National Scrapbooking Day May 1st - A Not so Mini Album with Shimelle

Announcing the

Eclectic Keepsakes National Scrapbooking Day Event

Join us on May 1st for a very special day of scrapbooking with Shimelle Laine.



Join us at our superb hall in Marks Tey from 10am – 6pm in the evening for a great day, papercrafting, fun and of course some cupcakes.


What are we doing that is different?

We are keeping it intimate. We will limit our numbers to a maximum of 16. That means you have lots of room to create in and get some real quality time with the teacher. We prefer the quality to quantity approach and know that you will learn some amazing stuff if we do it this way!

During our eight hour day of cropping, you will enjoy five hours of dedicated tuition from Shimelle. That means you can really master some great techniques and spend time on your project without rushing the class or feeling pressured. (leaves a little time for eating cake and chatting as well as finishing off at your own speed)

We are creating an album, and well its NOT SO MINI ! We wanted to do something different and so we will be working towards creating a whole album. Ever fancied creating 8.5 x 11 ? Well that is what we are going to do. It’s perfect for beginners and those who want to try a different medium size.

We are using the latest products. We want to keep it fresh and fun and will bring you a selection of the most up to date releases to use in your project. There is nothing quite like the latest must have stash to play with.

We are maxing out the stash and will bring you as much as we can at the best possible price. We will work towards creating a whole album – kit contents will be the innards with a very special deal on some beautiful and spring like AC albums as an ‘add on’ on the day if you don’t have one hanging about in your stash already. We will amaze you with the goodies you get to play with on the day.


Shopping opportunities and sponsorships to be announced.

We are a not for profit event and as such we will be keeping the price as low as we can. Investing in the best teachers, the best products in the best quantities we can get for you.

So join us for a whole day for only £65 each.

Contact us to reserve your spot:

eclectickeepsakes@googlemail.com

Pre payment in full will be required to secure your place.






Check out our blog for news and updates here:

http://eclectickeepsakes.blogspot.com/

Event Address:

Marks Tey Parish Hall, Old London Road, Marks Tey, Colchester, Essex, CO6 1EN

(Hugely accessible, 20 mins from Ipswich and Clacton areas, 25 mins from M25, yummy food available nearby)

April at Eclectic Keepsakes

So, what are we up to next Saturday?

Don't forget to bring anything that you want to sell on. We are hosting our first bring and buy/gift event. We will nto be doing this when we have a shop at the event but we have been asked about selling on unwanted stash and we hope this will be a good way to do it!

Remember to keep it in good working order and we find that pretty packaging always helps :)




We have some fantastic Giveaways throughout the day.

I am so pleased to announce that Little Light Studio are once again supporting us with a voucher for the event. I know that Sue won the last voucher and that she has been in touch with Kayla to arrange what classes to take.

Check out the site HERE for the latest and most innovative classes. We know you will find something you love.

Also we are super pleased and chuffed to announce that our sketch challenge will be supported by Sarahs Cards. THey have been hugely generous with their support and we will have an amazing prize for the winner of the sketch challenge AND ALSO the most innovative interpretation of the sketch.



Sarahs Cards not only has the most amazing monthly kits, it is also a UK retailer and one of the biggest suppliers of American Crafts products amongst others.

Check out their site HERE for all the latest must have products including:


3 Bugs in a Rug
American Crafts
Cosmo Cricket

Crate Paper
Fancy Pants
Hambly

Jenni Bowlin
Jillibean Soup
Kaisercraft

My Little Shoebox
Pink Paislee
Scrap within Reach

I am about to email you all just to firm up numbers. I know we still have a few people on the waiting list. So from both Karen's, we can't wait to see you next weekend.

More dates for your diary

We are pleased to announce some more dates for the year.




They are:

June 5th
July 10th
August 7th

Please note on July 10th we have been asked to tweak our times a little to accommodate an evening function, thus instead of the usual 10am - 6pm we will be running the event from 9:45 - 5:45.

See you there!

