Happy Friday Morning Sweet Shoppers! Can you believe that this is the very last Friday in the month? My favorite month is just right around the corner! But before we bid farewell to lovely September we have one more Blog Bonus Challenge for your portfolio.

This week we are featuring Elizabeth McFarland (mummytothree).  I’ve always admired Elizabeth’s pages and her ability to capture the moment. She’s one of my “go to galleries” when I am short on scrap inspiration.

Here’s Elizabeth’s Basic Scrap Stats:

“I’ve never paper scrapped, well I’ll take that back, I’ve never had the desire to paper scrap but a friend did give me an album as a gift for the birth of my 3rd child in 2004. I think I printed about 5 pictures and tried to create some pages. But it was soon forgotten and pushed aside in the clutter of a house with 3 young children. In October 2005 I went searching the internet for ideas for “graphic/clipart” birthday cards and I stumbled upon a digital scrap booking site. I was amazed and immediately started scouring the internet for more about this wonderful hobby. I’ve been hooked ever since!!!  My program of choice is Photoshop Elements 6.”

I asked Elizabeth what her 3 favorite layouts or projects were and why.

This is page is one of my favorites for many reasons: I just loved the color scheme of the kit and thought it worked so well with my photo. I also love this page because the photo contains every piece of my heart, my loving and wonderful hubby and my 5 beautiful babies!!! They really are my everything!!!

This hybrid tin hold a very near and dear place in my heart!! I lost 2 brothers within 18 months of each other and it left a huge gaping wound in my heart and I needed to help my self heal a little. I figured the best way to do that was to make a little tribute about them. So I made this tin (and another like it) full of some of my favorite photos of my 2 brothers and then I gave them to my mom and sister to carry around with them in their purses/bag. They could pull it out and look at it at any time just for themselves or to share with others.

This one is special to me because it is all my feelings poured out about all my failed attempts to breastfeed my 4 previous children and now how with a baby that was never planned and a totally surprise I was giving another chance to succeed and how I did succeed and have even a surplus of pumped milk.

I asked Elizabeth a few more questions about her and her scrapping style:

What are 2 things you consider yourself to be very good at?
Baking and sewing!!! Between taking care of my family and home they are about the only hobbies I have time to keep up with regularly. It helps that I have a sweet tooth and my family loves to eat, eat, eat and I always have a kid or two that has outgrown……something!!!

What gets your scrap mojo going?
My kids and the funny/goofy and sometimes even maddening things they say and do on a daily basis!! With a family my size there is always a memory that needs recorded and remembered!!! That’s what keeps me scrapping….so I don’t forget those “little things”!!!

What is your scrapping “atmosphere”?
Laptop in hand, sitting in my recliner (with the feet up of course), tucked in the corner of my toy littered living room with the TV blaring the latest Nick Jr. show.  There is usually at least 2 (if not 3, 4 and on occasion all 5) of my kids running amuck.

What’s your favorite element to use on a page?
String!!! I love string!! I love to layer it under things, over things, around and through things. I think I love it so much because to me it SCREAMS real and that’s what I strive for most in my scrapping is to make my pages seem as close to “paper pages” as possible.

Blog bonus challenge #4 – it’s a Neapolitan! For this challenge – use elements, design items and so on from the 3 layouts below to create your own page. Make sure you upload this layout to the SSD Gallery before the end of September and mark this challenge as Blog Bonus #4 in your Challenge Tracker and mark as 1 point. You can combine this challenge with a new release point for a total of 2, but this challenge cannot be combined with any other challenge in the September portfolio.

Here are the 3 layouts:

Here are what the lovely Babes came up with for the Neapolitan challenge!

Tracy used Tropical Hideaway by KCB. LO #1 – # of photos and placement, LO #2 – paper peeking out from behind and title placement and LO #3 – stacked patterned paper behind photo.

Here is Keely’s using Fall Frolic by Zoe Pearn:

One from Amy using Beautiful Fall, Shawna Clingerman.  From LO#1: stitched border , two photo cluster on the left, from the second layout: Word strip cluster on the photo, skinny journaling on the right and from the third layout: circle behind three photos, ric rac and ribbon behind photos.

Have fun with this challenge and HAPPY FRIDAY!