and a sweet time was had by all

The cool chalkboard door in the crop room.

Last weekend, I had the pleasure of attending a scrapbooking retreat (on behalf of Simple Scrapbooks) at the Sweetwater House in Fort Morgan, CO. What a neat little getaway that was! Seriously, from the moment you walk in the door you realize just what attention to detail Karla and her daughters have put into the whole weekend. From the home itself, to the menu, to all the different projects...and to everything single little thing in between. It was such a cool experience! :)

Mmm mmm...our meals were all so yummy! (photo credit: Tina Cockburn)

Just one of the many "window treatments" found throughout the home.

Anyhow, I was lucky enough to be paired with Tina Cockburn who was the photography half of the weekend (though, really, her scrapbooking skills are right up there as well). She answered a lot of questions I had about my camera and taught me a fair bit about post-processing too. Thanks so much Tina! :) And our group of eight girls were a blast too! It was so much fun getting to know everyone and listen to their stories. We had one semi-local girl (from Greeley), another guest from Montana, a couple of friends from Alaska, a mother/daughter-in-law/cousin-in-law trio from Texas and even someone from Germany! I'm sure the local residents found us amusing as we paraded down the streets of Fort Morgan in search of colorful backdrops (for cool photo opportunities), the coffee shop, the scrapbook store and other fun shopping!

One of the coolest things about the retreat, though, were the awesome projects that the Sweetwater girls had come up with. There were a total of five mini albums and one journal that you worked on during your stay. Here are a few of my completed albums from the weekend...

This was probably the most "complicated" album out of the bunch only because the pages were all different sizes. I did this one about brothers and I absolutely love it! Here's a shot of an interior spread...

And see all the fun little doodles? I did that! Not freehand, though, but using their doodling templates. So very cool! Another neat thing is that the album is made up of mostly sweetwater products (papers, stickers, rubons, etc.) so everything coordinates really nicely.

Here's another album I made about things that make me smile...

Each inside spread consists of two photos (of things make you smile) with hidden journaling behind each. I think there were a total of twelve photos inside (the first page, five spreads and the last page) and then I added an extra photo on my cover.

Okay, okay...so I haven't technically added in my journaling yet! :P

And that is something else I loved...you could totally personalize each album however you wished. They had a color handout for each project and, if you wanted, you could copy it exactly. Or you could change things up a bit (which is what I ended up doing). For the most part, though, I didn't stray too far from the handouts since all the albums were already so cute and well thought out! :)

One more album to share...only because I still have to finish the rest, ha! This one was a really cute word-association album...

On each spread, you had one photo and then one word (relating to the photo). I added some of Sweetwater's rub-ons to each photo as my "embellishment".

I actually do have one more completed album but that one is actually on-site at Sweetwater to be used as a display album. It's the Simple Scrapbooks album and the theme is "home". I love that it's made with a house-shaped album too...

Sorry, but the inside is empty...

And for those of you who are interested, all the mini-albums come packaged in a little kit like this...

Everything is included inside (the mini-album, the papers, stickers, ribbon, etc). And like I mentioned earlier, you could always add your own personal touches too. One of the coolest things about the kits are that the papers (in all but one album) are already pre-cut for you. How cool is that?

Honestly, this retreat is such a great deal. If you are looking for the perfect getaway for you and your girlfriends (or even just for yourself), you should sign up for one of the Simple weekends. For just $300.00, you have 2 nights/3 days lodging at their wonderfully remodeled home (think Pottery Barn here), all your meals & snacks covered (that's five yummy homemade meals and lots of snacks) and all the materials to complete six incredibly cute projects. Plus, I just saw on the Simple blog that if you sign up before August 10 (for the August retreat with the oh-so-hilarious Cheryl and the ever-so-talented Elisha), Simple will throw in a copy of this wonderful book and Sweetwater will throw in one of Karla's own handmade pillows. Ah, doesn't get much sweeter than that... :)

ps...While we were getting a photo lesson from Tina outside, I noticed the storm clouds building up. So I snuck away for a few seconds (bad Margaret!) and snapped this shot...

 

Don't the clouds look absolutely wicked? We did end up getting quite the thunderstorm that evening...so cool! And just so you know that I paid attention to most of Tina's class, here's my shot of our incredibly cute photo model...

 

Not half bad if I do say so myself. Though in reality, it was near to impossible to even get a halfway bad shot of her! Thanks to Susan for letting her beautiful daughter model for us! :)

Comments

[kribss]

you + tina are my favorite inspirations. this would of been a great retreat to have gone too. hopefully there will be another one with the two of you again???

[your brother]

Those are mammatus clouds.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mammatus