City Meets Country Stamp Camp

This past weekend I've spent in Newcastle teaching workshops at the annual City Meets Country Stamp Camp. And what a lovely weekend it was spent with such a nice group of people who warmly welcomed DH and I. It was Brian's first experience at stamp camp and not being a crafter, he thought he would have a restful long weekend and just pop in and out of the workshops as he pleased. But before he knew it he was working in the shop and helping with the workshops! It was surprising how quickly he picked things up and he really got into the swing of things, much to the delight of the campers.

And it was non stop fun from the moment we arrived and set up shop (with a lot of help from Wilma and Tara) and assembled the kits with the help of Tara (what a little speedster she is!).

The product we featured over the weekend was Friendly Plastic and regular readers of my blog will know that it has become one of my favourite mediums. Whilst it's been around for a very long time it's new to so many crafters so a demo of its versatility was in order.
After the Friday night demo, it was straight into the workshops on Saturday.

The first class was what I like to call Recycle, Re-use and Repurpose. It's a "green" class using materials from the recycling bin, the tool shed and left overs from your craft room. It's a wonderful class finding new life for stuff you just have lying around at home already.
I offered two different versions - one for those who love colour and also a more rustic version but they both follow exactly the same technique.Notice the barb wire on the rustic version? Well, look out for a tutorial in the coming week on how to create it using beading cord.

After lunch we tackled a Friendly Plastic project - an altered cigarette tin featuring a marbled butterfly which makes a lovely gift or presentation tin.Nestled inside is a pair of Friendly Plastic earrings.
And once again, there were two colour options using similar but slightly different techniques.In the evening we altered venetian blinds! Who would have thought they could look so good? Run them through the Cuttlebug for lots of texture or paint them with alcohol inks and stamp them as we did. Our theme was Paris but you could easily substitute your favourite theme to make this project your own. We also made a matching kimono-fold holder for our bookmark.

Sunday was a free day where campers were able to have one on one basic jewellery making lesson to complete the Friendly Plastic earrings which matched their butterfly tins. Many ladies jumped right in and assembled their own earrings, mastering the basics of opening and closing jump rings and turning loops in eye pins whilst others preferred to watch whilst I assembled them for them.

So whilst some of the projects were a bit of a challenge, everyone managed to tackle the projects successfully and they were delighted with how well their projects turned out. It was such a delight to teach you all.

At the end of the day, we were pooped but hungry so it was off to a local Chinese restaurant with our hosts for the weekend - from left, Wilma, Pat, me, Ron and Brian. Unfortunately, Tara was unable to join us but it was lovely to share a meal before heading back to the motel and crashing for the night.
And my thanks to the committee for inviting me to be your guest this weekend - your tireless efforts to make the camp run smoothly didn't go unnoticed and the huge rousing applause from the campers during speech time is a testimony to that. You girls absolutely rock!