A trip to The King’s Cottage

I have a really good excuse for going so long without posting this time … I was living in a mansion with no WiFi!

A group of us girls rented the 9,000-square-foot home — complete with 6 bedrooms, 6 bathrooms, 3 kitchens, 5 living rooms and a scrapbook room — on Lake Huron in Michigan’s thumb for four days of scrapbooking, laughing, eating and relaxing. Because it is the middle of winter and the lake is partially frozen, we got a great deal and we had a wonderful time.

This is the view from my room at The King’s Cottage. The water begins just after the fenced seating area ….

My bathroom had a bidet! We had quite a fun time with that (not using it, but talking about it) that I will share in a future scrapbooking page …

Here’s me photographing my bathroom … never made it to the tub, but I did try out the shower.

And this is my room … I had a fireplace and a balcony that looked over the lake!

This is the little window seat at the landing on the third floor — just outside my bedroom and the crop room.

This is the crop room. There were also two bar tables in the alcove and that’s where I sat …

The sunrise in the morning …

Me taking a picture of myself in the mirror in my room …

One of the nighttime photo opps …

The living room on the 1st floor …

The kitchen on the first floor …

We enjoyed mimosa’s for breakfast one morning …

The main floor living room and eating area outside of the kitchen.

The dining room …

The living room outside of my bedroom … the door that is open leads to the crop room and the elevator is right behind it.

Despite the beautiful surroundings, I managed to do 23 pages! A few still need titles or journaling (I wanted to do them on my computer, which I didn’t have). But, for the girl who normally only gets 5 or 6 pages done, it was a very productive weekend! I promise to share some of the layouts as soon as I photograph them.

I also visited a lighthouse and a couple of scrapbook stores while I was there. It was a wonderful weekend and I can’t wait to go back. The only bad thing was I seem to have gotten a cold from my coughing friends …

If you would like more info on The King’s Cottage, click here.

 

 

 

Sunset Shores Retreat

I’m back from Sunset Shores and, as usual, we had a wonderful time.

I spent four days with some of my closest friends and made a few new ones, too. It was four days of fun, laughter, cropping, sharing, learning and eating. I spent part of Friday and all of Saturday teaching, so I didn’t get very much done, but I love to teach, so it was still fun. We even managed to fit in a movie and two Detroit Tigers games.

Although what happens at the crop, stays at the crop, I thought I would share a few photos from the weekend …

Linda is working on a page I did that she saw on display at Capture A Memory. She took photos and measurements and bought the supplies and brought it here to work on. I was so honored!

 

Croppers know how to improvise. When Lynnette, Claudia and Janet couldn’t find shot glasses, they made do with bowls!

 

Elaine completed several layouts over the weekend.

This is the view from my crop space. We may be in the basement, but there is still a view of the lake!

Vivian, the owner of Sunset Shores, always puts out an amazing spread for every meal.

 

Hungry croppers …

These are the ornaments the girls made in the class I taught. I love how different they each are.

 

Sandy used Distress Markers to color in her Elizabeth Craft’s image.

Can you believe how much stuff we bring to a crop!?!

 

Christina is working on Halloween photos …

So much fun … I can’t wait until next year to do it all again!

 

Published: Cricut Magazine

I’m off to a scrapbooking retreat hosted by my friend Linda Neff .

We’ve been going to Sunset Shores in Clare, MI for some time now. It’s an old-fashioned resort on a lake with cabins. The basement of the main house has been turned into a great scrapbooking (or any other crafting) room. And Vivian, the owner, is an amazing cook. She makes incredible meals from scratch using locally grown foods.  The food is so good, I’ve told my husband that he needs to go with me just to eat!

Anyhow, this time Linda has set up a special retreat. We’ll be making a mini-album, a window and an ornament. It’s going to be a great time filled with good friends and good food.

But, before I go, I wanted to share some exciting news.

I was published in June’s Cricut Magazine!

I had two cards published this time … both using the Cricut cartridge from Close To My Heart.

 

on page 76-77 and

on page 64-65

The company mixed up the tips for the two cards, so the tip on page 64 actually goes with the card on 76, but it’s wonderful to be published!

See you next week with pictures of the projects I made.