Exciting Stuff on the horizon

Just to let you know, we are almost there with the crochet class, we hope this will be either June or July. We will be linking up with a hugely talented local lady and we will supply with you a little kit to be able to create your very first crochet projects.

(Just in case you were wondering, we haven't been able to confirm as we are trying to line up a very special teacher to come along and create a lovely scrapbook class especially for us)

April Class

OK, we are getting closer, so some more details about the April class.

This has been specially designed by the ultra talented SJ Dowsett. Check out her blog HERE for details about her and see more of her gorgeous Little Musing Characters.

(PS. Also check out her blog post tomorrow for more details about Eclectic Keepsakes)



OK, so the class itself is a card class based around two special characters; Justin for the men in your life and Phoebe for the girls.

In the kit you will get;

Four 6x12 pieces of Crate paper
A sheet of 6x12 Crate stickers
Phoebe Print & Card titles
Justin Print & Card titles
Two A5 Card blanks - white textured
Two Envelopes
A kraft off cut
A sheet of book paper
Some punch outs

The Price? Only £2.
Remember, we are able to do this using the latest, just released products as we are a not for profit event and we believe in getting you the best teachers and the best products in the right quantities.

There will of course be the original class and the kick it up version. This class will introduce you to some cool paper crafting techniques along with some ideas about colouring images as well.

What you will need to bring:

Essential tools:

Detail scissors (If you don't have any, tesco sell them for £2.50!)(Some will be available for use on the day but this will be shared)
Pop Dots or Foam tape
Glue, be it pritt or Double tape - which ever you prefer
A brown ink pad
A colouring medium if you want to kick it up. Pencils, watercolour paints or watercolour pencils, promarkers, etc. Again some mediums will be available on the day but again this will be shared.

We will have some extra kits for you to purchase on the day or via post - email us for further information.

We hope you are as excited as we are to welcome SJ to the EK event, cant wait for the3rd to arrive now!

March Class Kit

We also wanted to share with you the class kit as made by Denise.



I really love the way that Denise has made this her own by using it to show off a period of time. She has shown the relationship between her and her son as he has grown and finally has included a lovely portrait shot of him too.

Beautiful.

April Stampin Up

We can also confirm that we have asked one of our crop attendees; Tara to bring along her Stampin Up Goodies which will be on display at the event.

Stampin Up are most famous for their lovely stamps and card making products which we thought would be a perfect match to go alongside our beautiful card class run by SJ Dowsett.

For those of you that are not familiar, you place your order and pay on the day and the goods are shipped in for you to pick up at a later stage. Tara has asked me to remind you that cash or cheques will be the preferred methods of payment.

If you havent tried the products before, this will be the perfect chance to have a look at some sample products. The quality is amazing and the designs are beautiful.

If you live in the local area, please feel free to pop in and take a peek even if you are not spending the day with us.

April, April, April - you are almost here!

News on the shopping for the April crop!




As a response to requests, we are hosting our very own Bring and Buy Stash event this month.

Do you have an overwhelming amount of stash that on further consideration you wish you had not bought? I know I do! I think this has beenprompted by Shimelle's new class, so far I am still trying to wade through my metals and use up as many as I possibly can!

Well bring it along and either gift it or sell it on the day. Paper, embellishments, tools and gadgets, make sure they are in good, clean, working order and bring them along.

News for April

First of we all we are pleased but sad to say we are all full up.

Today we have sent out emails so if for any reason you cant make it, please email us as we have a waiting list running for people who would like to come.

We are very excited about SJ's class. This will be a card class based around her Little Musings designs. SJ will create some characters unique to Eclectic Keepsakes and there will be a feminine and masculine version that you can choose from.

The class will also include some lovely papercrafting techniques. SJ has chosen a new range from Crate Paper which we love.

Here is a little peek at what we will be using.



FInally, we hope you don't mind but we have asked Cheryl Johnson to join us later in the year rather than April. We hope that this will guarantee better weather and give us a bit more time to get all our families together.

Some of you have said you would like her to come later in the year and some people who wanted a session are on holiday. We know that CJ will only be able to come once this year, we want to be able to offer different things each month. (We do listen to what you say!)

