I can't believe this craft retreat escaped the blog back in 2016! After the success of our first craft retreat in 2015 in St Ives, we decided to host another retreat but this time we headed to North Devon to the small harbour town of Ilfracombe.
We hired out a property in a beautiful spot on the edge of the harbour with beautiful views out to sea. Our house was called Quayfield House and can be found on Holiday Cottages website if you fancy hiring the house for your own craft retreat. Although it was in a beautiful location the steps leading up to the property were a bit of a killer!!
Our retreat was Saturday to Wednesday and included 4 projects that our guests would be making over those days. We organised 2 big projects for Sunday and Tuesday, with 2 smaller evening projects to fit in alongside those. Everyone had a free day on Monday to explore Ilfracombe and do some sight seeing.
We will be going into further detail about each project on each of their own blog posts so you can see more up close pictures and a deeper description of what we used and how we made them.
DAY 1
After breakfast on Sunday morning we laid out the table for the first project of the retreat which was By the Sea Framed Panel.
Since it was the first day of projects we also provided a little gift from us which was a Vintage Follie apron!
I think we can all agree the ladies looked great in them!
Our view from the craft table was wonderful, looking out over the harbour. Although I think it may have been a bit distracting at times!
After the first project on Day 1 we organised dinner for everyone at the house and then got the table set up for our first evening project which was Seaside Memory Jar.
DAY 2
Due to bad weather on the 2nd day of the retreat we decided to bring the projects forward a day so that our guests could enjoy their free day to explore Ilfracombe in better weather conditions, since Tuesday was looking like the nicer day.
Our first project of the day was Traveller's Mini Photo book.
We always like to include a project that our guests can put photos in to remind them of their retreat or perhaps save it for a trip in the future.
Our evening project for Day 2 was a lovely memento for the trip to remind them of their travels at Christmas time. We were making an Ilfracombe Christmas Bauble.
We decorated the baubles with mica flakes that were a seaside mix of colours to fit in beautifully with the theme of the project. We found some vintage seaside images that we could shrink down in size and glue to the front of the bauble. We then decorated round the edge with some Stickles glitter glue.
Everyone also made a box that fitted the bauble inside perfectly to keep it protected until they could hang it up on their Christmas tree.
DAY 3:
Today was everyone's free day to go out and explore what Ilfracombe had to offer and get some souvenirs to take home.
We had fun exploring the town and even took a ride on the town's Dotto Land Train to travel around Ilfracombe's tourist destinations.
I couldn't help but take a picture of this board we found outside one of the local coffee shops. So the next time you find yourself debating eating a cake, don't think twice!
So that is the end of our story about our fantastic craft retreat to Ilfracombe in 2016. Unfortunately we haven't planned any since this retreat as life has just been getting in the way. But it is definitely on the cards and we are constantly looking for beautiful locations to organise our next retreat at so who knows, a Vintage Follie Craft Retreat could be coming your way soon.....
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