Two Page Scrapbook Layout - Nashville, Indiana

This snowy, sub-zero weather makes me wish I had a fireplace. Nothing like curling up to a toasty fire, with your sweetheart. But here we sit in our cute little house with no fireplace. Thankfully, though, the furnace does a great job of keeping us warm, even though we are lacking the romantic ambiance we desire.

For our 28th anniversary, I surprised Mark and rented a log cabin in Nashville, Indiana. Our anniversary is the first week in December. When we left, they were predicting snow, but we figured we'd drive out of it since we were heading south. Little did we know how much snow we were in for.

 If you ever get a chance to rent a log cabin in the snow, go for it! We drove down this long, narrow, snowy lane with the porch light acting as our beacon. Wow! What a great adventure. It was just the two of us in the log cabin perfection!

 The paper is Creative Memories and Jen Wilson. The bold aqua, blue and red snowflakes were cut with Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge. I purchased the title die at an adorable scrapbook shop in town. I backed the log cabin with brown paper to help it show up better on the snowflake paper.

The fireplace was so warm and cozy!!! The next evening, after sweeping it off, we enjoyed the hot tub out in the snow. It took some convincing to get me out there, but man oh man....it was the best.

Come back later this week for a few more layouts from our Nashville, IN winter adventure.

Two Page Layout - "Maid of the Mist"

Hope you've had a relaxing weekend. Mine has been very unproductive, due to recovering from the stomach flu.  I must be getting old. It's taking me awhile to bounce back, and I'm so impatient. Hopefully I'll feel stronger tomorrow and be able to get back to work.

I love Niagara Falls. Have you ever been? My husband and I went September of 2011. The Maid of the Mist is an amazing boat ride that takes you up close and personal with the falls where you can experience their beauty and power with all of your senses. Even with the raincoat, we were drenched, but it's so worth it to hear the roar and see the water churning. These pictures of us were snapped prior to the boat ride (pre-drenching).

 The patterned paper is Pink Paislee's Indigo Bleu, including the journaling tag. This is a pretty simple picture grid. I had so many great pictures, and it was brutal to keep this to one two-page layout.

 

 

 I hand-cut the banner and wrapped scrapper's twine between two brads for a nautical feel. The bits of scraps, tags, and die cut key near the title came in a package of odds-and-ends purchased at JoAnn's. The title is from Cricut's Jubilee cartridge.

The design allowed for seven 4x6 pictures in addition to two wallets.

I look back at these pictures and realize how far I've come with my weight loss journey. I'm still on this journey of losing weight and getting healthy, but seeing this picture of myself back then is such a great reminder that I don't want to go back that direction.

"Greyhound Spring Fling" scrapbook layout and "Riley" layout published

Our greyhound, Riley, is suddenly afraid of thunderstorms. Everybody in my family loves storms. Sometimes, we actually sit out on our porch and watch them. Why would the dog be afraid? I thought fear was learned from their humans, but apparently not. Today's storm was fairly mild with just a little thunder, lightning, and RAIN (finally). A few weeks back we had a wicked crazy storm with 90 mph gusts of wind and total blackness in the afternoon. Riley was home alone and it's possible that storm was crazy enough to really freak him out. I was at work, and it freaked me out more than a little. That was the first time I was worried about being sucked up into a tornado and it left us without power for three and a half days!

On the subject of greyhounds, this layout is of the Greyhound Spring Fling event in May in SW Michigan. It was our first time going to this event since we just adopted Riley last August. He didn't really care too much about meeting the other 4 legged skinny greyhound friends, but we enjoyed ourselves.

The absolute best part of our day was meeting Riley's sister!! They sniffed each other, and there was a little eskimo kiss (upper right picture) with their noses that said it all....LOL. Honestly, he just treated her like every other dog. I guess I expected endless tail-wagging, licking, and tears, but there was none of that. =) My husband kinda likes our pup...Can't you tell?

The cute doggy paper is from We R Memory Keepers "Friends Furever". The left side page was already divided off into patchwork squares so I used the upper left square for my title ("Jubilee" cartridge). I matted each picture in white to set it off from the patterned background. The flower is made with Stampin Up punches and a ltitle heart brad, and the leaves are cut with "Art Philosophy" Cricut cartridge.

