How To Plan and Host a Creative Retreat with Girlfriends

Let me explain a little about the reason for this creative retreat, before we get to the planning and hosting details.

Diane (South House Designs), Wendy (WM Design House), Michele (Vintage Home Designs), Lynn (Living Large in a Small House), Amy Sadler (Amy Sadler Designs), Cindy (Reinvented Delaware)

About 3 years ago, 5 of my blogger friends and I formed a Mastermind group.

A Mastermind for bloggers is a group of 5-6 bloggers that meet via zoom once a week.

It is a structured meeting where we discuss a topic that we have agreed upon, in advance.

These meetings involve learning new things associated with blogging, troubleshooting social media issues, working through a problem that we all might be struggling with or just brainstorming about ideas for our blogs.

We plan each zoom call meeting in advance and this way we are all prepared for the call with any info we can share or any questions we may have.

Having a planned topic for each call is the best way to stay on track and makes the call much more productive since we try to keep the call to about an hour.

Last year, for the first time since we formed the group, we got together in person for a working retreat weekend.

We are located all over the United States, and the first retreat location was in the Kansas City area which is fairly close to 2 of the ladies in the group.

We had such a great time and learned so much, we decided to have a creative retreat and meet in person once a year moving forward.

planning and hosting a creative retreat at my home

We started the planning process for this years retreat in early 2024.

Between all of our schedules, we ended up with a week in June for the retreat dates.

Since I have an airbnb close by my home, I offered to host the retreat because I could host 2 of the ladies at my home and the other 3 at the airbnb.

I live in Texas, just east of Dallas, in Rockwall.

Several of the ladies opted to drive to the Dallas area and a couple decided to fly because of the distance.

Since we planned the retreat several months in advance, they were able to watch for deals on airfare.

A couple of the ladies even figured out a way to ride together and had a wonderful time road tripping to Texas.

We planned to work at my large round dining table, because there was plenty of space for everyone to have room to work.

We also set up a long folding table in my living room so we could use a large monitor for zoom calls we had planned and it was an extra work area if someone wanted to spread out.

This made it much more cost effective for everyone since we didn’t have to rent a hotel room or book a retreat center.

We decided to have all of our meals at my home and save so much time with not having to go out.

This also made the retreat more economical, since eating out can get costly.

bathrooms

Nice and fluffy towels are a must!

I replaced all of my guest bathroom towels recently and found 2 brands that I have been really pleased with.

They have washed really well and have kept their nice feel.

They come in lots of colors, but I like to use white towels. White towels have more of a luxurious and spa like look and they can be bleached, if necessary.

A tip for keeping eye makeup from ruining your good white towels is to keep a jar of darker colored washcloths handy for guests. I keep a glass canister filled with rolled up washcloths and a note that says “eye make-up remover towels”.

My guest bathrooms are well stocked with any essentials that guests might need and might have forgotten to pack.

I have a container filled with travel size essentials like toothpaste, body lotion, makeup remover wipes, shave cream, hairspray, q-tips, cotton balls, etc. on a shelf in the bathroom.

Extra toothbrushes, contact solution, bandaids, and a few types of medicine like advil and tylenol are stored in a drawer in the bathroom.

I keep shampoo, conditioner and body wash in the shower and extra toilet paper and tissues nearby.

A bath robe is also a very nice thing to have out for a guest to use. I have a wreath hanger over the door in my guest bathroom with a cozy white bathrobe available for guests.

Lastly, I enjoy putting a small vase of fresh flowers beside the sink as well as a candle.

If you have the space, a small lamp is a nice added touch in a guest bathroom.

I like to turn the lamp on and light a candle prior to guests arriving.

hosting girlfriends at my airbnb

As I mentioned, a few of my friends stayed at my Airbnb that is nearby, during our retreat week.

It has 3 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms, which gave 3 of my friends a private bedroom and only 2 of them had to share a bathroom.

The bathrooms are stocked with shampoo, conditioner and body wash in the bathtub/showers.

And we also have travel size essentials that guests might have forgotten, stocked in each bathroom.

As with my home, I made sure the Airbnb smelled nice when my guests arrived by turning on diffusers ahead of time.

I don’t keep candles at the Airbnb because of fire hazard when we have guests booked through
Airbnb, but I do like to use the diffusers to keep the home smelling nice and clean.

There are lots of lamps in the home, so I made sure all of the lamps were on when my friends arrived.

I stocked the coffee bar with an assortment of flavors of Keurig coffee pods and different types of sweeteners, as well as an assortment of tea and a jar of honey.

A few flavors of coffee creamer, water bottles and soft drinks were stocked in the fridge.

A basket filled with fruit, granola bars and popcorn made it handy to grab a quick snack.

