Scrapping at a Crop

That's from my art journal.  A list of things to pack for the crop.  On Saturday I went to an all-day crop with my local group, the Manhattan Scrapbookers.  It was our annual holiday party.  Here's a quick pic:

As it turns out, I'm one of the tallest in the group, maybe even the tallest.  Which is why I'm hiding in the back.  I love the Manhattan Scrapbookers.  It's a wonderfully diverse group and everyone's tastes and talents are all over the map! 

Scrapbooking at a crop is different from scrapbooking at home.  I mean, duh.  But I find that the atmosphere and lack of all-my-stuff makes me create differently.  I was not super productive on Saturday, but I did make three layouts, and I thought I would chat a bit about how being at a crop shaped these layouts.

First of all, all of these layouts were made using Studio Calico's December kit, "Orchestra."  When cropping, I find it easiest to just stick a kit in my crop bag.  No need to pack all of my paper and embellishments and all that stuff.  Someone else has already done it for me!

Here are some of the ways that being at a crop changed the way this layout was created:

I hand cut all of these little flower shapes.  I do do some hand cutting at home, but I find the chatty atmosphere at a crop is perfect for tasks like these.  You don't have to pay too much attention to doing it, so you can chat with your neighbors and look at what people are doing and before  you know it, you have a whole pile of hand cut delights!

This is one of those time issues.  I added Rock Candy Distress Stickles to all of these hand cut elements.  And I have to say, it adds some lovely sparkle!  Originally, I had been thinking about adding individually colored bits of glitter to the cut pieces (to reflect the printed colors), but it seemed too involved for sitting at a crop (and too much drying time).  Much easier to smear on some clear stickles and hit them with a heat gun!

Normally, I would have stitched that paper ruffle on the left side with  my sewing machine.  No machine, so I pulled out the embroidery floss.  And that made me think of stitching together the ditch between the two pieces of patterned paper, instead of just filling it in with another piece of paper.

Here are some of the ways that being at a crop changed the way this layout was created:

I wanted really black letters for this layout.  If I had been at home, I would have simply grabbed some of my favorite vinyl ones.  But I was at a crop.  So I hand cut the letter and I'm happy that I did.  I think they look great!  (The mini tags were fun to make too!)

What do you do when  you don't have buttons?  Make them, of course!  I wanted something decorative to splash across the page, so I put together these wonky little paper circles to mimic the look of buttons.  This kit, by the way, does have buttons, they're just the wrong color for what I wanted.

This is a photo of cheating.  I said it.  Cheating.  At the crop, I sprayed my layout (you can still sort of see the sprayed part under the title and along the right side).  I then wrote my journaling on top of the sprayed area.  When I got home I just hated it so much.  Too busy.  You couldn't read the journaling.  Ick.  So I cut out a piece of green paper, fed it into my typewriter, re-typed the journaling, glued it over the sprayed area...and voila!  Problem fixed.

Here are some of the ways that being at a crop changed the way this layout was created:

The letters included in the kit weren't big enough, so I cut my own.  I also sprayed them with ink, which I think creates a cool stenciled effect.

Normally, I would have stitched this banner after crumpling it.  But no sewing machine.  So I used the brads from the kit to secure the crumples in place!

See the green on green paint?  That's watercolor mixed with gesso.  I didn't have any acrylic paint with me and I needed an opaque green for the cardstock.  So, I mixed the two mediums and voila!  Also the ink splats are because I was playing with my nib pen and I wanted to emphasize that I was using a nib pen.  That doesn't really have anything to do with being at a crop, but I wanted to mention it.

So there you have it.  Necessity is the mother on invention.  And you can always come home and fix it!

Thanks for stopping by!