  It's dull, cold, wet and snowy here in Northville today.  I'm nice and warm at home and have almost recovered from the weekend.  What was I doing?  I was at a craft class weekend held at one of my local craft shops - Scrappy Chic in Livonia.  I booked up my classes as soon as they were advertised.  Why?  Well, I've always wanted to attend classes with the amazing Dyan Reaveley and she came to Michigan last weekend.  It was a blast!!!

There were three classes on Saturday - Technique Tag Book, Tags of Imagery and Quirky Watercolour Book.  They were all very fast paced and so much fun.  Dyan is a great teacher - she tells us, shows us and goes through it with us.  We learnt various techniques using Dyan's Dylusions Inks - the most vibrant colours.  I've got two books started and will complete them in the next few weeks.  I've also got some fabulous image tags which I think I'll put into my new art journal.

Dyan and Chris - just before the start of our first class on Saturday morning.

Some of the technique tags from our fist class on Saturday morning - just love the bold, bright colours.

On Sunday there was an all day class - Art Journal Inky Extravaganza.  We were all given a brand new art journal with lovely clean pages and the first thing that Dyan made us do was spray ink - deliberately.  And then we played!  Oh, it was such fun.  I've got lots of backgrounds started, some are more finished than other, but this journal is going to be used.  Dyan brought in a number of her own journals - they are stunning and I took lots of photos.

Dyan - during the technique tag class

Another of the tags from the technique class - using stencils and inks here

The first of the imagery tags - rough layout, still lots of work to do.

Sunday morning - at the start of our art journal class.

I met lots of fabulous ladies over the weekend and would like to thank them for making it such a fun experience.  Special thanks go to Chris and her staff at Scrappy Chic for (a) getting Dyan over and (b) setting us a brilliantly organised and fun weekend.  Finally, thanks so much to Dyan for coming and teaching us - do come back again soon.