Congratulations to Alexa Gill, our January winner in the 8 is Enough contest, sponsored by Ella and Studio Calico.

This month's winner not only created four layouts with her eight supplies (as our challenge suggests), she actually created SEVEN. Incredible! Here are her supplies:

Alexa says: "It really saved me time only being allowed to work with these 8 products and it helped me simplify my process. The pretty paper and bits are fun to play with, and I DO love the creative aspect of scrapbooking, but when I look over my pages it's the photos + journalling = memories which mean the most to me."

"My approach was to pick my supplies and then chose photos to go with them from the hundreds that I already have printed out. I tried to pick colours that I knew would go with my travel photos as I have an endless supply of them, and I figured I'd find this easier if my photos had a common theme"

"I was really surprised at just how far I could stretch my patterned paper and how few embellishments I ended up using. The 'freebies' like cardstock came in handy, because it meant I could introduce a whole other colour without using any of my eight supplies. On some of the pages I cut out the patterned paper behind the photo to stretch the paper, and I tended to just use blocks of patterned paper with lots of white space, to make it go that much further."

"Towards the end I only had scraps of paper left and some embellishments, but I found these pages coming together the quickest. It seems I am more productive with less product to work with! I used strips of paper or ribbon for borders. I even ended up using some of the packaging from the MME ribbon on one of my pages, so I really did stretch my product as far as I could!"

And that's not all, folks! Alexa went on to create three more pages with this set of supplies, and her pages don't look repetitive at all! (I think it helps that she chose double-sided patterned papers and chose papers in a wide variety of colors and patterns.)

We were amazed that Alexa created so many titles with just one sheet of letter stickers. Thank goodness that one sheet contained two fonts. The color variation in the supplies she chose keeps her pages from looking the same.

How cute are these circle details with brads inside? Great use of tiny paper scraps.

We love how the light use of spray mist on the background of this page gives it an edge and modern feel. Way to go Alexa! If you'd like to read more of Alexa's thoughts about this challenge, visit her blog, CurlyWiggles, where she posted all seven of her layouts and more of her thoughts about the process.

Alexa has won...

A complete monthly kit from Studio Calico and a $15 gift certificate to Ella Publishing Co.

Now it's Your Turn

We hereby challenge you to come up with your own list of eight items from your stash of supplies and to stretch your list into four great layouts. (Absolutely no shopping allowed.) Make sure you include a mix of papers, accents, tools, and alphabets—whether stamps, die-cuts, or stickers. You can only use the items on your list, but cardstock, fonts, and standard tools (such as trimmers, journaling pens, or a sewing machine) are freebies.

When you’re done, e-mail us pictures of all four of your layouts (each sized to 800 pixels tall maximum), plus a picture of your eight original supplies, and an explanation of how you stretched each layout, and we’ll pick one winner each month through March 2011!  E-mail questions and entries to submissions@ellapublishing.com, with “Eight is Enough” in the subject line.

Note: Interested in our past winners? Here are the links: Marie Pilgrim, Sara Benzkofer, Shelly Jaquet, Jennifer Alfonso, and Leah Allen.