Claxby Crafty Retreat

Hi again folks.

Well the Claxby Crafty Retreat finally arrived this weekend, it seems such a long while since Kate and I met up with our Crafty Friends for a weekend of Crafting and Laughter. The last time we got together was in March, up in Grassington, when Michelle and Janet (ClarkyJ) were the hostesses for the weekend. We have been meeting up as a group for about 4 years now, having first met at a craft retreat at Malham Tarn Field Studies Centre, this time there were 11 of us spending the weekend together. From Skipton, Catterick, Grantham and Market Rasen.

This time we had decided to meet up here in Lincolnshire and it fell to Kate and I to organise the venue etc. for us all.

In a bid to keep costs down, we hired The Viking Centre www.thevivkingcentre.org.uk a local hostel about 4 miles from where I live for a Do it ourselves self catering weekend. Kate and I did the main shopping etc as we live locally but everyone made a contribution by way of gorgeous soups and scrummy cakes etc. and everyone mucked in with cooking washing up etc.

From Friday afternoon until everyone reluctantly set off home at 6:00 pm on Sunday, we crafted, laughed, crafted, ate, crafted....occasionally slept and crafted...... well you get the picture... or rather you don't....I can't put the photos I took on my blogg as most people were still in their pyjamas when I took them ......crafting in pyjamas.....just shows what good friends we have all become, you can't do that in front of strangers can you.

There were people who we would have liked to be there, but who couldn't make it this time, so lets hope they can get to our next get together at Malham Tarn again in October.

I never get as much crafting done on these weekends as I hope to do, I so much enjoy looking at what everyone else is creating, altering, or just experimenting with, everyone has a different style and different talents, and it never ceases to amaze me how quickly we can turn a clean and tidy space into a scene of creative chaos...lol

The caretaker for the Viking centre popped in to see us on Saturday evening, as she has recently started card making, and we had invited her to join us for a while, and looked quite visibly shaken and taken aback at the state of the place (not one horizontal surface visible) hopefully she was relieved when she saw that it had returned to normality be the time we all left.

I did manage to crack open my Claudine Hellmuth Studio paints and create a canvas inspired by my recent trip to Venice. The dew drops scattered across the canvas remind me of Venetian Glass and catch the light really nicely, the flower at the bottom left corner has been made with grunge paper.

Hope you like it.

Bee xx