Friday 2 October 2015

St. Ives Craft Retreat: Concluding Days


Hi bloggers, so yesterday morning we had to say goodbye to our lovely ladies after three amazing fun packed days. We made time to take a few pictures with the sea view in the background (a view we had been lucky to look out all week) before they departed. Just before they left they surprised us with a little thank you gift which we are very grateful for and really touched us how much they enjoyed the Craft Retreat.

  
Beautiful chocolate slate from 'I Should Coco' in St. Ives.

Angela's flight didn't depart until the early evening so we spent the morning perusing the shops once again around St. Ives. This time we found a lovely little cafe called The Courtyard Tea Room, up a little alleyway from the main street, serving amazing homemade cakes and lite bites with great friendly service and relaxing music in the background.  Definitely be going back there again!




In the afternoon we headed over to Wadebridge for a little meander around the town before heading over to Newquay Airport to drop Angela off for her flight home.
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Today was our last day in St. Ives so we got up early to make the most of it and headed to the Barbara Hepworth Gallery for a bit of culture.


It was back to back blue skies again today, making it even harder for us to have to head home tomorrow.


After we finished our mooch around the shops we quickly nipped over to St. Michael's Mount in Marazion again for a quick visit to the Island Gift Shop to pick up a few last minute pressies and then we headed over to Penzance for an Afternoon Tea we had pre-booked a month ago, making use of a voucher we had been given a while ago.

The voucher was to be used at 'Hotel Penzance', which is a beautiful contemporary hotel with lovely views across Penzance Bay.




We had a beautiful selection of cakes to choose from and everything was presented in such a beautiful way. Check out the view we had below...


This was a beautiful end to such an amazing and wonderful trip and we can't wait to do it again!
 



 

Thursday 1 October 2015

St. Ives Craft Retreat: Day 3


Hi bloggers, yesterday was another brilliant day, with the sun still shining brightly! To start the day off we encouraged everyone to go out and about around St. Ives to make the most of their time here and explore the shops, galleries and cafes before they settled in in the afternoon to the 2nd project of the craft retreat.

Nautical Travel Journal was the perfect project to finish the retreat with as they collected little bits of ephemera and took photos of their trip. Inside they had lots of little pockets, tags and 3x4 journaling cards to make notes and store photos about the retreat. The album itself is made from a thin chipboard (reinforced with thick chipboard around the cover) and then paper bags to form the pages inside the journal.


As usual we had included everything they needed in the kit, all cut to size and ready to assemble! So away they went inking and gluing all the pieces together to make their book.





We even included a tag on the front, pre-stamped with the details of their trip.


Everyone's books turned out fabulous as expected and they all added their own unique details to make their book their own. Take a look at the finished results....

Christine's Journal


Heidi's Journal


Pauline's Journal

Pauline added her resin bezel to her album, tying it on with a piece of twine. 


Angela's Journal


After everyone had finished their journals, they came back to their configuration books to finish filling in all the little boxes with shells and other sea life charms they had either found on the beach or in the quaint little shops of St. Ives. And all the finishing touches paid off because all the configuration books looked amazing! Everyone had done an awesome job, take a look for yourself.....

Chris's Configuration Book 


Heidi's Configuration Book



Pauline's Configuration Book


Angela's Configuration Book



And I even took a picture of them lit up at night........so cute!



 We are so proud of each and everyone of them, all of their projects have turned out amazing, even the small evening projects. They have accomplished so much in only a few days and we all couldn't believe that it was the last night of the craft retreat and that tomorrow we were going to say our goodbyes but not before another night of quiz games and laughter!