To freestyle or not to freestyle? That is the question

I had another lovely day at the Eclectic Keepsakes crop on Saturday. As always Karen M had made some very yummy cupcakes (diet went out the window) and Karen C had designed a gorgeous layout, using Mind's Eye Lime Twist papers,  for us to do in the afternoon.

I really enjoy going to crops and I always want to make the most of my day scrapping. This month I actually managed to finish something! In total I have six pages to add to my total for the year, hooray!

In the morning I did a layout for a Let's Scrap challenge. The challenge was to include the word "time" in the title. I entitled mine "Over Time", the journalling reads "your teeth will grow back. It seems as soon as one grows back another starts to wobble. Between ages 6 to 7 I have lost count of how many teeth the tooth fairy has taken." My Sister took these lovely photos of Ella for me. I am starting to get used to that toothy grin, just as well as the tooth fairy came to visit again last night.

The other layout I completed used the same sketch from Let's Scrap. I used the photos that I took the other week at the new playground at Highwoods. Ella loves it there and has no problem with me taking lots of photos. I am finding my pages a little plain, but I am not brave enough to take that next step and be bolder. I am hoping that, that will come with practice.

After a quick lunch (I was starving) Karen showed us her gorgeous layout, which used some lovely papers from Minds Eye. This is where my freestyling quandary starts, do I follow Karen's gorgeous layout (shown below) exactly or do I make a couple of small changes? Just in case you are like me and haven't come across the term freestyling (I hadn't until I started going to the crop) it is when you take somebodies layout and do your own thing with it. The ladies at the crop like to take the mickey about it, it is a standing joke.

Well to start with I still have no working printer so I used a single photo that I had in my stash, rather than Karen's three. I also used different wording using those fab wood grain alphas. I also didn't add the rosette but you will see why in a bit. So here is my finished freestyled (only a little).

I loved Karen's orginal layout, but I think that it is nearly impossible not to freestyle just a small bit for a couple of reasons, firstly we all have different tastes, I am not as brave as some and tend to go for quite simple layouts, but I love that the crop lessons take me out of my comfort zone and I now have some lovely layouts that I would never of been brave enough to come up with. Secondly we all have different photos, our subjects vary greatly. Thirdly we all have different stories to tell. 

So using the leftovers from the above layout (they were too lovely to put away) I did my sixth layout. I carried on Karen's cloud theme and also used those lovely alphas again. I also used the rosette from the original layout, also adding two more. I am very pleased with myself and I have also now added the Tim Holtz rosette die to my wish list.

So there we go, I had a very productive crop. I also came home to discover that someone had finally done my challenge, hooray! I was starting to think that I would have no takers. 

Yesterday I went shopping with my Mum and I bought a dress pattern, so there is a new project on the horizon, I just need to find some lovely summery material.