For the first time in (forever), I attended a weekend crop with a friend and scrapped for the pure JOY of it.  I didn't think about:

• whose product I was using, or
• if it was current, or
• if it was repeatable and cost-effective (which is always my instructor/workshop trap that I fall into)
• and I didn't teach any classes.  Not one.

I just played.

I am out of practice when it comes for packing for a crop, so I also gave into that.  Along with my regular supplies I packed my laptop and printer so that I could hybrid it up a bit if necessary.  I am happy to say it was just one trip back and forth to the car – not the 'tower of supplies' that I packed in ages past.

The first layout I made was all about Cameron.  I had this lovely sequence of photos where Neil sneaks up to his side and attacks him with a bucket of water in the surf.  I love his happy expression in these photos.

 
I used FABULOUS papers from the New England line of papers designed by my friend, Jen Starr for Zsiage.  She was kind enough to bring these for me to use when I told her I had lots of beach photos I wanted to work with.

I took the doodle paper and cut it up to use it as 'waves'. 

 
Tracing around the 'waves' with Glossy Accents and used a white gel pen to make my title letters stand out against the background.

I am pleased to say that this first layout of the weekend was also the First Place winner for the Summer Layout contest.  Woo Hoo!!

The next layout features Courtney.  Yes, I admit that I have to scrap 'evenly'.  Each kid gets a page that features each, in turn, during a crop.

 
This is a hybrid layout.  I utilized a Scrap Within Reach kit, and changed the colors from blues and greens to match my photos.  I do love how easy it is to crop photos to fit within a digital layout.  Once printed out, I created 'noodles', sprayed with Glimmer Mist and rolled alongside each photo.  I used the same colors to spray the title chipboard letters and added glitter alphabet stickers to complete the title.  A self-adhesive felt embellishment was added to the bottom as well as a few crystal stickers to the printed flowers.  I love how this one addition brings an otherwise flat hybrid page to life.

 
And there is just no better way to get perfectly color coordinated matching paper for your layout.

And here is another layout, this time featuring Brianna during the Fourth of July bike parade.  She won the best decorated for her age group, most likely because of not only the red/white/blue-decorated braces she wears on her teeth, but also the festively dressed American Girl doll that was riding shotgun on her bike.  A winning combination. 🙂

 
Once again, a hybrid layout.  I adjusted the colors on this Prima RFH Youth digital scrapbook paper by Meredith Fenwick.  I made the dusty pink color into red, and changed the grey background to blue to make it a patriotic layout.  Once printed, I added snippets of the Youth transparency, cut up for some 4's and a 1 as well as flocked alphabet stickers.  Chipboard alphabet letters and a butterfly embellishment were colored with Glimmer Mist to resemble flag colors.  My Copic Markers colored the clear slide frame for the smaller inset picture of the doll.

And to finish off the layout sharing for this post, I have one that shows all three kidoodles.

 
The challenge when putting girls / boy layouts together is color.  I like to include a little pink in there – so I chose embellishments that emphasized the green colors in the paper and the added a touch of pink Glimmer Mist on all four corners and the torn edge on the title cardstock at upper left.  But the layout still felt a little flat on color, so I accented the printed paper with my Copic Spica glitter pens.

 
They are translucent glitter pens, so in order to take over the green color underneath, I applied them in 'dots' – a heavy application to make it more opaque.

While I have several more layouts to show you, I decided to break it up into multiple posts.  So thank you for looking – and there will be more to come tomorrow evening.

After a couple of Facebook updates about sold out workshops, I have gotten a few e-mails about Texas, which has been sitting here on the sidebar in 'details will be posted' status far too long.  I will let y'all know about that as soon as I can get somebody on the phone (you know who you are!).  Looking to get that done by the end of the week.

P.S. If you Facebook friend me (http://www.facebook.com/sallylynn.macdonald), you will get a blip when I post new stuff on the blog as well as random stuff, like when workshops are sold out.  I refuse to Twitter.  There, I said it.

Type to you soon!