Thursday 7 October 2010

Crafter's House Party 2010 - #1

A couple of weekends ago .... heaven's, is it that long ago already? .... me and a group of my crafty friends met up for a long weekend at Upper Rectory Farm Cottages in Appleby Magna. The idea was that we would spend some time crafting, some time chilling outside, in whatever way, if weather allowed and then there was the pampering for those that wanted it.

This year we lengthened the stay by a night as last year we decided 3 nights was too short so a 4 night weekend with lots of crafting, and some pampering, was enjoyed by 15 of us. There should have been 16 but unfortunately one, Debs, was too ill to come. Sadly Debs was the friend who ended up in hospital, as an emergency, last year so she still hasn't been able to enjoy one of these weekends :0(   Toni and Trace were both delayed until the following day due to family commitments and emergencies but did manage to join us at different times on the Friday.

Our choice of crafting this year was a suggestion put forward by Toni. Shoebox cards!  The advantage of shoebox cards was that everybody would contribute something towards the weekend (instead of it being down to just a few) and it also meant that there wouldn't be loads of 'stuff' carted that wasn't going to be used. 

So, what's a shoebox card?  Each person (or those that want to take part) designs and makes a sample card then makes up however many individual packs, with all the items needed to make that same card. It doesn't have to be complicated and neither does each pack have to be identical in colour - as long as the original style of card can be made with what's in the pack the colour doesn't matter. What a good idea it turned out to be. Everybody participated so it meant we had 16 different - and very different - cards to make (Debs sent her packs out to everybody when we all returned home).  It was never intended for all the cards to be made over the weekend but that some would be taken home. Unfortunately the weather didn't play ball for outside activity. It was bright and sunny most of the time but it was bitterly cold and quite windy so crafting it was! I think everybody got all 15 cards made over the 3 days with some leaving bits 'to finish' at home ... including myself.

Anyways, here's a couple of the cards made and there will be more to follow. No 'ingredient' list 'cos no idea what was used in most but the ideas are brilliant!

Cally's card. 
Cally's idea was  based on a card that we made at a workshop with Melanie Heaton, from Bramwells, when we went to the Doncaster Summer Crafting event in July (still to blog about that one!).  Loved it then and love this one as well.  It's a tiny easel card, no more than 4x4" square but I think it's really effective.


Greta's card.
Greta gave us a choice.  Her card was a Squeezy card but she provided card as well so that we could either make it as intended or make it as a standard decoupage.  I did neither!  I'd never made a squeezy card before so wanted to do that element but I didn't feel it was 'firm' enough so ... I made it up as originally intended then matt and layered it onto an A6 card blank.  Note how this design was targetted to me (in fact the pack had my name on it - lol!) - she knows my fascination with owls, as do most of my friends which will become clear in a later post - *hehe*

Enjoy!!
 

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