I also had a few baked goodies under a cake dome on the kitchen counter.

The kitchen is fully stocked with dishes, glasses, cookware, cooking essentials, etc., which makes it really nice for traveling guests.

I also leave a bottle of red and white wine for guests to enjoy during their stay.

Small vases filled with flowers from my garden were beside each bed, beside the sinks in the bathroom and on the kitchen table.

meals for a women’s retreat

The key to keeping the meals simple for our retreat week, was planning way in advance.

I have the menu listed below, and I will share recipes and the things I was able to make ahead.

We thought it would be fun to have a signature cocktail to enjoy the evening of everyone’s arrival and to kick off our creative retreat.

My friend, Lynn at Living Large in a Small House, gave me some ideas for a signature cocktail.

I looked through the recipes and ended up combining a couple and coming up with my own concoction.

I kept a beverage jar out and filled it with a different type of fruit water each day.

This made it easy for everyone to refill their water glass throughout the day.

A couple of days I had orange slices and mint sprigs from my garden. Another day, I used sliced strawberries and fresh basil sprigs from the garden.

Another one of my favorites of flavored water is fresh cucumber slices and I also love fresh pineapple with rosemary.

Be sure and use filtered water, fresh fruit/herbs and fill the container with ice. This will keep the water cold and refreshing for hours.

I also had sparkling water, a few soft drinks and iced tea each day. And fresh mint from my garden to add to water or iced tea.

Each morning I brewed coffee and had an assortment of coffee creamers and sweeteners as well as different flavored tea bags for hot tea.

I wanted to have several dessert options for the week, so I made 3 different desserts the day before the retreat and made one during the retreat that wasn’t really a great make ahead option.

menu

Day 1:
breakfast – Easy Brunch Casserole Southwestern Style

I made the casserole the day before my guests arrived and put in the fridge overnight. The next morning all I had to do was pop in the oven for about 45 minutes.
I served the breakfast casserole with a bowl of fresh fruit.

lunch – Pasta salad, egg salad, and pimento cheese was served the first day of our retreat. I used the recipe for pimento cheese from the Magnolia Table cookbook.
I had crackers and mini croissants to go along with the salads and fruit we had at breakfast.

dinner – Creamy Sun Dried Tomato Chicken Pasta was the main dish. This is my favorite pasta recipe to serve for dinner for a crowd. It calls for Rigatoni pasta, but I typically use wide egg noodles. Either way, it is delicious!!

I served the pasta with this caesar salad that my friend Lynn (Living Large In a Small House) made.
It was so good!!
We made homemade croutons for the salad and served with french bread and herbed butter.

Day 2:

breakfast – parfait cups with granola and fruit, bagels with cream cheese.

I used store bought Greek yogurt in an assortment of flavors and served them in small glass jars. I served homemade granola that I purchased at a specialty market in small bowls that fit perfectly on top of the jars of yogurt.

And had a bowl of cut up fruit to add to the yogurt.

I ordered the bagels ahead of time from a local bagel shop and picked them up early that morning and served with 3 flavors of cream cheese from the grocery store.

lunch – this Easy 3-ingredient Tomato Soup is my favorite tomato soup and the easiest you will ever make!! And it paired perfectly with my favorite Veggie Quiche for lunch with my friends.

dinner – for dinner, my husband graciously offered to grill steaks and salmon. We paired it with baked potatoes and this yummy Harvest Salad.

Day 3:
breakfast – My daughter makes dutch babies fairly often and they are so good! I decided to try a blueberry lemon dutch baby for breakfast during our retreat. These are SO easy to make and are amazing!!
The dutch baby was served with warm maple syrup, whipped cream and fresh fruit.

lunch – I made my very favorite chicken salad recipe for lunch this day. I got this recipe over 30 years ago from my favorite tea room in South Texas. The restaurant is no longer there, but they had several great cookbooks and this recipe is in the cookbook.
I served the chicken salad with mini croissants, potato chips and fresh fruit.

dinner – for dinner the last night, we had planned on getting take-out, but everyone insisted we have a buffet of leftovers from the week since we had so much food and so many options for everyone.

desserts:

peach cake with lemon glaze – my very favorite pound cake! It is SO moist and so easy to make and you won’t believe what one of the main ingredients is.
I made the pound cake the day before our retreat.

strawberry pie – I made an easy and yummy frozen pie the day before the retreat. Recipe for this coming soon!

cream cheese bars – these are always a crowd favorite. I also made these the day before the retreat.

