Two double layouts!! - Family Beach Vacation photo shoot

I hope that you and your family have taken time to enjoy a vacation together recently. Last May, we splurged on one week at a beach house in St. Augustine, Florida. What a treat! We made some great memories together. We planned in advance to take some family photos, so we set the theme and everybody packed an outfit for the photo shoot.

The paper is My Mind's Eye "Collectible". The title is cut with Cricut's Art Philosophy.

We didn't really know any photographers in the area, nor did we want to spend the money for a professional, so my husband took them! We love how they turned out and all the memories they bring back.

 This is my oldest son (above), his beautiful wife, and our precious grandbaby! We had a lot of fun together. It was so great to have all of us under one roof. They have a beautiful baby boy now, so maybe we will have to go again soon!

 Next up (below) is my youngest son and his (then) girlfriend. Here's where it gets tricky...All these beautiful photos that we'd love to display, with these two beautiful, photogenic people. But it's a little awkward since she is no longer part of the family. We enjoyed our time there together, though, so I still scrapbooked them all. Now that a little time has passed since the breakup, the memories are still sweet.

 Aren't these pictures fabulous? The weather had been so windy and a little unpredictable the whole week. But this evening, there was a perfect couple of hours just as the sun was getting lower in the sky. The clouds rolled in as we were finishing up. Thanks, God!

 The die cuts are also from MME "The Sweetest Thing" collection and the title is cut from the Jubilee cartridge. I adore this sunny woodgrain paper (MME Collectibles)!!  I wish I had more!

These layouts are some of my favorites!! My hubby did such a great job with the pictures and we had fun in the process. I have several more to share with you...another day.

Thanks for stopping by! I hope you can soak up a few rays this summer.

Two Page Layout - "Water Bugs"



Family times are the best! Last May, we took a family vacation together to a beach house in St. Augustine. I took bunches of pictures and it's time to start sharing some of these layouts.

 

 We stayed at a resort with a pool while I was taking some classes for work. The family really got to enjoy all of the amenities, like the beautiful sparkling pool, while I was in class all day.

The paper is Scrapbook Customs and DejaViews. The EK scalloped border punch created the edge around the pink matt. There was just enough space for journaling.

 The title font was cut with Cricut's Lyrical Letters and the layered beach balls are from Life is a Beach. I used a SU marker to create faux stitching along the edges of the beach ball layers.

I cut a sweet picture of my son and granddaughter with a scalloped circle punch and then layered on another scalloped circle in white and popped it on the corner of a picture to give it some dimension.

We had such a great time together!! I can't wait to go again. It's always worth the effort in planning and the money. The memories are priceless and scrapping the pictures will help our family enjoy these memories for years to come.

Have a lovely week!

Two Page Layout - "Stick Maze"



 Everybody loves vacation! I have several layouts to share from our family vacation to Florida last May. We stopped for lunch in Kentucky. I love it when we fall upon something fun to see or do with just a random stop for lunch.

This stick maze was pretty cool. it was big enough to walk through. You can see the size of it in the top left picture.

The title font is from Cricut's Life is a Beach cartridge. I edged it with a white Jelly Roll pen to give it a stitched look like the paper matt used on the right side. The journaling block is Doodlebug Design.

 I didn't make a note of the brand name of this fun flowered chalkboard matt, but the white stitching and flowers gave me the inspiration for the rest of the page. I cut layered flowers with my Straight from the Nest cartridge and punched a small green circle for the centers. As I look at it now, I think I would have liked it better if each of my flowers were matted in black. Apparently, I never stop critiquing my projects.

The stick maze was probably a temporary exhibit at the arboretum, but it's still a great place to stop for lunch, for sure! The flowers were amazing and the artsy hand was a great prop for pictures.

I'll be posting more layouts from our St. Augustine, Florida, family vacation in the next few weeks. Thanks for stopping by today!!

Two Cruise layouts - "Putt Putt" and "Bon Voyage"

We celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary almost three years ago now. Such amazing memories!! Every time I look at my scrapbook, I just want to escape with my hubby again.

I am officially finished scrapping all of the cruise pictures, but I still haven't shared them all...so here we go.

"Putt Putt": Have you ever played miniature golf on the top deck of a cruise ship? It was super windy that day, but gorgeous. It was a little tricky since we didn't have our "sea legs" yet.

 The colors really draw me in and they remind me of the beautiful view of sky and ocean we had from every hole on this course. This sketch is one I found online by Amy Alvis. The paper is Bazzill, Coredinations, and Heidi Swapp "No Limits". The cute green circle border at the top was made with a border punch from EK.

 All of the ribbon is from Making Memories.

I love this picture of my husband posing with the statue of the really giant woman! Too cute.

"Bon Voyage": You really can't scrapbook a cruise without using this title at least once. These pictures were taken our first evening on the ship. We knew we were off on a great adventure together. This was our first cruise, so everything was new and exciting from the curly paper on the straw to the live music on deck.

