Great day at the crop!

OMG! Life is just waaaaay too busy, ya know what I mean. Last Sunday { yes! a WHOLE week ago!} I hosted my first ever crop!!! Now here I am a week later FINALLY getting to post something about it!   It might have something to do with the fact that I'm up to my eyeballs getting ready for Chelsea's graduation this coming Wed and Thursday. Between painting a mural { for part of the grad decorating} and trying to get my weed infested garden up to "picture worthy standards" for Chelsea and her peeps...well let's just say that I'm a tad over stretched { and falling off the ladder and busting my knee while up painting the mural has done NOTHING to help me get all this 'stuff' accomplished!} But, again, I am way off track. Back to the crop... there was eleven of us there ( a few less than I had hoped for but not bad for my first crop }. The girls thoroughly enjoyed the make-n-take mini album that I taught them. We made that first, stopped for a quick lunch and then got down to some serious scrapping . And let me tell you, some of those ladies are quick , organized croppers who produced ALOT of beautiful LOs!

Gorgeous work ladies!

The girls had lots of fun, learned a few new things, LOVED all their prizes and new goodies, and are already asking me to organize the next one ! So I guess I can consider it a success! PHEW! I can admit now that I was very nervous ...mostly afraid of not living up to everyone's expectations...but lots of positive feedback makes me feel I did OK.

There were lots of little giveaways during the day . The three door prizes were won by Shirley B{ Texture Boutique and one embossing folder}, Susan B { Graphic 45 Once upon a Springtime kit from Scrapthat! Check out their gorgeous kits here }, and Inez C. won two free tickets for a beautiful cruise around the Bay of Islands that was generously donated by my BFF Tracey of Crystal Waters.

Here's some  pics of the gang!

back l-r Tracy C,Tracey R, Shirley B, SusanB, Lisa H ,JuneE, Ann J,Shirley B

front l-r Yours truly, Inez C

 { missing from photo Catherine R who was a good girl and left to finish studying for her exams!}

I spent a very busy day teaching the mini, helping people with the Cricut and the Cuttlebug ,etc so I didn't get a heck of alot of scrapping done myself but I did manage to finish ONE LO 10 minutes before the crop ended [ literally 10 mins!].

Cute eh?

This is a pic from the early '50s of my Aunt Levinia { she's the littlest one}. I fell in love with these 'Merry January ' pps when I  first spied them. I know they are supposed to be a "winter' paper but as you can see they work just fine for other topics too. I made the flowers in the corner. I KNOW it looks like a jar to the rt side of the pic { as several people have commented on my Scrapbook.com site} but really it's not LOL.

The 'family' square was cut from the accompanying embellie sheet from that paper line and then I cut a journal spot to fit behind it. For some reason I decided to round the corners of both pieces and thus it turned out looking like a jar! LOL. Doesn't help that the ribbon pull tab on the journaling spot is missing from these photos ...oh well!

Thanks so much to Tracey R for pushing  me to do this, providing the venue and donating tickets for a door prize, to Katherine F, my Stampin' Up rep{check her out here} who popped by for moral support,offered lots of advice { plus chopped all those apples for the afternoon snack LOL} and to Kelly {{check out here blog here!} who has pushed me since last winter to get my arse in gear and just do this thing! {plus offered tonnes of advice! } Thanks ladies!

Well ,it's pouring down rain ,yet I have a TON of garden work to do so I guess I'd better get on my rubber boots and rain slicker and get to it! Thanks for dropping by!