Pint & Slice - Two Page Birthday Scrapbook Layout

 Today, I'm sharing an older birthday layout of my two boys. They are "lucky" enough to share a birthday with each other. 😆Their birthday was in August and they are getting so old. I'm not sure how that is happening, when I'm still the same. This is actually from 5 years ago! I'm not sure how I forgot to post this one until now.

Downtown Fort Wayne is a fun place to go. The murals on the buildings make it lively and add to the vibe. The kids love it probably more than we do, because they're more "hip" than we are. ✌ The pizza here is so yummy!! We were blessed with a beautiful day to hang out.

Oh my goodness! Look at my grandbabies! How are they getting so big now. 😭

I cut the circle banner to look like the lanterns that hang across the outdoor eating area. The ampersand for the title, pizza flag and "I love you more than pizza." embellishment at the bottom were cut with my Cricut. The small alpha letter stickers made it easier than cutting letters that tiny.

Thanks for looking! I plan to get back into the groove of posting. Let's see if I can make that happen!! I've been a slacker at blogging lately, but I have so many more layouts to share with you. 

Have a great week!

Breakfast - Two Page Scrapbook Layout

 Do you scrapbook your food? Food photos are a big thing for some, but not really for me. Unless it is a fun and memorable experience that I want to document!

On our way home from "Up North" we stopped at this wonderful restaurant for breakfast. I loved the yummy traditional breakfast food (including crispy bacon), yummy lattes, and the fun vintage decor.

To fit with the vintage vibe, I used some Ombre geometric paper for the background. So fun! I can't think of a better use for this last bit of paper from Glitz "Finley".  The button is cut like a prism and I'm sure it's going to stick out in my album, but worth it! The little mini alpha stamps are an easy way to add the name of the restaurant as a subtitle - Anna's House, Holland, MI

I love all the little knick knacks on the shelves. No, I wouldn't want them in my own house, but the decor made this place special and memorable. It was a wonderful blend of new and old. Look at "Flo" on the ladies room door. She's perfect!

The Scotch washi tape seems to tie it all together well. I especially like the title and coffee cup cut with images from Design Space. I used my Cricut to journal since I had a rather small space and wanted it to be legible. 😀

Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Hope your week is off to a good start!

Birthday Boy - One Page Masculine Birthday Layout

The sun is shining in NE Indiana today and I am grateful! I'm still working from home, but I'm loving the sunshine streaming in the window. I even took a little drive just to soak it in through the sunroof. I hope you are enjoying a beautiful day.

Speaking of sunshine 🌞...this man lights up my world in so many ways. He is my rock and my forever love. I don't know what I'd do without him.

I believe all of the paper used is Graphic 45. I love mixing all of the patterns here! It was fun to put together all of the elements for this page. I rarely pull out my mini alpha stickers, but sometimes they are the perfect touch. The sentiment stickers were from another set of paper, but I think they worked well with the style and colors.

Hope you enjoy your day!! Thanks for stopping by!

Boys Will Be Boys - Two Page Wedding Layout

It's time to share more pics of the boys today! Having raised two boys (no girls), I kind of "get" them. My two never cease to amaze me or amuse me!!

Here's some photos featuring their sillier side for the wedding album. Boys definitely being all boy!

 My sons are at the top of the page above...My youngest, the handsome groom, on the left and my oldest handsome son on the right!! I love the black and white wallet of them "cuddling"...LOL! Could I be anymore blessed with these two? They keep me guessing, laughing, bursting with pride, and sometimes raising an eyebrow. 😍

 Aside from his one and only big brother, Jacob had three friends from college, and a high school friend stand up with him. I love seeing the more professional wedding-like photos next to the goofing off photos...it definitely shows their personalities.

The brick look patterned paper was a nice masculine background for these photos. The title was cut with my Cricut with a bold block font from Design Space and I added small letter stickers for part of the title. The photo corners were just enough to finish off the page. 

Thanks for stopping by for another wedding layout. More to come!!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Church of Peter's Primacy"

Today, I will be sharing another two page layout from my recently completed Israel scrapbook.

 I had a little extra fun creating this one! The inside of this church had amazing architecture. I took a little extra time and tried to give my page the same feel using brick patterned paper as my background. I created a tall arch for my title, candles from scraps, and also attempted to recreate one of the gorgeous light fixtures. The light was created with two curved flower stems that I cut with my Cricut and then overlapped at the outside edges. I cut small oval flower petals in half for the lights themselves. Then, the fun part, was drawing the straight lines to create the wires to hang it from. It was a little crazy, but I do love how it turned out. I was drawing the lines right on my finished scrapbook page! Thankfully it all ended well.

