"Chopped" Challenge

So, I am a community leader on iVillage on the scrapbooking board. (You can check it out HERE) Our latest challenge we decided to follow the idea of Chopped on the Food Network. They only difference is we all "win." LOL Some of the ladies posted a "secret ingredient" that we each had to work with. So our basket had- doodling, sewing, patterned paper and a flower. We could use as little or as much of each ingredient as we wanted to.
 As each one posted her ingredient I had an idea coming together in my head. I finally had time yesterday to put pictures to paper and guess what, completely different than what I had been planning all week. LOL
I started off by gathering my photos. (This is a 50/50 thing for me, sometimes I start with photos and other times I start with a Layout and then find pictures that will work with what I have used.)
 The pictures I used are ones I had gotten when my Granny passed away a couple of years ago. There are very few childhood pictures of my sister and me, so I was thrilled to get these. Three pictures of just my dad and me.

This is my 12x12 layout. I love the brown and blue color combo with the old photos!

This shows some of my stitching- on the half circle element. I added half pearls to the "M"s. I like the way the title looks on the white space in my photos.

More stitching. I cut these elements from a piece of designer paper, they each had some faux stitching printed on them. I used my paper piercer to make holes to do some hand stitching. (It was hard sewing through 2 layers of Bazzill and 2 layers of printed cardstock!!)
 You can see some ot my doodling here too. I doodles the scallop and then cut it out.
 You can also see my flowers here to. I used the flowers in my paper instead of adding extra ones. (I wanted to keep the layout "simple" and gender neutral.) I added half pearls to draw attention to the flowers.

Here is a better shot of the photos. You can also see the large flower to the right of the top photo has 3 of the half pearls added to the center.) This is when I decided to add the pearls to the "m"s, it just looked out of balance with no pearls on the left side.
 The designer paper is from a paper pad from Walmart (a gift from Hunter) and was Christmas themed, and yet you can not tell that by looking at my Layout.
You can check out iVillage to see the other layouts.(On iVillage I am mommabear2babybear, be sure to say Howdy! =)
Thanks for stopping by!!
Until later