National Scrapbooking Month is almost here! If you’ve been with us for a while, you know that we do a lot to celebrate our love for preserving memories, and this coming May is no exception! In fact, May is so full of creative opportunities that we are spilling over into June with our fabulous virtual May Album Retreat!

Album Retreats are events unique to Close To My Heart, where we get together to make the pages of a 12″ x 12″ album. We offer a bundle of materials you will need to create 11 beautiful 12″ x 12″ two-page layouts over the course of three days of instruction. At May’s Album Retreat, we will be creating a “Core Memories” themed album, where each layout is intended to frame and preserve major moments from our lives that help shape who we are.

Get an up-close look at the pages of the album with our Creative Arts Manager, Karen Pederson:

We love Album Retreat for many reasons. For starters, the albums we make are full of techniques and free instruction! From shading with alcohol markers to distressing embossed paper details, every page in May’s album features a technique that we will teach live, during the event. We pride ourselves in being the “Let Me Show You How” company, and this is a wonderful opportunity to do just that.

Album Retreat also provides an opportunity to share new and exclusive products. In the product bundle for this May’s retreat you will find two exclusive stamp sets, including a reusable versatile alphabet stamp set, exclusive acrylic shapes and die-cuts, a coordinating embossing folder, Thin Cuts die, and stencil set, and a sneak of patterned papers that will not be available for months!

The main reason we enjoy our Album Retreats so much, however, is because we get to spend time creating with all of you! We host the retreat live on Facebook and read every one of your comments and questions. Oftentimes, we’ll read and answer questions on camera for the benefit of everyone participating.

To join us this May, simply purchase the May 2023 Album Retreat Bundle. There is no separate registration fee! As we get closer to the event date, we will invite everyone who has purchased the bundle to join a private Facebook group where the retreat will be hosted virtually.

The retreat will be held May 31–June 2, from 2:00 pm to approximately 8:30 pm (MT) each day. (That’s 1–3 June, 6:00 am–12:30 pm (AEST) for our friends in Australia and New Zealand.) The last day to order your bundle is May 9, and that’s only if we don’t run out of them before then, so mark your calendars if you haven’t ordered yours already!

Hosting a retreat like this virtually has its perks. Not only do we get to have as many of you attend as would like to, because there is no limited seating, but once the feed is no longer live, Facebook saves the videos so you can return to watch them repeatedly at your own convenience!

And, just like last time, we want everyone to have a chance to join us, so we are giving away a FREE Album Retreat product bundle, here on the blog! That means that one lucky reader will not only get a bundle of select and exclusive products, but they will also have access to the private virtual retreat we are hosting on Facebook in May!!

For an entry into this contest, there are two requirements: First, you must be subscribed to this blog. (It’s an easy step that often gets overlooked, so make sure that you are actually subscribed because we do check!) Second, share this blog post on Facebook with the hashtag #ctmhcorememories. That’s it! You have from now until 3 pm (MT) on April 24 (7 am (AEST) on 25 April). The winner will be notified via email later next week! [This contest is now closed.]

Get a quick glimpse at some of the interactive elements from May’s gorgeous album, below!

See you in May!