berry dump cake with vanilla ice cream – Years ago, I used to make dump cake fairly often using canned pie filling.
At the beginning of the summer this year, I decided to try a dump cake using fresh berries. It turned out so good!
This isn’t really a great make ahead recipe, so this is the only dessert I didn’t make ahead, but it’s so simple to make, I through it together and baked it while we were having dinner.
It is best served warm anyway.
To make this recipe, just add about 2 cups fresh berries to the bottom of a 9×13 baking dish. I used fresh chopped strawberries, raspberries and blueberries but you can use any combination you like.
Sprinkle 1 box yellow cake mix over the top of the berries. Then cut up 1 1/2 sticks of butter into small squares on lay all over the top of the dry cake mix. Bake at 350 degrees for about 40 minutes.

signature cocktail: Blueberry and Lemonade Prosecco Cocktail

For our signature cocktail, I added 2 teaspoons of blueberry simple syrup to a cocktail glass.
Then I added a lemonade ice cube. I make these by freezing lemonade in large square ice cube molds.
Next, pour prosecco over the top of the ice cube, then give it a stir and garnish with a lemon slice and a few blueberries. It makes a beautiful berry color and a delightful and refreshing cocktail.

blueberry simple syrup:
Mix 1 cup sugar, 1 cup water and 1 cup of fresh blueberries together in a saucepan.
Bring to a bowl and continue stirring until blueberries pop open.
Let mixture cool, then put through a strainer to catch anything not completely liquified.
Pour into glass jar and store in fridge.

welcome gifts

Of course, a gift isn’t necessary to make your guests feel welcome.

This was just an extra special gathering and I already had a some things on hand to put a few gifts together.

The welcome gift was a canvas tote with a hand stamped design, a handmade notepad and a beautiful watercolor bookmark, made by my mom who is an artist.

I happened to have some canvas tote bags on hand from when I had a storefront, and I stamped a design on the front using some large rubber stamps I already had.

The notepads were picked up at the dollar store and I selected paper that fit the personality of each guest and attached it to the front of the notebook.

I thought the notepads would come in handy for our creative retreat. They are super easy to make and very inexpensive. More details about these and a DIY coming next week.

Lastly, my sweet mom offered to hand watercolor a bookmark for each of my friends.

These were the perfect addition to the notepads and tote bags.

I tied fabric ribbons around the handle of each tote bag and a name tag made from a shipping label tag and placed one on each guest’s bed.

my favorite things gift exchange

One of the gals in our group had the idea to do a favorite things gift exchange during our retreat.

We all loved the idea and agreed on an amount that we would spend on each gift.

Each of us bought or handmade 5 gifts (all the same gift) to share with everyone. This way each of us received a favorite thing from each person.

For example, my “favorite thing” was my favorite candle, so I bought 5 of the Rosemary candles and each person in the group received one of the candles.

This was so fun and a great way to take a break from working one evening.

work plan/schedule and zoom calls

For this type of retreat, we set a daily plan, so we could stay on track and accomplish as much as possible.

Each day we had a zoom call scheduled (one of the days it was an in person meeting) with someone that specialized in something we wanted to learn more about.

We scheduled the calls early in the day and spent a few hours right after the call to work on things we had learned.

It was a great way to make sure we didn’t forget and also bounce ideas off of each other while it was fresh on our minds and we were all together.

The last day, we did a brief recap and had a Q&A, as a group, for things we still wanted to work on.

more details for how to plan and host a creative retreat with girlfriends

Be sure and take a group photo and photos throughout the week/retreat.

Ask about food allergies or dislikes ahead of time and plan the menu accordingly.

I also asked what everyone likes to drink drink during the day. Coffee or tea in AM, water, iced tea or specific soft drinks, and if you are planning to serve wine, if they prefer red or white.

conclusion – how to plan and host a creative retreat with girlfriends

I can’t begin to tell you how enjoyable and productive this week was.

It was a wonderful opportunity to get to know each of these ladies better.

And it is so much more productive to work together in person.

It’s so helpful to bounce ideas off of each other and problem solve together.

We are each others biggest cheerleaders and truly understand the struggles any one of us may be having from time to time.

They are such a huge support system and everyone is always so willing to help and share their knowledge with the group.

There is no judgement, no competition and a whole lot of grace with this group, and I couldn’t be more grateful to be a part of it!

We enjoyed this time together so much and it was such a successful retreat that we are planning to meet in person, once a year, moving forward.

Since we all live in different parts of the country, the plan is to meet in a different place each year.

This way, we get to visit each others homes and see a glimpse of their part of the country and lifestyle there.

I’m already excited about next year!!

I hope you enjoyed seeing my ideas for how to plan and host a creative retreat for girlfriends and get inspiration for hosting your own retreat.

Please comment below or message me if you have any questions.

blessings,

Everyone in my mastermind group is sharing a post today that is related to our creative retreat.
Be sure and pop over and visit each one to get more ideas and inspiration.

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