Life's A Beach!

Morning all!  A bit more of the nautical theme today for you.  I picked some dark aqua card as a background for this one and distressed the edges and middle quite a bit.  I used my scissors for the edges and sandpaper for the middle to take some of the colour off.  I cut a rectangle of some decorative Kraft card that I had and cut the centre using a craft knife in to a "X" so that I could rip the pieces off giving it an irregular look.  I rolled the edges back a bit to expose the plain underside of the card too.  I used the Sea Beauty Embossibility folder to put some texture into the background piece in the frame.  I cut out one of the lighthouse dies from the Nautical Frames and Accent sets.  Using the die piece as a template, I made a larger faux piece to mat my lighthouse with.  I cut a cloud and an anchor for my frame too.  I cut a strip of hessian and removed quite a few of the woven pieces to distress it more and glued it across the background diagonally for interest.  I wrapped some Bakers Twine around the card too.  I stamped my sentiment and used the "house" square from the Home Sweet Home set to cut it out.  A bit of Antique Linen distress ink was used to highlight it.  I cut two of the flags and attached them to the side and added some Bakers twine in a bow with them.  I had a thick piece of jute that I tied into a knot on both ends and glued to the card running around the frame and sentiment to add to the fun and rustic nature of the card.  I like the way the jute, hessian and twine give the card so much texture.  I hope you don't mind a few more "nautical" themed pics now too!

As you walked in to the dining room, there was always a display of fruits cascading down.

Many of them had been carved like this watermelon, very clever!

Sam and I were with Nigel, Leonie and Shaun in one of the lounges when one of the crafters asked to have her picture taken with all of us.  We ended up passing around everyones cameras so we all had the same pic!  Unfortunately, I don't know the name of the crafter in the centre, can anyone help?  She seemed to be enjoying the photo opportunity with the C & C bunch though!

A quick pic from one of my workshops.  The restaurant was divided in to four and we held half the workshops there.  All of mine were in the restaurant, but some of the others were on other decks in the lounges.  There were 50 people in  my workshops each day.  The feedback was very positive and everyone seemed to really enjoy the classes.   All for now, Sue x