Back from Retreat

It's been almost a week since I've been back from my retreat, but I've taken a long time to get back into the swing of reality!  Seventeen members of the online group were there, some from as far away as California, Washington State and Florida and several from Texas.

Every year we create a book based on the theme of the retreat. This year it was "The Roaring Twenties."  Several gals dressed in costume the last evening and we were elegantly served sparkling wine, cheese and grapes by the four twenty-something sons of one of our own, all in keeping with the theme. Our conference room was even decorated beautifully and we enjoyed the music of the era all weekend. It almost felt like we'd gone back in time!

Here are photos of my completed book. Six members (including me) each created a page or the cover and prepared the kits and instructions for everyone. Some "made it their own, " but since I design for teaching all the time, I wanted to relax and just went with the basic book as designed.

Front cover

Spine - my favorite part - a unique binding using buttons

First spread - celebrating the New Year, 1920 (acetate in the windows)

Music and theater - Speakeasy. The "door" is actually an old stamp which is cut apart and attached on separate sides (see below)

Center photo is a pocket holding two speakeasy photo tags (see below)

These sides of the "door" were plain. We had received these 10 wonderful photos of movie starlets along with information on the backs from one of the ladies attending and I wanted to incorporate them into the book somehow. Came up with this idea of a cascading flip using black tape so the backs can be read. The ten fit just perfectly!

Fashion/flapper page - the one I created. The chandelier is sparkly and the tops of the columns are shiny with Glossy Accents.

The top of the right page flips up to reveal a photo of a gorgeous flapper along with some fun information.

My favorite part was this flapper dress, created by stacking rows of red fringe fiber. The flapper stamp was perfect.

Gangster/prohibition spread with Al Capone on the left. The little booklet is sewn into the spread with pertinent facts of the period. Notice the bottle of "booze" on far left - crackle and alcohol inks on die cut acetate.

Elliott Ness on right spread.

Card that fits in a pocket formed between this page and the following page.

General facts spread with actual relatives on left page and a flag booklet on right.

Cover of flag booklet opens to reveal tags

Flag booklet opened fully with information tags

In my next post I will share some of the other projects we created.