Last weekend, I had the opportunity to attend a weekend crop retreat in Tucson, my very first! I was invited by my friend Helen, whom I met through the Sistas Scrap Too MB over at cricut.com. To say that I had a wonderful time with the Scrapbook Chicks at their inaugural Crop Re-Tweet is an understatement. Had I not had a child and a job to return to, I might not have come home at all. Scrapbooking really is cheaper than therapy, but I digress.

I took everything with me, including the kitchen sink, and yet only got six or seven pages done. I have to do better. I'm on a quest to organize all of my embellies so that they're accessible at home, yet easy to grab for a crop. So yesterday, I purchased one of these at Michael's (with a 50% off Joann's coupon) in pink and purple. But again I digress because this is not the reason for my post.

I decided to pack layouts that had been in various stages of completion and work on those first. I began with two pictures of my grandparents and a sketch that was posted in April over at the SST Cricut MB. You can see the sketch here. So I got paper and embellies together and took them to a crop I went to in May I think it was. That kit never got touched, so I brought it with me to the retreat and am quite pleased with the results. This is the first time I have EVER done a layout about my grandparents and I have been scrapbooking for ten years.

I made an unintended slice through my grandmother's photo but was able to cover it with the embellishment and journaling tag. I was also drinking a bottle of water that had begun to sweat and a drop or two fell on my grandfather's photo. I decided that it didn't show and made the decision not to reprint the photo.

So before I end this post and share my pictures, let me tell you what I learned this time around. First, while it is important to scrap the everyday moments and events, it is equally important to preserve your history. Don't forget to tell those stories from the past. Second, if you make a mistake on a layout or damage a picture, it can often be repaired or disguised. Take this opportunity to see where your creativity will lead you. And finally, don't drink water over your layouts! Thanks for looking!

Have you ever started a layout with a specific outcome in mind, and as you begin to work, you realize it is taking a totally different direction and you feel powerless to correct it? That's what happened with this layout.

I made this layout to satisfy two challenges; the first was from a sketch posted on the Sistas Scrap Too messageboard over at cricut.com. The sketch was one done by Valerie Salmon and posted over at Got Sketch. You can see the sketch here. The other challenge I decided to satisfy was one from Stacy Julian sent to the LOM Community over at BigPictureScrapbooking.com. We were to create a layout using seven pictures from our Storage Binders.

Since this layout was about my son's birthday, my intent was to use colors and patterned paper to create a layout that projected a happy day. Now remember, I am "patterned paper challenged." So, I decided to pull some paper from my DCWV -  Fun in the Sun Summer Stack a stack that I bought on clearance a year or two ago. While the colors and the patterns go together well, I ended up with an unintended result. Despite the yellow background, my layout started to have a decidedly "4th of July" feel to it. So I chose another pattern to use for the title to kind of offset that feel. Not so sure that I succeeded, but it is what it is.



What I learned with this layout is:

1. I really need to work at not pasting things down as I go. I have tendency to do this which means it becomes very hard to make changes if you're not happy with the result.
2. The paper was not cardstock weight and usually when I use paper this light I adhere it to another piece of cardstock. I was lazy this time and didn't do so. Consequently there was some buckling in some of the pieces that I adhered and a little warping in the layout.
3. I should have made the frame for my title a little narrower from top to bottom, or placed the letters a little higher within the frame. The current placement gives the look of trapped white space.

Thanks for looking!