Celebrating September Birthday Month 2022!

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes - Artist and Bricoleur

After a horrible summer of 2022 - that started with the 5-day power outage in July and included the deaths of my father and stepmother within 2 weeks of each other in August - I somehow made it to September.

I celebrated at a weekend scrapbooking retreat with my sister and a crafty friend, Becky, at a suburban Chicagoland hotel. Becky and I went for sushi lunch on first day of retreat. 

My sister, Marcy, and I stayed in a king bedroom suite since we both snore. We enjoyed the indoor pool and hot tub both nights and we both got a 60-minute full body massage on night 2.  Marcy went after dinner, I went at 9:45pm. 

My stress is just melting away - finally!

Becky's sushi lunch

Becky's lunch after

My sushi (lunch and enough for leftovers at hotel later)

My sushi lunch, After

After retreat, hubby took me out on my birthday Sep 27th for late breakfast, a movie and dinner at our fave steakhouse, Longhorn.

Dinner

Longhorn Steakhouse on Sep 27, 2022

Shaky photo by hubby

My surf & turf dinner, After

Hubby, Dave

I'm finally starting to get my mojo back. Energy level is slowly returning. I'm trying to tidy my home studio so I can do some craft projects over my winter hibernation.

Thanks for stopping by - and please leave a comment!

Peace,

LuLu

'WOYWW - My Neat and Tidy Table - huh?!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and Welcome,

After the Scrap-A-Thon retreat I hosted during Halloween weekend and the holidays, my table was a disaster.

I finally had a chance to tidy up a bit recently.

LuLu's Art Studio - Northern exposure - Chicago IL, USA

And I actually sat down and played in a couple of my Art Journals! But mostly I've been practicing my knitting and crochet - which I think are great for cold weather.

Want to see more studios? Head on over to Julia's blog - click here.

Thanks for stopping by - and check out my FREEBIES on this blog!!!

Peace,
LuLu

'Just one week left until Scrap-A-Thon 8 Weekend Retreat and Getaway - only 4 spots left!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

 

Ladies,

Only 4 Individual Weekend Passes are left for Scrap-A-Thon 8 - a three-day, fun-filled and relaxing weekend retreat and getaway at the Hampton Inn and Suites in Aurora, IL (near Chicago) during Halloween Weekend 10/30/15 - 11/1/15.

Who couldn't use up to 50 hours of crafting and playtime?!

Due to popular demand, Last Minute registration period for Individual Weekend Passes has been extended through 10pm Thursday 10/29/2015 for Scrap-A-Thon 8 retreat and getaway!

Don’t be left out - order your tickets now. http://www.eventbrite.com/e/scrap-a-thon-8-fall-frolic-craft-crop-weekend-retreat-tickets-14943486370

Retreat info here: http://scrap-a-thon-scrapbooking-retreat.blogspot.com

Hope you can join us!
Thanks to all of our Sponsors and to those who already registered. See you soon!

Mary Lou 'LuLu'

'Getaway Retreat - Registration deadline for Groups is soon!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy Ladies,

For those who want to attend the all-crafts retreat getaway that I’m hosting, Registration deadlines are rapidly approaching.

 

• WHAT: GETAWAY! 3-day weekend crafting retreat - for up to 50 hours.

• WHEN: Getaway retreat is Halloween weekend 2015.

• DURATION: Times and dates for getaway are: from 3pm Friday October 30th, through 5pm on Sunday November 1st.

• WHO: All crafters are welcome to attend and spread out, and work on whatever you want to work on.

• ELIGIBILITY: LADIES only.

• WHERE: Venue is the Hampton INN, Aurora, IL. (near Chicago)

• DISCOUNTS: Discount code is available for hotel lodging.

• COST: Cost of Weekend Pass for groups (of 2 or more) is $65 per group member - in advance via PayPal.

• Weekend Passes are valid for all 3 days.

• Weekend Passes include in/out privileges to SAME table, plus prizes, plus more.

• Group registrations close soon - deadline is September 15, 2015.

• Individuals can register after Group registrations close.

• To attend for ONLY 1 or 2 days, you can register after Group registrations close.

• GROUP DEADLINE: Group registration closes September 15, 2015.

