It was a crafty weekend.

I am really lucky.  I had the opportunity to spend last weekend with 6 other women doing crafts.  Not just a regular weekend either - a Thursday night to Sunday night weekend.  It was grand.

This is a bi-annual event - every April and November a group of us go to Northern Minnesota for a crafty weekend.  The number of attendees varies - we have jobs, kids, extended family.  There are sporting events, weddings, work, life -  that sometimes get in our way, but we all do our best to block off these two weekends so that we can spend them together.

This particular weekend was especially impressive because all seven of us were able to go!  That was a record number for us and we had to do a little revamping to all fit in the space but we did it and we had a great time.

Everyone else in the group scrapbooks while I work on other projects, which usually involves mini albums and/or cards, usually for my shop.  This past weekend I made birthday party invitations for a sweet little boy that is about to turn one.  I also made some cards and tags and then I put together three copies of The Office, a mini album for sale in my Etsy shop.  I've already given the invitations away but here are a few photos of projects I worked on.

Birthday cards

Birthday Tags

The Office

I finished a few other projects too, and still managed to spend time visiting with friends, eating wonderful food, and I even got a few hours of sleep!

I hope your weekend was productive, fun, relaxing and full of good things.

Back in the saddle!

I finally have my computer back and I can't tell you how happy I am about it!  Unfortunately everything I had saved, such as documents and pictures, was lost so I've spent lots of time trying to recreate what I can.  I downloaded all of my photos from my camera and then uploaded them to a photo website and ordered prints.  That was time consuming!

Now that I can post pictures again I'll begin by sharing some of the great things about my recent scrapbooking weekend with friends.  I went to northern Minnesota with 4 girlfriends to a friend's cabin.  We got there, set up and then worked for 3 days straight, with a bit of eating and drinking thrown in here and there.

Here's how much stuff I brought with me (notice that I brought The Boss along):

Between the 5 of us we have lots of tools!  Here's a look at our tool station:

Notice we had 2 Cricuts!  Here are all of the Cricut cartridges we brought:

And here's a stack of ink:

We also brought lots of snacks:

We all have work stations that tend to get quite messy in the flurry of activity!

As I sit and craft, this is my view.  No wonder I never get much done!

And everyday we see sunsets like this:

I didn't get as much accomplished as I had hoped, but I do have a few new things to add to my Etsy shop.  I'll share those photos tomorrow.

Scrapbooking Weekend

I'm leaving today for a bi-annual scrapbooking weekend with my girlfriends.  We are going to northern Minnesota where I hear it's 48 degrees and drizzling . . . perfect time to stay indoors and craft!

I'm going to be working on making more of these:

Finishing my copy of this:

And making these in gray/black:

I also plan to work on organizing my paper scraps - I did a whole project a few months ago but it needs my attention again.  When I'm done it will look like this:

I have enough supplies packed to do at least 1 million other projects, so we'll see how far I get!!  Hope your weekend involves some craft time too!  I'll post pictures from the weekend on Monday.

Scrapbooking Weekend

I am very lucky to attend a bi-annual Scrapbooking Weekend with 4 girlfriends.  We go for a 3 day weekend in April and again in November, and have been doing so for several years.  The first year we went to an organized event at a bible camp, where we slept in cabins and then worked in a large room and ate when the bell rang.  It was fun and the food was awesome, but it was a large group (100?) and you didn't have any say in the music that was played . . . and by the end of the weekend we were really ready for more variety!

Lucky for us one of my friends bought a cabin in northern Minnesota and from then on we've had our own organized event!  We take turns cooking and we get to pick our own music, and we only have to share the bathroom with a few people instead of 10+!  Plus the view out the window can't beat.

Here are a few pictures from our weekend:

This picture shows Laura and Peggy at their work stations - as you may guess we need lots of car space to haul all of our stuff!  Also shown here is this awesome tote bag featuring Bruce Springsteen, my FAV.  My friend Jenny gave me this bag and I hung it within view of my workspace, so I could look at Bruce for inspiration.

 Jody, Jenny and I share a space, and as you can see my space is the neatest!  I go out of my way to make sure my space is neat and cute at all times!

We have an awesome tool station that is pictured above.  Also, you can kind of see the beautiful view of the lake that we have while we are working.  Another important "tool" would be the two ipods that we have full of awesome music.  There's also a stereo and I sneak in a few Springsteen cd's throughout the weekend.

Sometimes we get adventurous and go out for a walk.  This year Jody brought along orange vests for walkers, because in Minnesota it's opening deer hunting weekend and things moving in the woods can get shot.  Peggy and Jenny were the only ones that went walking in the rain.

This year we branched out and tried a few new crafts - knitting and sewing!  Laura brought along her Knifty Knitter and here she's teaching Jen how to make a hat.

Jen is getting started on her new creation.

Here's the finished product!  It turned out really cute and Jen wore her hat the rest of the weekend.

Here's Peggy doing a little sewing!

It was a great weekend and we all accomplished a lot.  Another tradition we have is that at the end of the weekend everyone has to pick a favorite layout or project and have their photo taken with that item.  Its fun to look back and see all that we have made over the year.

If you have a chance to do a get away like this you should definitely do it.  Packing everything up is a lot of work, but spending time with girlfriends scrapping, eating and relaxing is so worth it!