Cheryl has promised that she will offer the same package prices for the sessions and we will keep you posted.

In the meanwhile, we have been busy lining up a crochet for beginners class. Anyone want to learn how to make flowers and embellishments for your paper crafting projects?

March Class

We wanted to share with you what Karelyn created from the March class kit, we love it!



What a great way to change the title.

Two Kits for Sale

We have two spare class kits with full colour instructions relating to our March Hybrid kit.

If you are interested and would like one, they are £4.50 each including P and P.



See a few posts below for full contents and details.

Please email us, first come, first served.

TFB X

Some Pictures....

....as promised....


Kerry with her finished layout


The shop goodies (wish I had taken more photos of this now!)





Some layouts by Naomi...




(also congrats to you as you won the sketch challenge draw x)

Crafters hard at work (see we did more than just eat cake and chat!)









Please send us photos of your finished projects so we can add them to the blog.

Be back later.....

with some photos from the day.....

Something a Little Different - KE - Kick it Up.

So, you know how we said we didn't want to let all our ideas out of the bag in one go, well we let you in to our class plans yesterday.

Each time we do a class, there will be two versions. We will do a basic class and a Kick it up version.

Why? We want to encourage all levels of crafters to take part and expand their skills. Often the biggest problem when designing a class can be getting the pitch and level of the class just right. Too basic and those with more skill arent as excited as they should be. Too advanced and those who want to learn a new skill may be put off.

So we will always do two classes to make sure we do our best to reach everyone.

We want to use the freshest products and will get our teachers to choose what they want to use and present rather than vice versa.

We hope you like our idea. We know that ATDML liked it, they even blogged us! It's new and as far as we are aware we dont know of anyone else doing this.....yet! (Answers on a postcard please!)

So here are the two full versions that we created, and now you know why we didnt put the full versions on the blog earlier!

The Sketch

As part of the day, we ran a sketch challenge. Open to all types of paper mediums, create a project designed on the sketch.



We wanted to upload this to the blog so if you didn't get chance to make it along, you can still make something with it. If you publish your project, please link back to our blog and we would love to see what you create with it!

Congratulations to Naomi who won the sketch challenge draw.

The other side of the first - beware lengthy Oscar-type acceptance speech below!

Wow, we had such a fab day yesterday, we hope you all enjoyed it as much as we did.

I guess I have lots of thank you's first of all!

To all those who came along and made the event what it was. I know that some of you travelled a long way, we hope you enjoyed it. We loved you being there.


Thank you to those who said they couldnt make it but wanted to come along next month, we will start working towards finalising class details as soon as we can. We will email you all this week to confirm whether you are coming or not.


I can't thank Mel and Jill from A Trip Down Memory Lane enough for bringing the shop along. We were so lucky as they brought the latest papers, books, and goodies along. I found it hard deciding what not to buy! It was amazing. Thanks for your support.

To the clever and talented people who gave away their products to help us make the day more special: Jen Martakis, Little Light Studio, Wilna Furstenberg, Shimelle; a BIG thank you from us. xxx

To Karen for the cupcakes, that topping was delicious!

To those that helped with the tabels and chairs. You weren't supposed to , but we thank you!

To the special person who came to the doughnut rescue for us. We thank you for everthing and for being a great friend. x

We are looking forward to next Month and hope to make it better. Any feedback you have, please contact us. It's through your input that we make it better.

What's in the FREE Hybrid Class Kit?

Here are some pictures of the class kit for tomorrow, hope you are as excited as we are.







Remember if you cant make it for the day you are more than welcome to come along and see us at Marks Tey Village Hall to find out what we do and to shop with A Trip Down Memory lane who will be with us for the day.

Class Sneak Peeks

Want to see some peeks of the hybrid class that we will be doing this Saturday?






Here they are...


You will need to bring with you:

foam dots
white journalling pen
cropodile or hole puncher
Photos:
Two 6 x 4 portrait photos and One 6 x 4 landscape photo