Last week I had the opportunity to teach at the Art Journey retreat in Sleen, Holland... and what a FUN time we had!!! I taught 15 classes over three days, to 180 students in total. It was a great experience - here's some photos from the weekend:
This is Louise who owns Art Journey - she is so warm and wonderful! Always ready to have a laugh and joke together. Love her!!
Here's some of her store... notice the cool rack of Darkroom Door stamps?
The store is packed with so much stuff!!! Cool stamps, embellishments, paints, papers, you name it.
Here's what the store looks like from the back with free icicles...
There were too many students to fit into the classroom inside the store, so the classes were held in the 'bib' (the library) which is next door. There were four classes being taught at the same time and the students would rotate around the classes during the day so everyone ended up completing all of the projects by the end of the day.
Here's a photo of the project I taught:
We used the Darkroom Door Country Cottage & Plaid Background stamps, Alcohol Inks, paint and embossing powder to create a grungy shabby background and lots of jute and hessian!
During the day, we were entertained by Truus and Annie who did a VERY funny comedy routine... in dutch of course, but I could understand enough to know what was going on! They had everyone dancing and laughing... and even doing a 'Tim Holtz meditation' to try and absorb some of Tim's creativity... I tell you, it was too funny....
I also met some stamping buddies: Godelieve Tijskens (Darkroom Door Creative Team member) and Terry Alblas:
Here's some pics with some of the other teachers... first Liesbeth:
And Corine (who was so wonderful and drove me to Utrecht after the weekend had finished)
And Jeanette and Louise:
Had dinner in this wonderful restaurant with the Art Journey gang... at the end of the meal the staff gave each of us a bunch of tulips for Valentine's Day!
And you know you're in Holland when you see one of these:
The streets looked like this:
And lastly, a photo of the Art Journey gang:
Thank you to everyone who attended the Art Journey days... and especially to everyone at Art Journey for making me feel so welcome! Thanks to Louise and Jos for your warm hospitality and for the great food! I had a fabulous weekend... thank you so much! I hope to return again someday :)
Rach xx