Hi everyone!

Can you believe the Holidays are upon us this week?! It amazes me how every year life seems to be going by faster and faster… or is that just old age creeping up on me? Anyone else feel this way too?

Since Christmas will be here before we know it, I wanted to share a little bit of what’s going on at Art & Faith Creative as we get the Holidays started.

First off, let me say a BIG thank you to everyone who followed along a couple weeks ago when I shared some stories of God’s faithfulness at our last retreat in Italy. It was so fun to get your messages and kind emails with encouragement. So THANK YOU. I am finally feeling better and have just a little bit on the lingering cough left.

As some of you may know, I have an online SHOP that we recently created for this new website! I’ve just added some really fun hand painted items in there, and I’ll be adding more items soon.

I have a limited amount of Christmas ornaments that are hand-painted watercolor scenes from Lake Como, Italy. I thought they’d be a great reminder of your trip to Italy with us (or just Italy in general) for your Christmas Tree or for all year round!

I also have some new colors in our handmade Travelers Notebook Journals, and I’m loving them! If you have any friends or family who love journaling or planning, these are great Christmas gifts, handmade IN Bellagio for you. They’re also great for those who like to do a “December Daily” and I’m offering a FREE class for the month of December that they’d be great for! (more on that below)

Just an FYI… Check back later this week because there’ll be a BIG Black Friday Sale in our SHOP.

Now for the FREE “December Daily” class:

I posted on IG and FB, but I wanted to make sure I shared about this on my blog too! I’m super excited about offering this class that will be an “at your own pace” class throughout the month of December. I’ll be sharing how I take time to “Advent Journal” AND document our December memories, with daily encouragement and Advent scripture to go with it. If you want to join in let me know and I’ll send you all the details! We’ve got a good sized group started and I’d love to have you join us too!

As most of you know, we have 3 retreats next year and I honestly I haven’t been spending much time sharing about them online. (This is the part that I’m not good at… and would love some help on this) So I thought I’d update everyone on all three here:

England: July 7 - 18, 2024

I will be closing registration for the England retreat in January, because I need to have the exact number of women joining us so I can organize all the transportation and hotels. This retreat has a lot of puzzle pieces to it, so if you’ve been thinking and praying about joining us next July in England… now is your chance to sign up! We have only THREE spots left.

Lake Como, Italy: June 22 - 29, 2024

We only have FOUR spots left for this retreat, but we’d love to have you join us in Bellagio next summer! Becky from Farmgirlpaints, her daughters and my daughters will all be there and we can’t wait to have fun in Bellagio again! It was such a JOY to have them join us last summer… that I knew I wanted to ask them back!

If you really want to see Italy through the lens of a local, this is the retreat for you! My heart is to share the beauty of Lake Como with you, and the best way to do that is through the lens of so many of our friends who live there and you get to connect with. Of course being in this incredible setting and refreshing our faith with other like-minded women who love being creative AND who love Jesus is such a blessing too!

Woodstock, Vermont: October 5 - 11

This retreat has kind of been on the back burner. I haven’t really advertised this one at all, but it’s such a wonderful time in a gorgeous farmhouse, in the heart of the fall foliage of New England! It’s also the only retreat I host in the US at the moment, so if you don’t want to fly across the “pond” to one of our retreats, then this is the one for you! After the New Year I’ll share more about this retreat, but there’s probably 7-8 spots left as of right now.

You can find all the details of each retreat HERE.

So friends, that’s a wrap of what’s going on for the rest of this Year at Art & Faith Creative!

I hope all of you have a wonderful Christmas Season. I want you to know it is a joy to get to know each one of you! You are such a blessing to me and I thank you so much for taking the time to read my blog, to share your words of encouragement with me and to come on the retreats I host. It’s beyond anything I could have dreamed up on my own. God is SO good.

Hugs to all,

Laura

P.S. I’m praying next year I can finish this book I started years ago, that shares my journey of faith, (and hopefully encourages others in the process) and tells the story of how the Lord got me up out of a lounge chair to start living my life for Him.