Copy Cat Thursday and a lesson learned. {UPDATED}

You can go to the Story Saving Blog to see how Kelsey made this photo collage for me!

Hello everyone!
{NOTE: This is a long post so bear with me please!}

It's been a looooong time since I did a Copy Cat Thursday post!  Today I'm copying a fun summer layout by Nichol Magouirk.  She is SUPER fabulous and you can see her original layout HERE.

Here's my copy.  Have I said how much I love the Simple Stories Summer Fresh line?!!:

And some close-ups: {If you'd like to know how I created the firework, let me know and I'll do a mini tutorial}

I don't have all the same elements that Nichol had {I'd have to have a whole room to have everything that all those great designers have!} but it was fun combining stamps, stickers, die cuts, buttons, card stock, etc. to make all the elements on the page.

Now to the lesson, or what I thought was going to be the lesson:  After finishing this layout, I thought to myself that while I love Nichol's style, this just wasn't for me.  It didn't look as cute and finished as hers and it was a lot of work!  So I thought that the lesson I had learned was I'll admire her creations but stick to super simple and be happy with it.  Then I promptly put it in an album and stuck it on the shelf.

Fast forward to today when I pulled it out to photograph it.  Guess what?  I loved it!  I was looking at my own layout.  Not comparing every detail to Nichol's layout.  That made all the difference.  And the result was totally worth all the time it took for me to put everything together.  Will every layout be this detailed?  No.  But will I make my own elements in the future and experiment with things I love about other people's creations? Most definitely!

So I guess the real lesson I learned is this:  It's great to expand your horizons and step out of your comfort zone to try the styles of other scrapbookers.  What's not okay is to compare your results and tell yourself you don't measure up.  Your loved ones will not be looking at the original layout and saying "well, why didn't you use that same patterned paper as so & so?  It just doesn't look as good as hers".  Seriously.

And the photo collage?  Don't ask me how to do it.  I don't know how.  Maybe you all do?  My talented niece Miss Kelsey from the Story Saving blog did it for me.  She's going to do a video tutorial on it soon......right, Kels? ;)

Thanks for joining me at the Table today!