Winter Croppin'

Personal Scrapper is hosting an online crop and I enjoyed working on some challenges this weekend.

I pulled out my Crate Paper "North Pole" scraps and knocked out a couple of challenges. The first one was to scrap a hobby. I scrapped Blake's hobby of playing the drums. The photos I used were from a performance he had with the percussion ensemble at his school. I scraplifted a layout by Allison Davis for this one. This next challenge was to use bling on a holiday layout. I lifted Melanie Call, the guest designer for this month at Personal Scrapper.

I used my OLD May 2008 Personal Scrapper kit for the "use up a kit" challenge. The kit is now all gone. I scrapped a page about my younger sister being a mom now. Her baby was born in September. The photos are from Thanksgiving. I was also able to use up the rest of the Cosmo Cricket "Earth Love" papers I had in my stash, too. I made four more layouts with it. The first one documents my husband's relationship with my nephew. Luke is so funny around Tom! I completed a "recipe" challenge with it. I have one piece of cardstock, two sheets of patterned paper, three photos, two alphabets and another embellishment (rick rack).

The crop this month introduced a few sketches by members. "Cheese" is based on a LO by Sheila Mayden. It's about my dad and the journaling tells about how hard it's always been to get pictures of him and includes a few recent funny shots.

"Hair Today" is based on a sketch by Lisa Hidy. I turned the sketch upside down to make this LO. I loved Reese's headband and curls on Thanksgiving.

Reese is becoming a popular topic in my albums! I had to do one more of her from Thanksgiving for Kevin's album. The challenge was to scraplift a design team member and I lifted Carrie Postma. (She's also the owner of Paper Trunk.)There is a "TV Time" challenge to use either the title of a TV show or some other inspiration from it. I used an Informercial - hey, they are on TV! Blake asked for and received a Snuggie for Christmas. I think they are the craziest thing ever. (I mean, really...it's just a housecoat worn backwards!) He talked me into putting it on Christmas afternoon and Kevin snapped these pics for me. See the Dec. tag in the upper corner... I've had it for years. It's so nice to use something old.

The home decor challenge had me stumped until I was looking through my alphabet sticker baskets and I noticed a plain white waiting-to-be altered A that I bought over a year ago. I covered it simply in a fun striped paper by October Afternoon and simply added a couple flowers and an old bottle cap looking brad by K&Co. It's a nice accent in my newly redesigned scrap area.

I think I have two or three challenges left if I want to finish them all. Check back to see if I can get them all finished!