 The paper is Jen Wilson's "Breaking Free" and Moxie "Maiden Voyage". The title was cut with Cricut's Life is a Beach cartridge. I hope I get to use this again some day...soon!

 It's a little bit difficult to see the metal embellishments (Momenta), but they were a nice addition to the page. The journaling tag is from We R Memory Keepers "Great Escape".

 Here's a close up of the journaling.

Thanks for stopping by today! Have a fantastic weekend. I'm scrapping again! Anybody else??

2 Double Page Layouts - "Turtle Farm" & "Underwater Views"

What a crazy couple of weeks at work. I'm so excited to take a minute and share a few layouts with you.

I'm still finishing up my album from our 25th anniversary cruise a few years back. This layout features pictures from the Turtle Farm at Grand Cayman. The turtle and title font are cut with Cricut's "Life is a Beach" cartridge.

 The background paper is pretty cool. The aqua stains and faint writing adds to the pretty/grungy look. I did add a strip of solid aqua to break up the pattern, but then decided to add a faint script background stamp to match the grungy look.

 I added the title to the right side and wrapped it around a picture with the turtle diecut. I inked it up with a little more aqua ink to make it look a little watery. The idea was to not add too much contrast to the page, but to allow the title to blend in a bit.

 Here are both sides together. These turtles are so cute. It was fun to actually hold some of the smaller ones.

Here's another layout from our Grand Cayman excursion. Again, the grungy paper...I can't help myself. =) The friendly fish and cute crab are also cut from Life is a Beach cartridge. The layered circles reminded me of bubbles. I added a bit of Stickles to the fish and crab just for fun.

 The antique boat we were in was really interesting, and we were able to see many different types of fish.

Here is the whole layout, side by side. I still have a few more cruise layoutos to do. My album will be bursting out of the binding!! Such great memories! It's hard to not scrap them all!

Double layout - "Rainforest"

Hello and happy Wednesday!

I have an announcement to make. I'm a Grandma to an absolutely precious and beautiful baby girl. She's our first grandchild and we are so excited. She had a bit of a rough start in the NICU because she was 5 weeks early. All is well now and we are so grateful and feel blessed beyond belief. She has captured our hearts. We had two boys, so a girl is a very special treat!!!  Let the spoiling begin!!

As you can imagine, we've been a little preoccupied for the past 3 weeks...so it's definitely time to share another layout with you. This one is from our shore excursion to Costa Rica during our 25th anniversary cruise. I'm slowly working my way through all of the pictures.

The red cardstock made a great backdrop for all of the lush tropical photos. I framed each photo with a very thin white mat to help it stand out. The title is cut with Cricut's "Life is a Beach" cartridge. There is no shadow for it, so I cut a size up and offset the green from the red.

I used a white gel pen for journalling on and around the pictures.  

 Check out the tree frog. I cut out two frogs (Life is a Beach) of the same size. I cut the legs off the second one to use popped up as a layer to give it a 3D look. I drew on the black speckles and covered it all with Glossy Accents to make it shiny and wet looking. I put it on top of a fancy cut  stamped and embossed leaf.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Can't wait to start working on layouts of our sweet grandbaby!! So much fun!!!



Two Double Layouts - "Welcome to Costa Rica" and "Paradise"

Hello! Time has just been flying by for me lately. It's definitely time for another post.

Both of these layouts feature pictures taken in Puerto Limon, Costa Rica, one of the ports on our 25th anniversary cruise a few Decembers ago. Yes, I'm still working on this album. I'm hoping to get it done before our first grandbaby is born. I'm pretty sure I won't want to scrap anything but her once she's here. I will have to force myself to finish some of these projects.

We took a bus from the port to the edge of the rainforest and then boarded a covered wagon ride into the rainforest. Can I just say how thrilled I was that it was covered? It rained all day and we would have been drenched without it.

The leaf border and larger leaves on the right side are cut with Cricut's "Life is a Beach" cartridge. I inked the edges with a brown ink spot. The title is from Circut "Jubilee".

It had been raining a lot there so you can see how the river is really swollen and running fast. The tour bus actually crossed the bridge in the photo (bottom right). I was holding my breath!!

Here are the two sides together. Didn't I look adorable in my bright blue raincoat? No...but I scrapped the photo anyway!

Next are random shots of all the flowers we saw in the rainforest. What an amazing place!! I won't atempt to bore you with all of the flower names, because I don't remember them all. The paper is We R Memories "Great Escape" line. I sometimes struggle with titles, but again the "Life is a Beach" cartridge came through for me. I made the title the centerpiece of the page and popped it up with foam squares and accented it with layered photo corners.

Here's the right side.  

Close up of the title on teal paper with inked edges. 

Hope you enjoyed seeing a little piece of paradise. This was a trip of a lifetime for us. I'm sure we'll cruise again some day.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today!! Enjoy the rest of your Sunday.