Rather than adding a journalling block, I drew lines to the left and journalled there. The dogs pictured above are just some of the greyhounds that were there. It was a hot day and they were all pretty lazy with a few racing around the exercise area.

Big News:  I was super excited to hear that another one of my layouts was published in Scrapstreet Magazine's, July issue!!!! Check it out here. It just so happens that Riley is the star of that layout as well. It's the layout at the bottom of the page...The dog with the long skinny nose and soulful eyes. =)

Have a great week!! Hope you get to do something scrappy. =) I'm getting really antsy to scrap or do something crafty. How did I ever survive before I started scrapbooking and what did I do with my time?

Double layout "Dream Rides"

Hello! Have you seen the great contest over at Page Maps blog? Check out all of those sweet embellishments we can win!!! I decided to do a layout based on the sketch and give it a try.

Here's the sketch they provided.

 

I made mine into a 2 page layout...that's just how I roll.

The pics are from the Detroit Auto Show that my guys try to get to each year. This year they met up with family and had a great time dreaming about their next car!! Yea....well they're probably never going to own one of these, but it's free to dream, right?



My favorite display from the pics they took is the cool green car in the center here which they displayed on an orange track like a HotWheels car...Pretty cool!!

Here are some closeups of the diecuts and embellishments, including my cute little flag. I freehanded it, and think it turned out pretty cute. I popped up the center to give it some life. The sketch used a file tab as a matt behind the main pictures, so I cut this one with my Art Philosophy Cricut cartridge and used metallic dots on each side of the tab.

I topped the smaller star with a circle and cut in at an angle towards the center all the way around to give it a spiral lok and added another metallic dot in the center. Like the sketch, I tucked my journaling tag behind one of the photos so as not to detract from the pictures.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!! Have a marvelous week and I hope you are able to work in some time to do what you love. =)

Double layout - "Prom"

Time sure flies...more than a week since I've posted? How is that possible?

I recently found this layout which I'd forgotten to share previously. I've posted other prom layouts, but somehow, overlooked this one. There were a bunch of extra pictures after putting together the layout for my son's scrapbook, so I decided to make one for the family book too!

Sometimes I use sketches to get me started on a layout. This one is from PageMaps.

Just about everything you see here is Cloud 9 Design, Cocoa Mint. It's hard to see it here but some of the flowers on the patterned cardstock are embossed and shiny. I used a thin marker to create faux stitching for the flower stems and leaves.

The white scallop border is from Cricut's Accent Essentials. I also added a border of punched scalloped circles cut in half.  

Thanks for stopping by today.

Anniversary Cruise - Double layout of San Felipe Fortress

Happy Thursday everybody. Hope you are all enjoying your day. It has been so long since I have scrapbooked...insert sad face here. I can't wait until next weekend. I'm hoping to get a lot done and enjoy some time with my scrapping buddies. I still have a few layouts that I haven't shared with you yet, so it's not quite time for me to panic.

Today, I have another double layout of pictures from Cartagena, Columbia. This was our first port on our 25th anniversary cruise. We took a ton of pictures here and I'm reliving it all again while I work on the album. It's probably just as hot here today as it was when we were there, so that helps me relive it quite nicely.

I used a grid style layout again so that I can make the most of the space in my album.

The paper is Bazzill, Coredinations, and the strip is My Minds Eye. I used my Cuttlebug to dry emboss the Coredinations with the Tim Holtz "brick" folder. A little bit of inking around the edges of the dry embossing helps to bring out depth and emphasize the brick. I love everything Tim Holtz and have several of his embossing folders. I use them a lot for cards and am trying to use them more and more on layouts. The texture made a nice backdrop for my title cut with Cricut "Lyrical Letters", Jack Sprat font.

On the right side I saved room for a litle bit of striped paper (My Minds Eye) punched with the Fiskar's postage stamp border punch. The crochet look red ribbon is from Making Memories and really helped bring out the red in the pictures. There was not a lot of room for journalling so I used the my Dymo label maker (clear tape).

