Jackie Ashton – Birds of a Feather

Scrap The Boys

Hi everyone, well it’s been a while since I did a blogpost so what better way than to announce getting onto a new DT team, called Scrap The Boys.

As the saying goes ‘as one door closes, another one opens’ and that is just what has happened. One of my DT positions has come to an end, and even though I would have loved to stay on it was time for a change… low and behold my application got accepted for this amazing team.

It’s a great challenge blog site, that like the title says ‘Scrap the Boys’, all layouts are based on boy layouts, so right up my street.

I’ve met the team (on line) and there is a real mixture of scrapping styles so it will be good to see how we each interperate the challenges over the 6 months.

My term starts February 2018 and lasts for 6 months.

I do hope that you will follow me on IG (jackiescraps), and also follow Scrap the Boys IG and Facebook pages and see what we are doing…

Even better, why not join in.

Till next time…

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Crafting Weekend Fun …

Hi everyone, well I’ve just returned from a crafting weekend away in the country with my crafting buddies.

I managed to do 8 layouts, and part of a quilt … yes I’ve decided earlier this year that I need to make a quilt for my son, well it got cut out, then ended up back in the back, this weekend I managed to pin and sew a few of the squares together … don’t hold your breathe for it being finished any time soon … it will definitely be a work in progress – lol.

Back to my weekend, did I say we had fun, loads to eat, loads of laughter and of course the usual silly photos.

Every time I get set to go away, I say I will not take as much stash as last time, but really I just end up throwing it all in, and hoping I hadn’t forgotten anything, always forgetting that I’m going with 6 other crafters who will no doubt have that one thing I really, really need to finish my layout – lol x

So this is the morning after our first night of scrapping, I think we had it all covered for stash – don’t you ???

We made a lovely afternoon tea

Washed down with some alcoholic beverage …

and also had to have a coffee fix …

A mini demo was provided by Julie on using distress oxide inks

And a beautiful sunrise on one of the mornings …

on Sunday, Julie made us all a yummy Roast Beef dinner …

Saturday evening was spent watching Strictly and X-Factor as well as being silly with face mask – lovingly supplied by Sam.

The following day we tried to have couple of serious group shots … as you do … but it never goes to plan at first …

Until we get our ‘stop being silly’ head on and get a couple

Cant leave us being too serious now can I, so a snapshot of me, Sam & Julie will sum up our weekend away.

Thanks Julie, Sam, Sue, Barbara, Kay, Sheena for another weekend of memories, heres to the next one.

Happy scrapping

Jackie x

What’s Your Crafting Journey …

Hi everyone, well this is a long with minimal photo blogpost today, I have tried to condense it the best I could, so I do hope you stay with me till the end!

We were recently contacted by a scrapbooker who was nervous about coming to one of our retreats on her own, and it got me thinking about my scrapbooking journey so far, and how it all started.

In 2006, I dipped my toe into card-making, attending a weekly workshop locally and loved my 2 hours a week crafting session. It’s at the same workshop that I met Julie, my best crafting buddy and my loveliest friend. After attending a ‘memory keeping’ class run by the lady who ran the card classes, I decided that I needed to find out more about this ‘thing’ called ‘scrapbooking’.

Sorry photograph not very good, but an early example of my card making!

So after purchasing several copies of Scrapbook Inspiration magazine and reading from cover to cover, I noticed a advert for a Retreat … a what ??? a Retreat … you mean people actually go away for a whole weekend and do pages of ‘memory keeping’ … WOW, now wouldn’t that be something …

Several chats to my hubby, and several times me saying ‘oh it’s not for me – but I really want to go’ etc., I eventually made the phone call to the organisers and booked it.

At this point, I hadn’t even done one page with any photographs on, let alone met anyone who had. So again back to the magazines to see if I could find a ‘crop’ … really ‘a crop’? I wondered what that would be like! Having found one locally to me, I went with my one packed bag, that contained everything I needed.

I went on my own not knowing what to expect, and said to myself if I don’t like it, I will stay an hour or so and come home… Honestly I could have stayed there all day and night, I loved it, and couldn’t wait till the following month to go again.

Then it was time to go to the ‘Retreat’… I was so nervous, but I knew I needed to find out what it was all about, and talk to people who had been doing ‘scrapbooking’ for a long time.

And the best of all, I would meet a designer who appeared in the Scrapbook Magazine that I was now subscribing to … I met Shimelle … what a lovely sweet person she is.

The ladies who ran this retreat were great in making me feel so welcome and then I worked out that there was a few other ladies who where there on their own as well, so we made a bee-line for each other and before long we were where chatting and laughing like we were old friends. One of these ladies was Sam, and we have been friends, crafting buddies and now business partners since that day in May 2008!

After the retreat, I decided that I needed to visit as many different crops/workshop as I could, just to see what was on offer, what others were doing, anything really, I just needed to get a ‘crafting fix’ every month. At one such crop/workshop I met Sheena. I was talking to someone about going to an upcoming retreat and Sheena said she was going to the same one. So another friendship was borne out of this crazy hobby called ‘scrapbooking’.

