My trip to the Shack

I spent this past weekend at a wonderful bed & breakfast called the Shack for a scrapbooking retreat. It was wonderful. I went with several ladies that I met through John at the store and their friends and relatives. We arrived at the Shack around 3 on Friday, settled into our rooms and waited to get access to the conference room. We had a little time so we went and sat by the lake and just enjoyed the wonderful weather. By 4 we could get into the room and we began organizing tables for everyone. After that the tiring task of hauling all our scrapbooking supplies down the stairs to the conference room began. I think I got all of my stuff down in about 8 trips!! The look on the faces of some of the other guests was great. I think they were stunned by the amount of stuff we dragged in! Then the fun began. All of our toys came out and the scrapping began. We scrapped until dinner at 5:45 (Chicken breasts, fish, roast beef, potatoes, veggies, and rolls). Then back to scrapping until banana splits at 8:45. YUM!! This is one of the best parts of staying at the shack. I had Mackinaw Island Fudge & Cherry Chocolate Ice cream on mine. Back to scrapping. I worked on a couple different pages and also finished all the iris folding on some Christmas cards for a swap I'm doing. Went to bed about 1 am. Breakfast the next morning was at 8 and then more scrapping, until lunch which was very disappointing (turkey and mayo sandwiches..yuck!), moere scrapping until dinner at 5:45 (Coleslaw salad, fried chicken, potatoes and gravy, several veggies and rolls...yum!) followed by more scrapping until banana splits at 8:30. This time I had two scoops of Cherry Chocolate...YUMM!! I worked on a bunch of different pages, and while each page seemed to take awhile, they all came together really well. I never felt like I had scrapper's block. I did take a short break Sat. afternoon to go sit by the lake, with my feet in the water and to make some phone calls. I also had a small break later that night to talk to John for awhile...even though he said he was on vaction from me. :-) Kathy, Angie, Mindi, Nancy and I all scrapped until almost 3 in the morning. Angie left to go get pizza sometime after 1 only to return with a box of pizza rolls they had got at the gas station as this was the only thing that was open. You had to be there but it was hilarious!! Anyways a little bit before 3 we all headed to our rooms to crash. We woke up around 8, had breakfast and then the laborious task of packing everything up, carrying it all up the stairs and back out to our cars began. I was surprised that it didn't take as long as I thought it would and I was packed up a little after 9. The 5 of us sat and talked for awhile, figuring out the details of our Passport Weekend coming up this Saturday and then I was off. The trip home was uneventful and I was back in GR a little after 11. It took me much of the day, with a long nap in the middle to unpack everything and get it back organized in the scrapbook room. The trip was wonderful and so relaxing. I can't wait until March when we go again!!!

Here are my three favorite LO's from the trip:

These are my tulips at my house from this Spring. The spot on the left will be for journalling.



This is the trees behind my house a few weeks ago. It's also the last LO I did on Sat...well Sunday morning, finishing around 2:30.


And finally my very favorite LO of Callie sleeping on my lap:


For more information on the Shack please check out their website at:
http://www.theshackbedandbreakfast.com/

Finally Finished!!

After many, many months of trying to figure out how to scrap this picture, it's finally done. And it's about time as the picture is seriously 2 years old. I had originally thought I was going to do a pink background but just couldn't get it to work. When I finally decided to change it to green and with the help of my Pages By Design system, I finally came up with something I was happy with. Everything has been inked. All the green paper was inked with pink all the pink paper with green. The titles were printed off on my printer using CK Jot font and the tag behind the main picture pulls out to show another picture of Callie standing on the door of the dishwasher.

Scrapbook shopping!

My trip to Okemos and Lansing were both very successful, and I feel like I have just about everything I need for my trip to the Shack in a couple weekends.

The new store call Photos to Scrapbooks in Okemos is a nice store. They had a lot of new stuff including the new Basic Grey Papers and the Pages by Design System. I had been debating about buying the Pages by Design system but after hearing many great reviews and finding a store that carried it, I decided to purchase the starter kit, which comes with the first edition of templates, the idea book and the second edition of templates.



The staff at Photos to Scrapbooks were great and even gave me a quick tour of how things were laid out when I arrived. The only thing I didn't care for was the way the store was laid out. Everything was by theme: travel, christmas, school, wedding, etc. They didn't have any just general paper aisles and it felt like everything was spread out and that I had to do a lot of walking in circles to find what I wanted. Plus, while the store was very good sized, with a great cropping area, it felt like they could have had a lot more product. I suspect with time this will be true. Overall, a really nice store and definitely worth a stop if you are in the area.

After spending entirely too much money at Photos to Scrapbooks, I still stopped at my all time favorite scrapbooking store, Pages in Time in Lansing. They always have everything I need when I need it. Surprisingly they didn't have the Basic Grey Paper or the Design System I bought at the previous store so I was really happy I had already bought them. I still found a lot of great paper for the list of pictures I'm hoping to scrapbook at my retreat, along with a new bottle of Prima flowers. :-) After a little over an hour of shopping, I made my purchases (under $20 thanks to a full punch card :-)) and headed home.

Upon arriving home, I was happy to discover that my latest Scrapgoods box had arrived and was waiting on the front porch for me. A great kit. I can't wait to try the metal embossing technique, however the colors are really formal...blacks, whites, reds and I'm not sure what pictures I'm going to use it on yet.

A great scrapbooking day though. I know have lots of new goodies to play with...just have to find the time. :-)