We had such a great time in Cartagena, Columbia. If you ever get a chance to visit, go for it. The architecture is so varied and the views are just beautiful from the top of the fortress. I'll share some of those pictures with you on my next post. Until then, have a happy scrappy week.

"Music Lover" layout

Are you ready for your weekend? I most definitely am!

Today I'd like to share a layout that I created for my son's album. I've mentioned previously that he had to go to a new school this year, as a senior. It's actually worked out quite well for him. He and his friends from his old school planned a chapel service for his new school. It was a great opportunity for some fun shots of him with his old friends. The've performed together qiute often, so it was almost like old times!

Here's the left side. The paper was all from my stash of scraps, except the base which is Basic Grey charts and graph stack. The title was cut as one piece with "Quarter Note" Cricut cartridge, along with the flourish.

I used Fiskars notebook border punch along the sheet music paper at the bottom. Both layers of the heart were cut freehand, as well as the little tiny heart, then I tucked them behind the title. I pumped it up a little with foam adhesive. 

Here's the right side of my layout showing the kids hamming it up for the camera afterward. FYI...both my boys participated. My oldest married son, Joel, is in the bottom right corner of the group, and my youngest son, Jacob, who is the senior this year, is in the upper left corner of the group shots.

Here's a close-up of the guitar and the little musical notes, also from "Quarter Note" cartridge. Love!!

The interesting thing about this layout is that I thought it was done prior to putting on all of the little musical notes. It just seemed like it was missing something until I added them several days later.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! Have a lovely weekend and enjoy your family!

"Voyage" - Goodbye Labadee, Haiti

Hope you have had a wonderful weekend. Our weather is perfect! I will enjoy the sun while it's here. I've been buzzing around the house trying to catch up on laundry, and working on graduation invitations....Time for a pleasant disctraction, so I'm take time for a quick post.

I'm sharing another layout of our 25th anniversary cruise. These pictures were taken of the Labadee shoreline as we pulled out of the port heading for Columbia. We sat on the top deck eating onion rings, watching the beautiful shoreline fade into the distance.

The paper is from a small cruise pack that I picked up at Hobby Lobby. It was the perfect title, so why not use it.

The right side shows the gorgeous sunset.  Not a lot of beautiful colors to this sunset, but the cloud formations were pretty cool! I layered on several different chipboard accents that came with the cruise pack and used a tag in my stash for journalling.

Thanks or looking. If anybody is interested in the products, just leave me a comment on this post. I'm going to run outside and photograph my most recent layouts. I have several that I need to get into my son's album for his upcoming graduation open house. Be sure to stop back to see them later on! 

"Spare Me" - Birthday bowling

Happy Wednesday! I pray that all of you are safe after the voilent storms moving through the southern states. It's been raining most of the week here, with a few shots of sunshine to soak up and be thankful for.

Wanted to hop on and share a bowling layout with you today. I used to be on a bowling league in my early 20's. That was quite awhile ago. Back in the day, I used to be an okay bowler, but I certainly didn't stick with it. When Mark's family came in to town for his surprise birthday party in January, we all went bowling together the next day. What a hoot! None of us were very good at it, but it didn't matter. We just wanted to have fun together. I secretly pre-arranged for Mark and I to get the day off from work. Our oldest son Joel did the same. What a great way to play hookie, right?

The diecuts are from Cricut's Nifty Fifties cartridge which gave me the idea to give the whole layout a retro feel. Lots of really fun stuff on that cart. I think you'll like it even if you're not as O.L.D. as I am. Inking the edges of the bowling pin really made it stand out. The title is also from the same cartridge. Isn't it fun? I used the shadow feature to help it pop off the page.

All the circles help repeat the bowling ball theme....smiley face and peace sign patterned papers, circular journalling spots, the border between the pictures, and don't forget the buttons!!  I used a lot of wallet size pictures in order to get a shot of everybody throwing it down the alley.

I hope this inspires you to try a retro layout or maybe go bowling some time just for fun with the family. Be sure to take your camera. Everybody loves to see pictures of their backsides, right? LOL!  

Thanks for stopping by my blog! Have a great evening.