 I hope that all of my fussing around on this layout adds to the photos rather than distracting. The church was gorgeous and full of rich, meaningful history. The gorgeous light fixture (bottom right pic above) inspired me to try something new.

Hope you like it and feel inspired to create something special on a future layout. Thanks for stopping by my blog today. I have plenty more Israel pages to share!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Peter's House"

Today, I'm sharing another Israel layout - Peter's House in Capernaum. So many interesting sites to see and it was only Day 3 of our adventures.

 You could look down through the glass floor and see the remains of Peter's house!

You can read more about it in the journaling. It's definitely the trip of a life time, if you ever get to go! It's so amazing to walk where Jesus walked. Especially with the group of friends, coworkers and agents that participated with us. So many deepened friendships and memories made!

I hope these Israel layouts will inspire you with your travel pages or any type of layout, actually. It's as simple as changing out the paper and the embellishments. 

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "DINOS"

My kids loved playing with dinosaur toys about 20 years ago when they were still little guys. I'm hoping my grandson will get more interested in them, but so far, he's really into transformers. My boys loved those too, so he comes by that naturally. 😍

Today, I'm sharing one last layout from the Houston e4 conference I attended a few years back. Our final night was at the Museum of Natural History where they had an impressive display of dinosaurs! We gathered and ate many different kinds of foods that were placed at different food stations spread throughout the exhibit. It was a fun night!!
 
As I've mentioned, part of my job is meeting and event planning. I can't even imagine all that went into this event! Everything was thought through and planned in such great detail. It's strange to look at these pictures where it looks like there was hardly anybody there! There were bunches of people, as you can tell from some of the other event layouts I posted previously.

 Again, I used the Teen Angst patterned paper to set off these pictures with the black background, and purple matting. The little alpha stickers add a different dimension for sub-titles on a page. I used them here to spell out the location.

This wraps up my Houston e4 conference layouts! Hope you enjoyed! Thanks for stopping by today.

Two Page Layout - "Tomorrow will be..."

Last fall was a very bittersweet time for our family. The bitter....My Mom was in the end stages of her battle with Parkinson's disease. What a horrible thing to watch your Mom just waste away. It's a very slow and painful process to watch. She didn't seem to be in pain, thankfully! The sweet...my son was getting married to his forever love and we were all super excited and blessed for her to join our family.

The hardest part was that these two major life events collided in one weekend. My Mom passed away on Friday October 13, the day before my son's wedding. My brother called to give me the word as we were pulling into the venue for the rehearsal dinner that we were in charge of. Well, you can imagine the rush of emotions and anxiety knowing that I had to pull myself together in order to be ready for the rehearsal dinner guests.

 Some how, by God's grace, we pulled it off. The venue looked cute and the food was yummy, and really that's all anybody cares about anyway, right? I was riding on my happy emotions and was able to let joy rule the day and the rest of the weekend.

 As happy as I was/am for these kids of mine, I knew we were becoming empty nesters. I was experiencing the feeling of being parentless and childless all at the same time! My kids and all of the family visiting for the wedding helped me push on through the sadness.

 The wedding was beautiful! I'm working on their album now and will start sharing those layouts soon. I do love this layout, but it still brings tears to my eyes as I remember the roller coaster of emotions that were going on inside of me that weekend and for weeks afterwards. I really didn't have much time to actually grieve. Remember...we were building a home, getting ready to sell our home, pack all of our belongings, and move at the end of the year. I was literally too busy to think about my emotions for very long.

Yes, there was loss, but I also gained a daughter-in-love who is beautiful inside and out! Yes, my youngest son left the nest, but they are very happy together and a Mama can't hold on to her babies forever. That's the way God intended it to be. There have been many changes for my husband and I since last fall, but we are so very happy in our new home and enjoying all of the settling in and decorating.

Whew...longer and more emotional post than normal, but thanks for reading. Have a wonderful weekend!

One Page Scrapbook Layout - "End of the Road"

Last layout of our trip!! Unfortunately, all good things come to an end. Eventually, you hit your vacation budget, use all of your paid time off work, and have to come home. 😢 It was an awesome anniversary celebration!