Photo taken in 2011 at a weekend friends retreat I’d organised in Shropshire.

Jump forward 9 years and now I’m on several design teams, I organise crafting weekend for a group of friends twice a year, and I’m a partner in a business that orgainses ‘Retreats’ … yes people actually stay in a hotel and craft all weekend … bliss.

I’ve made some amazing life long friends, some on-line friends, who I might not ever even meet as they are all around the UK and even abroad, but we all share this great love of scrapbooking.

One of my recent layouts

Its not all been plain sailing, and I’ve had a lot of ups and downs in getting this far, but I’ve kept going and I’m so glad I did.

This journey is one I’m so glad I took and looking forward to seeing where it will take me in the future.

Whats your journey?

Jackie xxxx

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Dream It : Plan It : Book It :

Well… we had the idea, set the wheels in motion, and after several emails Amy Tangerine is coming to teach two fantastic workshops for us, here in the UK.

Ahhh !!!! Can you hear us scream !!!! and doing a happy dance, we have booked our next workshop, with Amy Tangerine – can you believe it?

Birds of a Feather have got this fabulous international designer, the one and only Amy Tan to teach a workshop for the first time in the UK!!!

We are over the moon… all the planning has come together and we can welcome Amy to Birmingham in October 2017 along with all the delegates who are eager to not only meet her in person, but to attend a workshop by her. And there is a lot of you!

For those of you who do not know Amy Tan, she started her design career making handcrafted T-shirts under a line called Amy Tangerine, selling her feature designer T-shirts in 100’s of retail outlets. In 2007, she decided to branch out into the scrapbooking industry and has gone from strength to strength and hit every corner of the scrapbooking world with her amazing stylish collections.

For several years now, she as had her own scrapbooking paper range under the American Crafts name. Her current collection, launched this Summer, is called ‘Hustle & Hearts’ which is the collection that she will be using at our Birds of a Feather workshop.

You can find more details about Amy on her blog here

We do still have places available, so check here for all the relevant information for the workshop, or if you require further information please contact info@birdsofafeather.uk.com and we will be happy to help.

Jackie xxx

And the Winner is …..

To celebrate our first year in business we offered an early bird booking opportunity, to win a £50 Hey Little Magpie voucher if you booked and paid for the Amy Tangerine Workshop before 4th August 2017.

The draw was done on 7th August 2017 by random generator and the winner was No. 34, who is Kay Hall.

Congratulations Kay, we will be in touch with your prize.

We still have availability on the workshop, full details can be found under the workshop tab above.

Jackie xxx

Make mine a Mini …

Hi all, well I cant say hope you are enjoying the sunny weather, as I type this blogpost its cold and raining and hard to think we are in the middle of July, but I’m hoping the weather will pick up again shortly and we can be out and about making memories.

For my post, I revisited my love of mini albums. In the past I would do them regularly, then scrapbook layouts took over, so I don’t do them as often as I used to.

But after our last retreat, a delegate, Mell Cooper who attended the event, did a lovely 4×4 mini album of her experience at our event, you can see the album here, and it got me thinking … why not compile a mini album of each of our events.

I just loved the idea of working on the 4×4 format, and as I had a few these sized albums in my stash, I dusted them off and have started on the process of compiling our past events.

Our first event, which was back in November 2016, and seems such along time ago as such much as happened since then. But getting all the photograph printed off brought wonderful memories of a fantastic weekend flooding back.

Anyway, here are a few photographs of the albums. Apologies for the poor quality of the photos, but trying to take photos of the pages without glare was proving difficultly.

I used Paige’s ‘Take Me Away’ paper collection that she used for the workshop. Helping to keep with the theme of the weekend.

the room all set up ready for the delegates.

Sam made some lovely little sewing kits for each delegate.

Paige’s teaching one of her amazing classes.

Her classes …

The Saturday delegates

We were on hand the whole time to lend a hand

Then we had a mini photoshoot …

I used some the cut-a-part sheets and wood veneer to embellish some of the pages.

Group shot of the Saturday delegates.

None of our Sunday delegates are featured as we did not get consent from them to publish any photographs with them in. They are in the actual album which will be available to see at our future events.

Happy scrapping

Jackie xxx

Getting some creative ‘me time’

Hi everyone, hope all is well, but boy has the weather changed over the past few days. As I sit here typing this post it’s going dark and it’s only mid afternoon, definitely not what I expected at the end of June.

But no matter what the weather, there is always time to be creative, whether it’s going on Pinterest for a while, I won’t say short while, because if you are anything like me I can get lost on there for an hour or more. Then there is checking out blogs or even watching some youtube videos – we all can make that little bit of ‘me time’ to find our own creativeness.

