"Once upon a Dream" the magic of Wonderful Friendships

After a very long wait, the "Dream" was about to begin. By planes, trains and automobiles, we all arrived with tons of luggage and the anticipation of a very fun adventure! However,our first night there we were to be ready to get on the bus by 5:00. My roomie, Kelly Lamb was caught in a very long traffic jam from Charlotte and my flight was late so we greeted each other and said  hello in person for the first time then started stripping, throwing clothes around like 5 year olds and ran for the bus! But we made it!

The Fairy theme got everyone laughing and acting silly in no time. I spotted my sweet friend Sherry Williams and didn't stop taking photos until it was time to start our first class! Now I have to tell you making anything wearing fairy wings and a laurel headpiece is not easy.

By the time we all finished our Woodland Fairy Garland those wings were coming off! I wonder if "real fairies" have back problems???

See! Sherry took her wings off too! I kept whacking the people on both sides of me so I thought with a hot glue gun being used for this project I'd better put my wings away!!

Just a little inspiration...

Our next project was the Prize Ribbon. I think we were all getting a little tired because we all got pretty slap happy silly and we all kept burning the fool out of ourselves with the hot glue guns! By the time we finished we were all pretty tired and we looked like little children after a Halloween party. Our wings were off and our laurel headpieces were all crooked, as we were dragging our bags full of goodies onto the bus, and everyone was yawning!

The next morning we went to Claxton Farm where thanks to Sonia and her beautiful photograph, you get a real feel for the beauty of the mountains and the lush green meadow outside of our window. There were Shetland Ponies and Llamas standing at the fence as if to say "Welcome", as we drove in through the gate.

Jenn greeted us at the front door and invited us into the wonderland that she had created! Again thank you Sonia for your photo, I have a lot to learn about taking better photographs!

There was a little special something everywhere you looked.

We had about 60 women for the class! It would get really loud until another project would begin then it all got very quiet because we were all busy concentrating!

My place setting for the day. These cake boards worked great for those of us, like me, who tend to make a mess!

There was no detail too small to overlook,

And every opportunity taken to make the room filled with creative ideas.

Even outside of the restrooms looked cute!

This was my room mate Kelly Lamb. We had never met face to face, we just started talking via email after I posted one of my silly poems on the message board. We started emailing and talking on the phone some and just decided to room together. We were perfect roommates! I lied and told her she didn't snore and she told me the same. Plus we were both pretty neat and quick to get ready. I am looking forward to having a long and lasting friendship with Kelly.

Thank the Lord above the first project was the jewelry piece! As the day goes by I am not as steady with my hands so it was fantastic to get this done first. Now that's not saying I didn't want to throw it across the room a few times when I'd lose a bead or screw up another jump ring. But I did complete it!

Then it was time for a snack and a few more photo ops. This is Claudette from Canada and she is the cutest thing you ever did see. She was sweet, nice, funny, and didn't even laugh at my Magnolia Pearl even though it was about to fall down around my ankles! I thought I had altered these pants, wrong! They kept falling down all day! Not a good impression to make with a bunch of ladies I had never met!

Next was the mobile. About half way through my eyes started to cross and I didn't finish but I brought everything home to finish it. It really was cute! I kept imagining it in a babies room with little animals hanging from the crystal beads.

Found my fluffy, ruffle buddy Sherry and we had to take another photo. Boy do I need to remember to stand up straight and suck it in, Yikes not a good photo of me, but great of Sherry! We then took a lunch break and had a photo class by Tiffany which I understood about 1% of. She assures me I can call her anytime for hints. I plan on taking her up on it!!

This was the last project, a Cloche, which I had never done before so it was fun to see how it was all put together. I must admit I was feeling pretty tired so I decided to finish the rest of mine at home. They did put on some disco music to wake us up but I think it was too late for me, I was pooped!

Kelly and Marion both sat at my table on both sides of me poor dears. I kept asking them for help and direction! I'm sure by the time it was all over they wanted to tell me where to put my Pearl!

These are two of my other table mates, Trisha and Lynn, I'm not sure where Becca was??

This is not mine but this is what some one else's ended up looking like. I think it turned out great! Now just to get it home in one piece!

And then the photos started all over again! We took photo after photo, had dinner, smores by the camp fire and then the dancing began. I did not include any dancing photos because we all gave the pinky swear we would not post unflattering photos. Needless to say we "thought" we looked a lot cooler than we really did!!!

We went to the Biltimore Estate on Saturday and had a really fun time touring the house and grounds. That is one huge house which I guess is why they call it an estate!! I had a wonderful shot of the front of the house but had so many problems trying to download it I just gave up. So, this was my group for part of the tour, we all got separated at one point but found each other by the end!

Our last day was on Sunday and this was the day of the swaps. We all met at a bakery to exchange everyone's treasures. Fortunately this year I decided that since I signed up late I would see what a real swap looked like because I had never done one before.

Boy am I glad I did! The swaps were over the top with their wrapping and presentation alone. This table was filled with Fairy Pin swaps so what you see are just the wrappings, Yikes, I felt way out of my league!

Sweet Shelley Burgess in her Laurel headpiece. She looked like a fairy bride!  Just adorable!

This was a pretty small bakery so I am standing at the door just holding the camera up in the air to get this shot! I thought since I was not involved with any of the swaps I needed to stay out of the way!

"Turn out the lights, the party's over." The sad part was that it went by so quickly! I made so many wonderful creative friends and had so much fun with them! The other good news is that I don't feel stuck in my creative rut anymore, it took a little nudge from some wonderful new friends to spread my fairy wings and start to fly again.
Sorry this post is a little under par, something was going on in "bloggerland", nothing wanted to work!