Happy 2022, Sweet Scrapbooking Friends! If you’ve been reading the Shoppe’s weekly newsletters and keeping up in the Forum, you’ll know that our monthly challenge-and-reward system is changing up a bit. After three years of fun, our Passport system is being retired to make way for the brand new monthly This or That? Challenges!

 

Now, for each of the 15 squares on your tracker, you can choose one of two challenges, whichever prompt is more to your liking. For example, square #5: you can either scrap a “looking forward” page for 2022 (option a), or a “looking back” page for 2021 (option b).

It’s about giving you more inspiration to scrap your family’s photos, and more choices as you earn discounts in the Sweet Shoppe.

You’ll find all the details along with each month’s challenge thread in the This or That? Challenges Forum.

Let’s start off the week on a high note by highlighting five standout layouts that were posted in the This or That? Challenges Gallery over the weekend.

New Year’s Eve by iScrap

Challenge 5a – Scrap a looking forward page for 2022

This layout looks like a stained glass window – it’s so pretty! The template is from Cindy Schneider’s Christmas Whimsy set, and iScrap has used it skillfully by making some beautiful patterned paper selections and choosing gorgeous elements for the clusters. I also commend her on the perfect placement of the clock at the top center, as it evokes the ball dropping in Times Square.

Canton City of Lights by just_jo

Challenge 14B – Scrap with a photo that features 4 different people

Oh, that gorgeous cluster work! I love big, beautiful clusters of elements and flowers and foliage and ribbons, and just_jo created not only one across the bottom of her layout, but a second tucked behind her secondary photo and acting like a border. I love the way she “hung” the light strands across her layout – so perfect given her layout’s subject! – and the shadowing on the two ornaments hanging on the right side of the page is just lovely. Nicely done!

Create Something Awesome by HeatherB

Challenge 3b – OLW: Accomplishment

This layout has the perfect kit for the topic, and is scrapbooked beautifully, but it’s the photographs that made it a true standout for me. HeatherB used a mix of action shots, a close-up detail shot of the finished project, and one posed shot to tell a full and complete pictorial story. Masterfully done!

Canaveral National Seashore by tanyiadeskins

Challenge 2B – Out and About

This layout is a treat for the eyes! What a gorgeous color palette tanyiadeskins selected to complement her great big photograph in those blues and aquas. I’m also a fan of the varied patterns she selected from the papers in this kit to mix together in this layout.

Brighter Days by rach3975

Challenge 4a – Scrap a page using a wordy background paper

Oh, this interview – what a treasure! I adore the way she’s captured her daughter’s exact words here, including filler words and starts and stops, those rambling sentences that are so typical of these tweenage years. It adds an additional dimension to what’s immortalized in the family album; not just her photograph, but a narrative that so clearly shows off her personality at this moment in time. Simply lovely!