So I want to share my recent ‘creative – me time’ with some of the girls from the Hey Little Magpie team. We hired a cottage and went on a mini-break – it wasn’t a weekend as a few of us were there for 5 days, and yes that included me – lol x.

Even though the team talk regularly on line, it’s really good to spend time with them, and see how they design a layout, put a mini book together, and get some little tips that can make all the difference to your own personal designs.

So after spending 5 days away there is only one layout I can share, which I will at the end of this post. I spent most of my time catching up with my DT assignments, which will take me though to August, so I will be able to share them over the coming weeks.

It was good just to relax and scrap or not if I didn’t want to, but also good to be around the team and bounce ideas off each other.

Here are a few snaps from our mini-break… apologies for a photo heavy post!

It was lovely and peaceful to wake up to this view every morning.

A creative mess or just a mess?… either way I love this sight.

The team working away…

We had a few drinks available…

As well as some yummy food over the weekend, one evening we had a Thai Take-away…

and sat watching crafting on the TV channel… as we are mainly scrapbookers it wasn’t what we wanted to see, but it was crafting so we kept watching it… We seriously need a scrapbooking channel …

Sam made this White Chocolate cheesecake…

We had post Saturday Afternoon Tea!

and the weather picked up enough so we were able to sit outside to eat…

Then of course time for silly photos …

We watched a few DVD in the evenings … (photos taken from Jo Boland IG Feed)

Our last full day together was Sunday, and Julie made a fabulous Sunday Roast …

and then a few girls had to leave so we had a final group shot, well, when I say final, it took a while to get us all focused, but I love this one

And the layout that I can share, using Cocoa Vanilla – You Rock Collection and a cameo die cut from Paper Issues.

A few close ups.

My final photo is another one I took from Jo Boland IG feed and love it, as it sums up my post and what the mini break was, a place to create …

So I will sign off now, and wish you all a creative day, week, weekend whatever you choose it to be, enjoy and happy scrapping.

Jackie xxx

1st Retreat – was a Blast ….

And as usual the retreat went far too quickly … but I wanted to share with you what an amazing fun packed weekend we all had at the end of May.

Be prepared for photo overload of the weekend, and over the coming weeks we will be showcasing the classes and layouts that some of our delegates completed.

The weekend consisted of the amazing Wilna Furstenberg teach two classes via video, showing the delegates various techniques using watercolours and acrylic paints, as well as Sam and Sheena teaching classes in person, I did two layouts that was self-paced class that the delegates could complete over the weekend.

So here goes, we set up and eagerly waited for our delegates to arrive.

As a welcome gift Sam had hand finished aprons for each delegate, we chosen aprons as a gift as we knew we would be using paints with Wilna classes, and they were gratefully received.

Once the delegates had arrived and settled into there places, the lovely Hey Little Magpie shop opened for business, and as true scrappers it wasn’t long before we where in there, seeing what we needed, like true Scrappers we need it all – lol.

The format for this weekend was to have as relaxed as possible craft retreat but at the same time having some fun.

So after we had our evening meal it was back to the crop room for a party game. Which involving rolling a dice, dressing up, inflating a palm tree and putting up a deckchair – which was so funny.

With the lovely Jooles was our winner.

After the game the delegates had an evening to themselves, and to get ready for the following day where we had planned 3 classes, including one video from Wilna.

The delegates all got struck into the classes – which we will share in another blog post,

and I just had to take a selfie, which was photobombed by Penelope – lol x.

We also had my son, James helping out, and he was made-up that Starbucks was on site and he could nip down for one or two during the weekend – lol.

And to finish off Saturday, we had the lovely Elaine attend from Stix2 to demonstrate their products with two lovely make & take gifts.

Sunday followed the same format, after breakfast we had 3 more classes, raffle prize draws, challenge winners and of course a photographs of us all in our aprons, and like I said the weekend ended far too quickly, and it was time for us all to head home.

But before I sign off, I wanted to share an extra photo of us and Wendy in our Paris Cardigans – Wendy had attended our Paige workshop in March with this lovely cardigan, and as we were going to Paris shortly afterward, Sam set herself the task to locate Paris cardigans for us – love them.

Well thats all for now, but we want to thank each delegate for attending our retreat, all the lovely feedback we received, and we are looking forward to seeing all the delegates again in the future.

Come back soon to find out more of what we are up to.

Jackie xxx

Paige Taylor Evans workshop – March 2017

We are pleased to announce that Paige Taylor Evans will be making a return visit to the UK, to teach four amazing classes with her new collection, due to be released at CHA January 2017. Each layout will be designed exclusively by Paige in her unique style, using her 3rd collection for Pink Paislee.

Be one of the first to use her lovely new collection at our 2nd Paige Day.

Full details of this fabulous event can be found on the downloadable forms below.

Location: The Village Hotel, Tempus Drive, Walsall. WS2 8TJ

Date: Saturday 4th and Sunday 5th March 2017

Download Booking Form: Word PDF Schedule T&C