I spent yesterday at the Paper Cowgirl Altered Art Retreat. A couple of friends of mine, Susan & Gail, were going and invited me, and I'm glad they did - I had a great time. We met Friday evening and spent some time looking around at vendor night - they had some really talented and creative people selling some really neat stuff. We had dinner at Chick-Fil-A - can you believe that at a Chick-Fil-A, an employee not only brought our trays of food out to us, but asked Susan if she wanted fresh ground pepper on her salad? Really! They brought out a huge pepper mill and ground some pepper on her salad. Who knew that in Waxahachie, Chick-Fil-A is almost fine dining! And then, when we were done, I was holding two trays, getting ready to throw them away while Susan finished up a project for her swap, and a lady walking by, a fellow customer, said, I'll take those, I'm going that way. She not only took both trays and threw away the trash, but brought back a little gift bag I'd left on mine. I knew there was a good reason I like living in this town!
Anyway, there'd been swaps that people signed up for to do Friday night, I didn't sign up for any because I didn't think I'd be able to come up with anything good enough, but Susan and Gail had signed up for the crown swap, and Gail made and extra crown for me. It's really pretty, lots of blue and green beads and vintage cowgirl pictures. Here's a picture:
Anyway, there'd been swaps that people signed up for to do Friday night, I didn't sign up for any because I didn't think I'd be able to come up with anything good enough, but Susan and Gail had signed up for the crown swap, and Gail made and extra crown for me. It's really pretty, lots of blue and green beads and vintage cowgirl pictures. Here's a picture:
She also gave me a necklace:
I went with them back to the hotel for the different swaps, and there were some really cool things people had done. I think next year I want to get involved in some of those - anything I do might not be the very best one out there, but I think I could do something presentable.
We went back to my house afterwards, where Susan finished up the aprons she made for me and Gail to wear in our classes Saturday. They're really cute. Here's mine:
Really adorable! Saturday, we started out in the Peek A Boo Cases class, where we were each given a vintage compact and lots of stuff to decorate it with, including various papers and lots of vintage jewelry and pieces of broken jewelry. There were some gorgeous projects by the time we were done. I'm pretty happy with how mine turned out, especially since I wasn't sure going in if I'd be able to come up with anything or be able to put anything together without gluing my fingers together accidentally - I'm definitely a crafting novice. Here's what I came up with:
After that, we had lunch, provided by The Dove's Nest - if you're ever in Waxahachie, I recommend it, their food is yummy. Then, we did our second class - a Vintage Memory Shadow Box. Basically, wrap a pencil box in pretty papers, and add something to represent a memory from your life, plus a few extra things to dress it up some. Mine's kind of minimalist, compared to what some other people there came up with, but I like it:
It was a lot of fun, and I'm already looking forward to next year.
