Gartmore/5th Anniversary: Part 1

It always feels like Gartmore arrives and finishes all too quickly. However, everyone had a fantastic time and I hope that it felt a little bit special since we were also celebrating five years. There was some cava on the Saturday night but I'm afraid I didn't think to take photo's of that. Fear not though as I did take photo's of just about everything else.

As soon as we arrived and had our tea we set up the room. Some of us immediately got ourselves comfy.

Whilst others went straight to work. Most of the morning was spent working on bags at the sewing machine. Isabel here worked on her advent calendar. Those of us not at the sewing machines did get other projects out and began working.

The morning was fairly relaxing followed by a lovely lunch. That's one thing we have always said about Gartmore. You won't starve.

Once lunch was over the other classes began. First up we had a scrapbook lesson from Lyn. She was showing us how to make these gorgeous mini scrapbooks.

Lots of folding was involved, all very complicated. You can see everyone here concentrating to get it right. Although some got it better than others and even managed to start decorating their little books.

This one was mine although I was one of the last to be finished.

This one belonged to Helen.

Margaret decided to decorate hers with flower fairies.

This one was completed by Alison

Alison had brought her friend along who is also a knitter and a cross stitcher. She decorated this one and used a cupcake motif to match the papers inside.

Linda decorated the front of hers with different coloured flowers.

Isabel plans to have little bows made from black ribbon to decorate the inside.

Elaine has decorated hers for her daughter as it's her birthday soon.

Isabel is looking a tad stressed here. This was Isabel's face for most of the weekend. If anything could go wrong for Isabel it would. She was so relaxed after a weeks holiday too.

More classes coming up so look out for that.

Scrapbooking With Helen

How great is this photo of Roberta? Can't remember what we were all laughing about but it made for a fantastic pic. The point of the pic is the hat and scarf that Roberta is modelling. She knitted this whilst travelling on the train that day and has given the set to Linda for her shoebox charity. I just love those colours.

A while back I had given Helen some scrapbook supplies that I wasn't going to use anymore. As a thank you she made this lovely card. I love how it all comes together.  This definitely has pride of place.

Anthea has been working on a crochet blanket for a few weeks now and she has just finished it. It's for her girls when they snuggle up to watch TV. It's made entirely out of scrap yarn from her own yarn basket and donated from family members. The colours truly go well together and I love the border. She has even lined it.

More finishes from craft day. These Sashiko coasters were made by Alison. Two of them have been photographed before but she has now finished the full set. They look amazing. I am sure that Val will be proud.

The second of the craft day finishes is this doily crocheted by Donna. Magdalena was so excited to see someone else had finished something from her class. This is the same pattern that others have done but looks stunning in white. More delicate somehow.

Helen also gave Roberta a scrapbook lesson. Roberta has thousands of photo's at home and after the craft day lesson she wanted more on how to put together simple pages. Helen volunteered and brought in one of her own albums as an example. It was a way for Roberta to see different ways of putting more than one photo on a page.

Here Helen is describing different ways that her page could be layed out after chosing her colours and frames for the photograph.

Alison watches on as she also plans to have another shot at scrapbooking.

This is Roberta's final page. A simple layout but very effective.

Gartmore at Home Part 4 - Scrapbooking Memories With Anthea

The first class after lunch was a scrapbooking class from Anthea (told you it didn't involve needles). There are a few scrapbookers in the group but Anthea is a rep for a stamping company and often teaches cardmaking workshops. Anthea started off by showing everyone how to use various equipment.

She then showed everyone how to layer the papers that she had given out in the kits and then how to decorate those pages. She talked about position of the photography and how you can place objects on top of the photograph. She also suggested that you could create a space to write a little about the photo.

Anthea had brought along one of her own scrapbooks so that everyone had something to get inspiration from. You can see Helen, Elaine, Alison, Caroline and Donna looking through it.

Everyone was asked to bring along a 6x4 black and white photo to use. The reason being that it is easier for the kits to match the black and white images than if everyone had brought along colour. You can see Zuzanna here trying to decide which papers to use with the help of her mum.

Helen isn't new to scrapbooking as many of you probably know and she was straight in to cutting the papers.

Isabel lays her kit out and decides where to begin.

Zuzanna has already put hers together and is onto using stamps to create lettering. Helen is giving her a hand.

Magdalena had a fantastic photo which she shoes to Roberta's sister, Mary.

Anthea talks to Elaine and Linda on how to use some of the equipment.

Roberta layering up her photo.

Zuzanna was the first to finish. She knew exactly what she wanted to do with the papers and the end result looks fantastic. The lovely photo had been taken that very morning.

Linda also soon had a finish. A lovely mother-daughter page (ideal since it was mothers day the next day). The photo was from some professional photo's Linda had taken with her daughter.

Helen is very keen on her family history and has created a scrapbook for investigating it. This is going to be one of those pages. She has even left a space to write a little bit about Aunt Nellie.

Alison used a photo of her little friend Alix, Roberta's great granddaughter. She created this lovely page which has a lacy effect thanks to some punches. She didn't have a black and white photo but the colours in this one fits in perfectly.

A completely different take on the kit from Caroline. She brought in a photo of some elephants from when she was in India. The colours fit into the theme perfectly and so does the punch cut outs.

Isabel had forgotten to bring along some photo's. Luckily she always carries some photo's around with her of her grandchildren. These particular images were from the youngest's 1st birthday. Again the colours matched perfectly. Love the use of layering with the punches.

Last but not least we have teachers finished page. Anthea had used a photo of her daughter baking with her gran. She was the only one brave enough to layer the letters on top of the photo. Looks very effective.

Hopefully we will get some more photo's of finishes from others. I know Magdalena took hers home to finish and she plans on using the rest of the papers in her kit to make another page.

Tomorrow will be the last update from our craft day. This one will involve hooks with the lovely Magdalena.