The Artful Gathering Retreat

This year was our online group's fifth annual retreat with 18 of our 40 members attending. The theme was "Postcards from Paris" and here's a little corner vignette decorated by our "list mom" and organizer, Jeri, who somehow manages to make each year even better than the last.

We take over the hotel's conference room and this photo shows how the room looks all four days. We've been coming to the same hotel each year so they are now used to our creative mess and have given up cleaning each night - they just wait til the end!

Many of the attendees bring "make-n-take" projects for us to do. This was one of my favorites: the chipboard corset was covered with patterned paper and then holes were punched along the bottom edge. Varying lengths of various ribbons, lace and fibers were threaded through the holes and knotted at the top front. (This is a great project for using up scraps of leftover ribbons and those fibers that were popular several years ago and remain in our stash!) Eyelets were added to the front and threaded with ribbon. The dress was tied to a handmade wire hanger using strips of organza. One gal made hers pink and used only pink tulle and pink ribbons - it was the most darling ballerina.

Closeup:

This little French angel was a wooden piece from http://www.howdoyouglue.com/. We painted it a champagne metallic, then stamped the flourish background on the body, tied ribbons to the waist and added two layers of wings made from vellum and patterned paper. The little nest on the top has three large pearls inside for eggs.

This is a little hanging approximately 6" x 8" made from heavy watercolor paper. We stamped and inked the background, added the Marie Antoinette image, lace, ribbon rose and paper banner, and embossed and inked the Paris medallion. The hanger is tulle, ribbon and some crystal beads.

We were also given two paper fan pieces imprinted with "Artful Gathering, Grapevine, TX, July, 2010" and had to decorate it with whatever we had brought to the retreat and assemble into a fan. I mostly stamped mine and added some tulle around the handle.

We always have one swap with the retreat theme. This year we made "Postcards from Paris" - 4x6" postcards decorated however we wanted. This was supposed to be bound into a little book with the Bind-It-All, but several of us just used a ring in the upper left corner to make a little ring book. Here's mine with all 18 postcards assembled.

Here's a sampling of some of the cards. Linda's card (above) was so pretty that it's my cover! Below is one done by Liane.

Moulin Rouge was made by Dawn. The Eiffel Tower is embossed with glittery embossing powder which doesn't show in this picture.

This collage was created by Sue who is new to our group. Love the Parisi-Orly tickets and the suitcases.

Teresa made this Eiffel Tower postcard. Isn't it amazing how different the Tower can look?

Another Eiffel Tower by Nancy:

And one made with a diecut and a gold leaf moon by Ellen. Love the French poodle!

Whew, are you still with me? Tomorrow I will share photos of the amazing Paris book we created.