Good afternoon! It’s Sunday again already – these weeks are flying past aren’t they? Soon it will be high summer and we’ll be either scorched or soaking wet! Although we might already have had that this year! So today I’m sharing some of the Craft Retreat fun that the ladies and I have had this weekend at the first Queen Pip Cards Spring Craft Retreat; my first craft retreat of the year!

These craft retreats are great fun, with lots of crafting, obviously, and I try to plan fun activities for the evenings, so we had some Hangman, Swap the Box and the like to keep us entertained! The food was fabulous as always and we chatted and laughed a lot. We start on Friday evening and finish Sunday at 4pm, so this post was scheduled by me earlier as I’m probably just about packed up by now and heading home! I wish all my craft retreat attendees a safe trip home – we had folk from Lincoln, Worcester, Herne Bay, Portsmouth as well as locals – so it was a great chance for people to catch up with old and new friends.

I aim the projects at my craft retreats towards the more seasoned crafter, as I do tend to push the projects a bit outside of my normal Simply Stylish style, but a sprinkle in some easier cards so people don’t get too overwhelmed!! There were bags, boxes, tags, cards, technique cards and more cards! I actually lost count of how many cards I designed to showcase the 3 stamp sets that were included in their £100 goody bag – Fabulous Four, Bloomin’ Love and Awesomely Artistic but it was a lot! This one is one of my more simple cards from the weekend, it’s from a set of 3 focusing on the Bloomin’ Love stamp set and product suite.

I always overachieve in the design area, there’s normally too much to complete in the weekend – but then since they all got goody bags to take home, that’s not a problem – they can finish them off at their leisure. I don’t do stress or pressure craft retreats, it’s about having some fun with friends, enjoying a table all to yourself for the weekend with no reason to tidy up or do something else! People craft at different speeds and some are learning new techniques, others are already proficient in the ones I teach – the idea is to work at your own pace, chat, enjoy and just have a weekend loving crafting and companions who love it too! The feedback from my last retreat was amazing, and I hope this year has been just as good!

So if this has whetted your appetite and you fancy a weekend of crafting fun at my next Craft Retreat there are spaces available for October 13-15th; we will again be at The DeVere, Warbrook House & Grange, Eversley where we are based in their purpose built Grange conference facility with great light, big tables and comfy beds!  All the details can be found HERE for my Craft Retreat in October (the first date is fully booked, so I’m running it twice!) and you can RSVP and I’ll send you all the payment details. This card really does sum up how I feel about my Craft Retreats – I love them, because they’re full of friends crafting together and having fun – whether you meet someone for the first time or bring a friend with you, friendship and fun built around crafting is what it’s all about!

If you’d like to replicate the card shown here, then please use the links below to order your supplies, but get in quick as some are retiring!! I’ll show some more of what we got up to over the coming weeks, and I hope as always you’ll enjoy what you see. So until next week, happy hugs & now I’m putting my feet up for a bit of a rest! Thanks, Pip x

#craftyfun #craftretreat #queenpipcards #stampinup