Two new scrapbook layouts - "Dude" and "Picturesque"

Hello! What beautiful weather we're having here in Indiana. Quite a bit chillier than last week, but it's still so great to see all the leaves and flowering trees in all of their glory!

All of the sunshine is inspiring me to share a beach layout from spring break last year. My son was invited to join a family and his classmates in Florida! Lucky! The beach is made of cork. The starfish are from Cricut--Life is a Beach. The wave was cut freehand...I added stickles to the edge to sparkle it up. The pictures are so great of the guys hamming it up for the camera. They crack me up! Ahhhh....Makes me want to go on spring break. What is that anyway? =)

Next is another layout from our New York trip. This church is located downtown Lake Placid. My hubby got some great pictures of it...They were begging to be scrapped. The title font is Cricut--Quarter Note.

I trimmed around the vines on the patterned paper and added to other parts of my page. I also used the bracket border punch.

Here are both sides together. Thanks so much for stopping by today!!

"So Thankful" - Fall layout

It's getting colder outside and I have a feeling it is here to stay. After our near 70 degree weather a day or so ago, it's a little bit of a shock. That's Indiana weather!! I am so looking forward to Thanksgiving with family and a 4 day weekened!....Time to share a fall layout with you.

Left:The pics were just taken of Jacob blowing the leaves out of the backyard. We have a big beautiful Pin Oak in our side yard still holding on to some leaves. I wanted to highlight the tree by matting that pic with orange cardstock and also the diecut tree behind. I believe it's from Winter Woodland cartridge. I hand cut my own trunk, because it needed to have a curve to it. The green circle leaves were cut with a CM circle punch and placed on and behind the branches.

Right:

Side by Side:

Have a blessed Thanksgiving!! Grace and peace to you.

"Dune Rides" - Summer vacation

Here's a really simple layout of our trip to MacDunes this summer. It's very simple because there is not a lot of matting or fussyness to it, but the metallic blue background kind of makes it all pop. The sketch is mine. Sometime I'm going to draw out the sketches that are my own and put them here on the blog. I just haven't figured out the best way to draw them out yet. I like to run my pictures off the top of the page and use a similar color for the background paper. It seems to make the subjects in the picture look just a little bit 3D.

The left side....You'll see us in the back row....me, Jacob, Cindy, and Joel. Always pick the back, it's the most fun and you kind of fly out of your seat! You can see Jacob with his mouth wide open in the bottom right picture....LOL!

The right side.... Here I matted and added twine around the focal picture. The sun border is from Life is a Beach Cricut cartridge. I inked the edges with red to really make it look hot and give it more definition.

Here's both pages together so you can see the flow of it. Enjoy and thanks for following my blog!!!

Bridal Shower decoratioins - Beach theme

Hello...and happy Sunday! We've had an extremely relaxing day around my house today. While I do LOVE getting a Sunday nap, I feel a little bit bad not having accomplished all of my weekend goals.

One of my goals was to post something here on my blog. Since it has been SOoooooo long since I have scrapbooked, I'm running out of new things to post. This is very sad, but I hope that the dry spell will end soon. =)

This is a photo of the bridal shower that we threw for my future daughter-in-law in Michigan last weekend. Most of my family lives there so we thought it would be a good way to welcome Cindy to the family.

The table was first covered with a linen tablecloth, then a piece of fish net (found in craft stores and cut to size)), then a 12x12 mirror. We placed the centerpiece on top of the mirror. They were tall, square, glass vases with tiny glass pebbles at the bottom, then layers of different types of shells, then filled with water, and a layer of oil at the top, and a floating wick. The wicks stayed lit for longer than the necessary 3 hours. I think this is a great idea (thanks SIL Sue!) It saved buying candles and just gave it more of clear, see through look on top. On top of the mirror is some bronze colored craft sand, little glass sea creatures and some assorted sizes of starfish. Off to each side is a batter operated votive candle purchased on sale.

Shell leis were layed randomly around the glass luncheon plates. I made shell shaped chocolates and gave them as favors to each guest (pictured above and to the left of each place setting)...and there were some left over candies for the dessert table. I meant to take a picture of the favor itself, but I totally forgot.

Most of these items will be used again at the rehearsal dinner which is coming right up! I may switch it up a bit, though.

Here's the lovely couple. Off to the left on the black wrought iron easle is an "L" wall hanging that I made for her gift. It is covered with some of their photos in black and white. It is really hard to see here, so I will try to grab another photo and post it some time. It turned out great and it was really fun to do.

This was the gift table. It was covered with table cloth and had a skirting, topped with a shell garland around the top edge. She received so many beautiful gifts!
Last but NOT least, here is a photo of me and my Mom with Joel and Cindy. I was so touched that she went out of her comfort zone to be there. I was so proud to have her there and boy did she light up with all of the fun and games of the party!

Enjoy and thanks for looking. Blessings to you and your loved ones!