Art Retreat

I spent yesterday in Springfield, IL at an all day retreat with my Prairie Stampers Club members.  We had four two-hour workshops and a yummy pot-luck lunch.  There were over 30 participants so, as usual, we had an abundance of food, especially chocolate desserts (great minds think alike!)  Some of the members graciously agreed to teach the 4 workshops and a make it-take it card.  We had an interesting variety of art:  felted egg, inchie frame, necklace, and accordian folded mini-album.  I'll be posting the projects all week on this blog, in-between some layouts and cards I'm making for challenges.  Here's the first one.

Gail and Karla showed us how to make this necklace.  We used tiny dollhouse wood shutters (punch a hole with a Cropidile to make it into a charm).  We covered them with Art Girls stamps, color pencils, Glossy Accents, and rhinestones. I also learned how to make my own paper beads.  Since I craft instead of cook now, I found a new use for the wood kabob skewers (wrapping the paper around one to make the bead)!!!  I'm showing this project first because the necklace has 3 female images on it, a perfect segway into my next paragraph. 

A big bonus to the retreat day was meeting my two cyberfriends from the Everything Wendy Vecchi (EWV) Yahoo! Group.  This group loves Wendy's art style and her own line of Studio 490 stamps.  We chat about Wendy's workshops and share art made with her stamps.  At that site, I've joined the birthday club (where we make birthday cards and send them to each other) and an ATC swap coming up in March. The three of us spent the day crafting together.