Crop with Shannon Zickel

For years I've been a huge fan of Shannon Zickel's work. I remembering seeing her layouts in magazines and then I started to follow her blog. In mid-February, I found out that she was hosting a "fun"draising crop just an hour from me. The registration fee was $30, but you received an American Crafts SPORTS themed kit with early registration. Hello? I can use sports themed products! I talked my aunt and my best friend into going with me. The three of us (im)patiently waited for the six weeks to pass until the crop. Saturday afternoon we arrived a bit early for the 3:30 crop. I knew we were in the right spot when we entered the church gym and I recognized Shannon's younger son from her layouts!

Shannon was great just as I expected and very, very fun to be around. We had a great time and helped close out the crop just after 2 a.m.!

In addition to socializing and taking advantage of some great bargains, I managed to finish 7 layouts.

Using the Sports-themed kit, I lifted a layout that Shannon had copied in our kit bag. These shots are a from November '07 when we went to watch Murray State play at Western Kentucky. Tom was a bit disappointed that Kevin cheered for Western - he's a fan of their mascot!
My second layout followed a sketch from Inspired Blueprints and won second place in the sketch contest. Yay! I won a Fiskars punch. I used an American Crafts Christmas kit that I ordered when I registered for the crop.

"Merry Christmas" was also based on a sketch from Inspired Blueprints and used the same Christmas kit. I didn't enter this one in the contest though. It's not my favorite layout, but I did finally scrap these photos that had never seemed to inspire me. I can never seem to get "good" photos at the school Christmas programs because of the (lack of) lighting.

I had some stories that I've been wanting to tell lately. The ruled paper from Sassafrass Lass' "Apple Jack" line worked perfectly to tell the story of Kevin on display at school for his love of reading. (My photo of this LO didn't turn out too good - I may try to retake it later...) I do love the simplicit of this layout. And, the colors make me happy. More ruled lines on Sassafrass Lass...this time to tell the story of Kevin's love for a friend's grandmother. The lady brings brown paper bags FULL OF CANDY to basketball games and Kevin stalks her. He ends up with a full sized candy bar or bag of m&ms! I actually cut the ruled pattern out of the sheet of paper and then adhered it to cardstock using pop dots.

While I had the Sassafrass Lass papers out, I matched these shots of Kevin at Build-A-Bear Workshop to some patterns and made a simple 2-pager.

Apparently smooshing my photos into the center of my 2-page layout and adding strips of pattern paper is my "go to" design. I had to laugh when I realized how similar "Lincoln's Birthplace" (below) was to "making monk e." (above). For these shots of Kevin's 1st grade field trip, I FINALLY used the Fancy Pants "Rough & Tough" line that I've had for a while now. I think it's one of the lines I've been "saving." Do you ever save products?

I was exhausted from the crop, but it was worth it. I have a bag full of new products and more ideas for scrapping than I have time to scrap!

Thank you Shannon and Crystal for a wonderful crop!