Retreat

While working on a birthday card …

December 30, 2011 By Glenda 25 Comments

Well firstly I have to say a huge thank you for all your very flattering compliments on the last post. I almost didn’t publish it, but I’m glad that some of you feel inspired to get healthier in 2012.

Today I have a little treat for you which has been a long time coming. At the last Paradise Weekend Retreat we held in September last year, Adrian took to the stage on the Saturday night and performed a little song that he wrote specially for the event.

We didn’t have a video camera to hand at the time, so there is no footage of the original, but I’ve put a little slide show together and I’m proud to present … Add a Brad!

For those who were there, I hope it brings back happy memories and for those who weren’t, I hope you enjoy this little bit of silliness.

Happy New Year!

Filed Under: Video Tagged With: Retreat, Video

Pockets of Happiness

September 10, 2010 By Glenda 21 Comments

Many of you know that this has been a difficult year for one reason or another. Through it all, we knew that to stay sane, we had to stay positive and grasp little moments of joy whenever they presented themselves. Little moments became our pockets of happiness and we looked for them whenever we could. Watching a sunset eating fish and chips on the way home from hospital. Spotting the first black rabbit in the garden. Watching a good film, hanging out with good friends and occasional retail therapy!

The phrase ‘pockets of happiness’ has stuck and I continue to look for those moments in every day life too. It inspired the project that we started the retreat with, and it led to a new A4 sheet of stamps called Artistic Affirmations.

On the retreat, we created a pocket book with Artylicious papers.

We created a pocket book to hold little cards which were made from painted and stamped chipboard. Here are some of my painted cards.

Each one is 9.5×9.5cm which also happens to be the size of the recess in an Ikea pine mirror. Those mirrors are so cheap they make great frames for arty projects – just gesso right over the top of the mirror and you can paint it, stamp it or, as I’ve done here, insert a card into it.

You can change the cards as the mood takes you.

Filed Under: Blog, Workshops Tagged With: Art, Artistic Affirmations, Retreat

Paradise Weekend Retreat Photos

September 7, 2010 By Glenda 9 Comments

I can’t believe it’s all over! So much work goes into these events that they take over your life for a while now it feels like the weekend has just rushed past in a blur.

I hope all of you who came along enjoyed yourself – you certainly looked like you were having fun.

I’m taking a few days off as I have a ridiculously busy schedule for the rest of this month with lots of family stuff to get sorted out (Social Services are re-assessing Adrian’s mum as we need to get some lifting equipment in place for her, etc.) Meanwhile here are a few photos I managed to get – I really didn’t get time to go around with my camera and get more photos of finished work. If any of you who were on the Retreat have blogs, please leave me some links if you have photos to share.

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Retreat

Painty, inky fun!

September 5, 2010 By Glenda 8 Comments

Just a hint of what we’ve been up to this weekend…

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Retreat

Well underway

September 2, 2010 By Glenda 17 Comments

It’s the Paradise Weekend Retreat this weekend and we are putting the finishing touches to the preparations right now.

Last week we visited the hotel to check out the table plan – we have a much bigger room this year with lots of space for everyone.

We have our own lounge too and it was very kind of them to redecorate it just for us with very funky chandelier wallpaper.

Last night we were busy making up some little goody boxes.

And the class kits are all coming together too.

Even Chef got roped in when he popped in after work.

Wednesday was the last of the late nights – we are all leaving on time tonight so we are bright eyed and bushy tailed on Friday. I promise we’ll take lots of photos of inky, painty craftiness to share next week.

Filed Under: Workshops Tagged With: Retreat

Retreat Information

February 7, 2010 By Glenda 6 Comments

I have already updated the Retreat page of the blog to say that there will NOT be a retreat in April 2010 as we originally planned. Adrian’s Dad, Derrick, is very poorly and although we’re all being very positive and willing him to pull round, even when he’s back home, he’s going to need a lot of care and attention for quite some time. Adrian is on care duty for his mum most Saturdays, so we accept that at this moment in our lives, we have a lot of claims on our time and when planning business events, we have to factor in extra time this year to put the family first.

I thoroughly enjoyed the last event and we are definitely planning to run more retreats, but until Derrick is stable, we feel there is too great a risk of having to cancel the event at short notice and that would be like dangling a bag of sweets and saying you can’t have any!

However, this has made the job of selecting a weekend for our Grand 10th Anniversary Birthday Bash a lot easier. We will now be holding that on Friday April 16th and Saturday April 17th. Keep an eye on the Shoptalk page of the Graphicus Blog for more on that – we have an amazing Guest Demonstrator, a long standing arrangement with someone I know you will all love. There’s a fun theme to the party which Lynn came up with and we’re all going crazy for. We’re working out some kind of competition based on the theme so you can all get involved, even if you can’t make it to the shop. Oh, it’s going to be fun and I’m already looking forward to it.

Meanwhile, today, February 7th, I finally get to have Christmas with my Mum!! We haven’t seen each other since Nick’s birthday in November, so it will be lovely to see them again and good for us to have a day out. We’re meeting at Rheged again. Nothing to do with the Paper Mill shop there. Honest.