• DRESS CODE: None - tiara and pajamas, optional :-)

• MORE INFO and for REGISTRATION LINK visit: www.scrap-a-thon.com

·       QUESTIONS? email Registrar@scrap-a-thon.com

 Flyer is below.

Hope you can join us!

'Schedule of Craft Events - Published!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes


Howdy and Welcome,

Here is my current schedule - hope you can join me this year! The two retreats that I am hosting near Chicago, Illinois, USA in 2015 will be loads of fun - and relaxing, too!

Sample Art Journal views - by LuLu Haynes

SCHEDULE

2015

Jun

·        17                          Scrapbooking and Crafternoon – AnniversaryPotluck Crop, Michaels, Tinley Park, IL, USA 1-8pm

·        23 and 25                Art Journaling 2-day Workshop, Beverly Arts Center, Chicago, IL, USA, 1-4:30pm

July

·        17                          3^rd Friday Crafternoon – All crafts (Art Journaling, etc), BAPA Room, 11109 S. Longwood Drive, Chicago, IL, 60643, USA, 1-8pm

Aug

·        14 – 16                 Retreat with Workshops, Hampton Inn, Aurora, IL, USA, 3pm Friday – 5pm Sunday

Sep

·        18                          3^rd Friday Crafternoon – All crafts (Art Journaling, etc), BAPA Room, 11109 S. Longwood Drive, Chicago, IL, 60643, USA, 1-8pm

Oct

·       30 – Nov 1           Retreat, Hampton Inn, Aurora, IL, USA, 3pm Friday – 5pm Sunday

Nov

·        20                          3^rd Friday Crafternoon – All crafts (Art Journaling, etc), BAPA Room, 11109 S. Longwood Drive, Chicago, IL, 60643, USA, 1-8pm

Dec

·        16                          Scrapbooking and Crafternoon – Holiday Potluck Crop, Michaels, Tinley Park, IL, USA 1-8pm

 

2016

Jan

·        15                          3^rd Friday Crafternoon – All crafts (Art Journaling, etc), BAPA Room, 11109 S. Longwood Drive, Chicago, IL, 60643, USA, 1-8pm

Mar

·        18                          3^rd Friday Crafternoon – All crafts (Art Journaling, etc), BAPA Room, 11109 S. Longwood Drive, Chicago, IL, 60643, USA, 1-8pm

 
BAPA Room (Beverly Area Planning Association Community Room) - map and schedule
 

YOUR TURN

Have you ever attended an art retreat? If so, when and where? Did you get a lot of art work done?

Thanks for stopping by. Please become a Follower and come back soon!

Peace,
LuLu

'Mixed Media RETREAT - Early Bird DIVA Playroom Pass - $75 through 4/30/15!'

Come play in our PLAYROOM all weekend - Friday, Saturday and Sunday - up to 50 hours!
Limited seating.
For Ladies 18 and up.



Make IT! Mark IT! Mask IT! Mixed Media Midwest - Chicago Retreat!
August 14 - 16, 2015
Hampton Inn and Suites
Aurora, IL, USA

1) Get full details here OR register below. Select Early Bird DIVA Weekend Pass through 4/30/15 for $75 USD.

This is the best value for those not wanting workshops - just 3 days of PLAY time!

Online event registration for 'Make IT! Mark IT! Mask IT!' - PLAYROOM powered by Eventbrite

'What's in my Travel Art Bag!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and Welcome,

Glad you could stop by. Being knee deep in preparations for the August 2015 mixed media retreat that I'm hosting, does not leave much time for posting - or anything else!

But I wanted to share with you what's in my new art bag! My hubby gave me a 'Voyager Riggers Bag' (from harborfreight.com) earlier this month. I posted one photo on Facebook and got requests for the dimensions and to show what is in it.

 

Also, I enjoy surfing youtube.com and watching other 'what's in my bag' videos.

Enjoy!

Here's what I loaded into this travel art bag, which has (62) wet supplies for creating art journal backgrounds.

Since I took the photos, I also lightly spray painted the bag.

