Camp Imadene - Woman's Retreat Decor 2012

This past weekend I was in Mesachie Lake on Vancouver Island to help my wonderful friend Sharon direct and decorate Woman's Retreat at Camp Imadene.  

I was responsible for making things pretty with a limited budget, and documenting parts of the weekend with my camera.  I enjoyed playing Barista and meeting new friends and photographing the ladies at their activities.  The weekend was an exciting time away from home and Sharon did a wonderful job bringing in local talent!  There were classes about outdoor cooking, riflery, photography, search and rescue, birds of prey, caving, repelling... the list goes on and on.  The food was fabulous, and the ladies had a great weekend.  Nice work with all of your planning Sharon!

I love DIY projects, and trying to make the most of inexpensive resources.  I work full time as a wedding photographer at my business SNAP weddings, so I find that there isn't much time to explore this creative side of myself.  Once I got all the craft supplies out and got busy... my secret passion for crafting came out, and reminded me that I simply *have* to craft more often.

Using the Mason Jars collected from Thrift stores and collecting Classico spaghetti sauce jars, I put three mason jars of varying sizes in the middle of each of the tables.  I made the lace wraps using lace from fabricland, buttons from the thrift store and feathers from my personal collection.  (I think they came from Michaels originally.)  Instead of sewing I just used my hot glue gun, and I'm happy how they turned out.

The flowers were free!  I asked a neighbour if she'd let me prune her beautiful blossoming tree, and she was wonderful to say YES! Perks of having the Woman's retreat the first weekend of May when the best of the blossoms are still on the trees.

I think this may have been my favorite part of the decor.  I just finished wallpapering a room with this black and white french damask wallpaper (purchased at Home depot) and I had a bunch left.  I cut two pieces from the roll (approximately 8x10's) and made each piece into a fan.  I then stapled the fans together to create a pinwheel.  I printed the woman silhouettes on my computer and hot glue gunned them to the centers. They stood nicely propped against the mason jars.

Under the three mason jars on each table was a scrap piece of hardboard (painted with chalk board spray paint - wal-mart).  I drew a white boarder with chalk and wrote "you're beautiful, you're lovely, and you're unique" at random place settings.  

I chose to make a feature wall into a display of inspirational quotes to inspire the woman.  I left the middle frame with the text "write something" so that people could leave messages throughout the weekend.  

The frames were purchased at thrift stores and painted with acrylic.  I never bother with a prime coat or sanding as suggested, and I haven't had any problems ;).  

The chalkboards were made using 1/8" hardboard from home depot, a utility knife & chalkboard spray paint. The chalkboards were nailed into the frames using small, short nails.  (The oval's were purchased at Wal-mart and painted, the images printed off my computer.)  For continuity of the room's theme, I framed two pieces of the wallpaper.

Camp Imadene has a beautiful property, and the view made the room a nice play to be.

The plastic green chairs didn't look too bad after the tablecloths and light green napkins were put into the glasses.  The room was very bright and the green actually worked! We re-used the tissue pom-pom flowers that I made for my good friend Kim's baby shower back in January.  

Thanks to my lovely team at Camp Imadene for placing everything on the tables and hanging the white lights and poms!  You girls are wonderful - I imagined being really busy at the retreat putting everything together, but you took my vision and ran with it!  I was able to relax and enjoy everything because of you :)

Ashley Kitchen

[Victoria Wedding Photographer]