Hello Stampin’ Friends ~

I am so full of gratitude for the amazing weekend we had for our Annual Spring Stamping Retreat! The weather was windy and rainy but it always seemed to clear when we had to go outside … a true sign if you ask me!

I have a peek into our stamping retreat for you … I will share a bit more in the coming days as well. I will begin with the door tags … Each guest has a name tag on their door so they know which room the will be staying in and they are free to take it home with them. They can easily pop the name off and turn it into a card!

This was created using the Heart and Home Suite of products … The “theme” for our retreat. The Heart and Home designer paper, Flowers Of Home Dies, Heart & Home Doilies in Basic Grey, the White 3/4″ Frayed Ribbon which comes from the Artfully Composed suite (pg.32 in Mini), the 1/8″ Cotton Ribbon in Petal Pink which is layered over and the Petal Pink cardstock embossed with the Thanks & Hello Embossing Folders all layered onto a Basic Grey base. I printed each guest’s name onto Basic White Cardtock (from my computer) and punched it out using the Tailored Tag Punch (retiring today).

The cup is a food safe cup that has retired from the Stampin’ Up! catalog … I decorated it with the Heart and Home Designer Series paper … to do this, I took apart one of the cups, and traced the outside onto designer paper and cut it out to make my wrap!! They were so cute!

The cover was created using Evening Evergreen cardstock, die cut with the Layering Circle Dies and embossed with the NEW 3-D Fern Embossing Folder. My “greeting” to my guests comes from the NEW Nature’s Prints Stamp set from our Sun Prints Suite … pg. 90 & 91. WOW!!

As my guests come into the dining room, over the fireplace …. they find what I call my Mantle Gifts! Each retreat I decorate the mantle with a hand crafted gift that they get to take home at the end of the retreat. These are actual “pocket cards” and a seed packet was tucked inside to they have a “living” remembrance of our retreat. Each seed packet is adorned with a flower … which is actual chocolate! We all know how good chocolate and stamping go together!

Here is a closer look ….

The card was created from one sheet of Very Vanilla … I created my own pattern for this. From the left over piece of vanilla, I stamped and punched (Label Me Lovely Punch) my greeting which come from one of my favorite sentiment stamp sets: Peaceful Moments. The pretty die cut flowers come from the Hand-Penned Petals bundle.

The “sentiments” on my gifts are carefully picked to show my thoughts and gratitude to my guests for choosing to spend their time with me at my Annual Retreats … I want to create an atmosphere of fun, relaxation and camaraderie. (noun: camaraderie: mutual trust and friendship among people who spend a lot of time together.)