ITEM Description

apron

brush - foam

brush - small (duplicate)

brushes - sml, med, lge

catalog (for gluing)

clip - large binder

clips (3) - mini-binder

cotton swabs (3)

cough drops - Ricola (2)

Distress Inks (3)

Distress Stain (1)

gel pens - glitter - (5)

gesso - black

gesso - clear

gesso - white

gesso mix - clear + matte medium

glazes - my DIY (8) - decanted into used hotel shampoo bottles

gloves - I bought a box of 100 gloves from Sally Beauty Supply (with my Sally discount card)

glue - Stickles - Distress 'Picket fence' glitter glue

h2O pencil set (in recycled 'Stampin up' container for colored pencils)

h2O spray 'mini-mister'

matte medium (2)

Multi  medium (Claudine Hellmuth) - matte and gloss

old key cards (3) - as squeegees

old key cards (6) - as squeegees (duplicates)

paint - Smooch - gold

paint - water brush - filled with Dylusions Wash 'teal'

paint - watercolor paint pens (9) - Elmer's

paint (2)  acrylics (Ranger Dabbers) - gold, silver

paints (5) acrylics - red, yellow, green, brown, white

palette - palette paper

palette - recycled plastic container lid

palette knife

palette knife - texture palette knife

paper - mini-notepad

paper - painted wax papers

paper - palette

paper - wax paper sheets

paper - wax paper sheets (duplicate)

paper towel squares

paper towel squares (duplicate)

pencil  - #2 mini

pencil - mini-automatic  (Pilot 'Dr. Grip' xs 0.5)

rag square

rag square (duplicate)

rag square (duplicate)

sponge

sponges (3)- duplicate

tablecloth

tape - double-sided Scoth magic matte

tape - masking, 1"

tape - washi tape on used key cards (4)

texture - bottle cap

texture - bubble wrap

texture - bubble wrap (duplicate)

texture - corrugated cardboard square

texture - my DIY circle stamp

texture - plastic grocery bag square

texture - punchinella strip

texture - stamp

vitamin bottle, large - recycled for h2O (rinsing brushes)

wipes     Thanks for visiting - while you are here, please become a follower, make a comment -  and come back soon! And if you like to play, please plan to join us at the mixed media, art, craft and scrapbooking retreat August near Chicago, IL, USA!   Peace, LuLu

'Early Bird registration is now open for Mixed Media retreat!

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes



Welcome,

Do you want to learn and play near Chicago this summer?

Come join us at this new mixed media retreat in the US!

Make IT! Mark IT! Mask IT! Mixed Media Midwest - Chicago Retreat!

Thanks for stopping by - please become a Follower - and come back soon.

Peace,
Mary Lou

Scrap-A-Thon 8 Retreat is now open for Early Birds to register!

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and Welcome,

Scrap-A-Thon 8 Retreat is now open for Early Birds to register!
Not just for scrapbookers. All crafters welcome!

Ladies only.
Plan now to visit the Chicagoland area in 2015! Hope you can join us!

Makes a great gift for yourself -  or a friend!

www.Scrap-A-Thon.com

Thanks for visiting - come back soon!

Peace,
LuLu

'Freebie Collage for Scrapbooking, Art Journals, ATCs - plus Retreat Info!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Greetings!

I found a sponsor for the meetup.com groups that I founded for scrapbooking and crafting.
Did not have to close down our 'Scrap-A-Holics of Chicagoland' groups, thanks to new sponsor 'HP Dance Fitness'!

FREEBIE

Freebie (vintage ephemera)
ok to use - with permission from LuLu Haynes 2014

RETREAT INFO

• 2014 Crafting and Scrapbooking Retreat - Nov 28 - 30, 2014, near Chicago, IL, USA
• 3-day weekend retreat, $50 through Nov 21, 2014. Lodging extra.
• Late Registration fee is $70 USD processing fee) after.
• Details at www.scrap-a-thon.com
• 2015 Retreat scheduled for Oct 30 - Nov 1, 2015.
• Early Bird registration for 2015 retreat coming soon!
• Mark your calendars now.

YOUR WASHI TAPE STASH?

What's your washi tape collection count/inventory to date? How do you organize/store your tape stash?

Thanks for visiting! Come back again soon!
LuLu
www.lulu-too-beaucoup.blogspot.com

'WOYWW - 09/19/2012 - Haul and Wow-ee Zow-ee News Flash!'

by Mary Lou 'LuLu' Haynes

Howdy and Welcome,

Yes - I have been MIA. A lot of scrapbooking crops and the annual Scrap-A-Thon 6 retreat in Wisconsin!

