'Smile please' and a fabulous weekend away.(photo heavy)

I have just been away for our annual retreat with a group of very lovely, talented and inspiring ladies....not to mention the fact thay they are really good friends. We have scrapped, made cards, eaten, laughed and laughed some more...till we ached at times and it was absolutely brilliant!
Between us we made 69 layouts,18 cards, and various mini albums....so not a bad weekends production. I thought I would share my creations over the next few days.

here is my first one. 'Smile Please'
Its based on a sheet of Kraft Bazill which I laid a fancy doily on and sprayed using 2 colours of Cosmic Shimmer Mists ( gosh I just luuuuuurve those things!)

I then took some cream lace and some pale pink chiffon roses( from a £1 hairband from Primark...don'tcha just love a bargain!!) and laid them on some newspaper and sprayed them to co-ordinate with the background colouring.

Now, not wanting to waste the now pretty newspaper, I placed a torn section behind the photo and used the rest to punch out some flower layers using various size Retro flower

punches....and a half pearl for the centres

I then sprinkled a few pearls and crystals about and printed out some butterflies and stickled them and added a few prima flowers. Then finished it off by shimmering the AC thickers title.

oooops, I forgot to say I embossed some gold mirri board, painted it with cream acrylic and then buffed the paint back off when it was dry to create this distressed border.

I am really, REALLY pleased with the results of using the newspaper....it would have been a shame to just throw it away. And yes, I do know that the newspaper isn't acid free and isn;t the best thing to put by my photo....but you know what? I don't mind too much...I am sure it will last ok in my album for a few years :)


Here are a few shots from the weekend. As you can see we were busy beavering away and here are some of the girls looking at our results. Believe me, if you had seen the tables about half an hour before this photo was taken you could hardly see a bare inch of space....the whole hall was overflowing with totes and stash till it came out of our ears LOL.

I will leave you with a few photos that I took very early on saturday morning. Lynn and i went for an early morning walk in the gardens....it was frosty and very pretty ( and VERY cold on sandal clad feet LOL)

The frost on the monkey puzzle tree was amazing, such large crystals.

I think this will appear on a layout at some point :)

What a bizarre ice formation....looks almost like a horny/horned ice slug LOL!

Have a super day whatever you are up to!

Warmest wishes Anita..xxx