Scrapbook Retreats

I've gone to a scrapbook retreat with a few friends and it was great! We were in a cabin and we would basically get up, make breakfast and gab, then scrapbook/gab for a lot of the day. We took breaks to walk around outside and we also went out for dinner. We had a lot of fun and got a lot done. We even did this thing where we did a scrapbook page for each other's albums when we ran out of ideas. It was nice to look at each other's work and get opinions on what to do when we were stuck. We also would use each other's stuff, one of us would say "Anyone have anything to go with a cruise theme?" and then then we'd all offer up stickers or paper. It was also nice to have lots of punches and cutter stuff available!

Of course that was all before we all had kids. Still, I'm thinking a weekend without the kids sounds like heaven now!

Can't really answer your question because I have never been on a scrapbook retreat. But I do scrapbook, somewhat obsessively... I only scrapbook solo. I find what helps me most get inspired is looking at my past books. If I spend 15 or 20 minutes looking at the old stuff I will get a yen to jump in and start my next section. I also don't put pressure on myself to make super creative layouts. I sort of tell myself I am just going to slap the pictures on there and then I am presently surprised when I come up with something decent looking and often awesome :)

Here's my process, when I feel stuck I just default to "my process":
Grab the pictures for whatever section I am working on (I go chronological, event by event).
Crop them to whatever size fits each best.
Embellish with whatever scissors or edgecutter thingy strikes my fancy.
Select a background page/pages and glue them down.
Then add any embellishments.

I'll do a whole book or several books before I go back and add any words/dates/clever captions. That way I stay in creative mode and don't lose my mojo when I am on a roll with layouts. Then I'll go into spurts of photojournalist mode and i'll go back and caption all my books (events, people, clever comments).

Anyway that's the way I do it and it works for me. Its one of the main reasons I haven't switched over to just making them entirely on the computer, like on shutterfly or something.

I've always thought it might be fun to scrapbook with someone else but I never have.

My sister goes to one each year. It's 3 days long and pure scrapbooking in a rented cabin in Big Bear. She says it is awesome because she gets so much done. It sounds like people go here to get stuff done and not just lay around and waste time. Apparently the host does a really good job so it goes flawlessly. If I were you I would try it at least once. The worst that can happen is that you pay for some dedicated scrapbooking time. Take some emergency snacks in case you don't like the food :)

Also, since my sister got me and my other sister into scrapbooking, we get together to scrapbook the night away a few times a year. I can't imagine scrapbooking solo :)

I try to go on at least one scrapbook retreat a year-and I always get a lot of pages done. I think it depends on the group you go with - I go with some serious scrapbookers- there are some regulars, but also a new face or two. I always learn something and get some terrific ideas for layouts when I am lacking ideas or am stuck on how to do a page. I love that i can spread out and leave stuff sitting out overnight and that I can work late into the night if I want. It was quite a job preparing to go and I tended to bring everything. I could have brought less stuff if I had planned more in advance as to the pages I wanted to do. Have fun!