For WOYWW this week, check out my 'haul' from the dollar store. I was on the hunt for spray bottles to concoct my version of Glimmer/Shimmer Mist. I want to start making some faux prima flowers for scrapbook/brag book covers, and I like the sparkly effect. I watched a slew of youtube videos on how to make faux mists and I watched another slew of videos about DIY faux prima flowers. Some of the scrapbook covers with the flowers are SO-O-O-O gorgeous. Almost delectable -  they are so pretty!

Anyway, for $1 each, I bought 11 packages of spray bottles (all that the store had on the racks). Each package includes:

1. spray bottle (2 oz)
2. regular bottle (2 oz)
3. cream pot (.5 oz)
4. funnel

Wearing my 'chemist cap' again, I'm having a blast measuring and combining components for my DIY mists.

LuLu's 2012 DIY Mist Project

Re-inkers: Stampin' Up re-inkers that I bought way back in 2001!

Storage: Hubby's used cardboard tote from a 6-pack of bottled beer. He doesn't buy beer often, but I asked him not to recycle the totes. I'm keeping them for storing supplies. They're ugly, but handy because of the 6 divided sections. They also work great in my cavernous tote bags keeping gear organized when I head out for a crop...

Haul: The purple plastic tote I found at JoAnns this weekend for $10. It has 2 large sections and 2 small sections on top - PLUS there is a divided drawer on the bottom! This tote also stacks on other totes - but I bought just the one tote this time. (Using a 40% off coupon, I also scored a small rolling plastic cart with 4 assorted drawers that I'm using to store components for a fabric project.)

In the purple plastic tote, I have baggies and other project supplies. Each baggie contains a bottle filled with these wet ingredients:

• distilled water - less than 2 oz,
• 20 drops re-inker - or a few drops acrylic paint,
• 4 drops acrylic glazing medium (as a binder - I could have used white glue),
• 2 glass beads

Each baggie has an asortment of one or more of the following sparkly dry ingredients (PearlEx, Perfect Pearls, and/or Twinkling H2Os).

My plan is to add the sparkly ingredients to the wet ingredients and combine by shaking. The glass beads are to help combine wet and dry ingredients when shaking. Next step is to spray scrapbook paper with my sparkly mist, let air dry and die cut paper into flowers. I broke down and bought Tim Holtz dies at Archivers - again using discount coupons!

The reason I bagged up the components was because I had started mixing the wet ingredients on our dining room table and selected the matching dry ingredients but soon I needed to clear off the table for other uses. It was easy to move the project into my craft room after I bagged stuff up and put them in the purple project tote. Don't you just LOVE how useful those baggies are?!

Fyi, I do have a small supply of Ranger Mini-misters but I only made my mists in a few of those vials before I quickly abandoned that product because:

• volume of vial is too small - I use multiple layers of spray to get the effect I want, and had to re-fill the Mini-misters too often.
• spray pump on a mini-mister was defective
• bottles from dollar store are more affordable than mini-misters. Duh!

Wow-ee Zow-ee NEWS FLASH!

The owner of a golf resort emailed me out of the blue (from a meetup.com Scrap-A-Holics group). She reached out because she wants help on developing her golf resort as a scrapbooking retreat!!!! 

One of the first things I told her (after reading all the pages on her website) was that I would need to inspect her resort (lodging/cabins, restaurant, golf course) before I could recommend it to my scrapping contacts. And would it be possible for me and hubby to get 1 or 2 nights complimentary lodging to inspect it, since we’ll both be on vacation? She said ‘sure’, and she booked us for 2 nights! I’m SO-O-O-O excited!

 

 

YOUR TURN
Do you use any sparkly mists in your artwork? Have you tried Glimmer Mist? What's your fave store bought mist? Have you tried to concoct your own sparkly spray? If so, what ingredients did you like best? Least?

Finally, have you attended any scrapbook or quilting or craft retreats? What are the 3 things you liked best about your retreat experience? 3 things you liked least?

Thanks for stopping by. Come back soon - my Giveaway for Followers will be here before you know it!

For more WOYWW ateliers, click here.

Peace,
LuLu