Key West is at the southernmost part of the U.S. where Hwy 1 comes to an end. These pics are taken near the iconic landmark at the southernmost point which is 90 miles from Cuba.

The paper is Kaisercraft "Sea Breeze" and Simple Stories wood chevron for the banner arrow that anchors the pictures. I used a couple of different kinds of ribbon down the center and added a little date tag with a touch of ribbon to accentuate the one picture. At the last minute, I added a little slip of ribbon at the top and simply folded it over and topped it with a wood button.  Hope you like this last page of our anniversary trip! If you want to see the rest of the Key West layouts, got to the bottom of this post and type Key West in the search bar. Thanks so much for stopping by!!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Location, Location, Location"

I'm still working my way through the layouts from our California trip last year. This one features pictures from our brief visit to Beverly Hills! Yes, it's beautiful there, but no, we didn't see anybody famous. :)

 I really like the way this layout turned out. The colors are vibrant and it has a vintage look! The title was cut twice from Cricut's "Graphically Speaking" cartridge. I attached them with foam dimensional squares between the two layers to give it extra definition and to create a shadow effect. Placing it on the white circle and setting the title on an angle really made it pop.

 I adore the Route 66 die cut from Cricut's "Nifty Fifties" cartridge! How cute is that!?! My husband and I would like to drive the entire route of Route 66 some day...bucket list trip. October Afternoon's circle alpha stickers add to the vintage look of the page and echo the polka dot patterned paper from Simple Stories "Snap". The arrow and yellow stars are also from "Nifty Fifties". I attached the stars with mini red brads.

Pretty easy page, really, with just enough embellishments to let the photos be the focal point. Using wallet size photos helps me to pack in the pics and still have room for design elements.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I'm going away with friends for scrapping Monday through Thursday of next week!!! I can't wait!!!

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Giant Trees..."

Here's my second and last layout of the Sequoia National Forest. I really make myself pick the very, very best photos so that I'm not doing an entire album for a really special one day event. It's hard, and I'm sure I'm not the only one who struggles to not scrap every single great picture.

 Which photos tell your story the best? For this layout, I picked the photos of the biggest tallest trees with the best lighting, and if possible with people in the picture to show just how huge the trees really are. I quite often print several pictures in wallet size so that I can put more on a page. I didn't do that for this photo, but I did use True Digital size which is a little smaller than 4x6.  This really helps when you're trying to maximize the number of photos on a layout.

 Why do I limit myself? Have you ever had a close friend or family member who went through ALL of their trip photos with you one by one by one? It can be painful as you pretend to remain interested. I try to keep that in mind when I'm scrapbooking my own photos. My albums are for me and my loved ones to cherish, but nobody will want to look at them if there are too many layouts of the same event...they won't even know where to start, and they'll just get bored. It's sad, but true! These are the things I think about when I scrapbook, but I know others like to scrap every picture, so please do whatever you have time to finish, and what makes you happy. I try to be realistic with myself...scrap the event, not every photo, so that the album can actually get done and be shared. It's one of the many beautiful things about digital photos, you only print the best.

Now I'll step down off my soapbox. ;) The paper is Heidi Swapp's "Forever" and Paper Pizzaz (barnwood). I used Simple Stories "Snap" little alpha stickers and the title font is Cricut's "Jubilee - Runt". I used marker on the little StampinUp! wood elements to give them a little more definition. The banner at the top was made from a piece of scrap that I had on hand and my SU bitty banner punch.

I'd love to hear how you decide which photos to scrap. Do you limit yourself? Thanks for stopping by my blog today. Hope you are able to enjoy some scrappy time really soon.

Two Page Scrapbook Layout - "Pier 39"

Another San Francisco "must see" is Pier 39. We strolled in and out of the shops, nibbled on amazing mini powdered sugar donuts, watched the seals sun bathing, and people watched.

 We also experienced our first In and Out burger on the way! Yummo...we were starving.

 Check out the picture of my husband as he was buying a bag of Trish's mini donuts!!! This photo cracks me up. Can you see him? He's the only person facing my direction. :)

The paper is again from Simple Stores "Life Documented". The title font is Cricut's Plantin Schoolbook, along with alpha letters from October Afternoon. The other embellies are from Studio G and Studio Calico.

Thanks for stopping by my blog today! I have two more layouts to post from San Francisco, and then we'll be on to the beautiful Pacific Coast Hwy (aka Big Sur). See you soon!