Castaway Crop Party [Guest Post}

I had the honor of working with Carla, today’s guest poster, for several years at EK Success. First she was a freelance creative designer who would submit awesome works of art to me, then she became a coworker when she moved to NJ to be part of the education department. In my opinion, she’s a creative genius. She is someone that always seems to have a little experience in everything or isn’t afraid to investigate and explore more about the things she doesn’t know yet. She’s here today to share a creative tablescape she helped craft up and a coordinating little gift she put together for crafty friends. Take it away, Carla!

One of the many things I enjoy about scrapbooking is the community that surrounds it, online and in real life. I love attending events such as Creating Keepsakes Conventions, where I can share my passion with hundreds of other people! A couple of years ago some friends and I attended CKC in Lancaster, Pa. We took classes, we shopped till we dropped, and we attended an evening crop. (For the uninitiated, a crop is a party where everyone works on their projects. Think quilting bee, but with paper.)

The crop organizers offered a prize for the best-decorated table with a beach theme. We decided to go all-out and compete to win! To get started, we knew we needed a great theme, and we needed some great crafts. We brainstormed until Lenore came up with the idea of a “Lancastaways” table. With that, our imaginations took off! Everyone contributed to the final outcome.

Lenore created an amazing sign for our table from pallet wood, paint, and a touch of glitter!

To our castaway table we added all manner of tropical touches: dried grass, fish net, a palm tree, coconut cups, a captain’s wheel, and a life saver (is that what you call that thing?).

We crafted “life vests” from orange t-shirts and duct tape, supplied by Virginia, and topped off our costumes with sailor hats.

My contribution was a surprise for my cropping pals — an emergency crafting kit.

Inside I included an assortment of goodies to go with our theme, and a tag to explain it all.

We were super excited when we won the table decorating contest! We each received a bag full of scrappy goodness (because you can never have enough of that!).

With all this stuff, we still managed to create room on our table for actual cropping! We all had a blast and agreed we needed to do it again soon!

Carla is a communication and marketing professional as well as a scrapbooking teacher, crafter, and former Education Manager for Martha Stewart Crafts at EK Success. She blogs along with several creative friends at TheCraftingJournals.com. Also, check out her How to Scrapbook series on HowCast.com.

See all of the times Carla’s been on Spotofteadesigns.com!