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Friday, November 13, 2015

Road Trip (destination-Kirkwood, CA) Mini Album

Last month, my husband and I embarked on a road trip.  The destination was Kirkwood, CA for a wedding.  We took "the long way 'round--The one with the prettiest of views, It's got mountains, it's got rivers, It's got sights to give you shivers"...

Initially, I thought Kirkwood was by Lake Tahoe which is near Reno which is where my son goes to school--so I was like "let's take Friday off and visit him after he gets out of school at 2pm".  Well Kirkwood is a little further than I thought it was (as you can tell we are not skiers-haha), but we were still closer to my son, so we took the long scenic route to our destination.

We got on the road early so that we could stop in Auburn, CA.  Every time we go up to Reno, I see the Historic Auburn sign and every time we don't stop for one reason or another (and we never want to stop anywhere on the way home :D ).

Once on the road, my husband reminded me that I hadn't gotten the couple a present--oops.  I was all for getting a gift certificate and a card, but he wanted buy them something off their registry.  The problem was the only Crate and Barrel on the way was in Roseville and they didn't open until 10am.  This changed our initial plan to eat breakfast in Auburn and we ate at Mimi's Cafe in Roseville instead while we waited for the mall to open.  My husband was not happy with our meal choice since he loves breakfast and isn't a fan of Mimi's.  But he survived.

We finally got to Old Town Auburn and it was a cute town, but we didn't buy anything.  We still had some time before having to get back on the road, so we stopped in Downtown Auburn (same town--down a few blocks) and walked around that section.  We got some candy from a candy shop...seen a closed old-fashion drugstore through the window...and my husband got a haircut from a barber shop.

Finally, we got to Reno around 2 and because I didn't communicate with my son very clearly, we only had about an hour to spend with him since he had plans from 3:30-6.  We took him to a late lunch/early dinner.  We could have stayed and visited with him after his plans, but I wanted to get to Kirkwood in the daylight since we had never driven those roads before.

It was a beautiful drive and I was able to step onto the Pacific Crest Trail before the sunset.

The next day, was the wedding, but it wasn't until 3pm.  There wasn't anything near were we were staying so we drove about an hour to eat breakfast (the most important meal for my husband).  And then we drove an hour back.  Which I suppose wasn't too bad since there wasn't anything to do at the Kirkwood Resort anyway (it was off season and every shop/restaurant in the resort was closed).

The wedding was beautiful in the middle of the woods at a place call The HideOut.  Luckily, there was a shuttle to drive us because it was 30 minutes away and part of the road was a one-way dirt road.

Sunday, we woke up and just drove home (1 stop to eat the most important meal of the day).  I told my husband the day before not to let me drink so much...but I still drank way too much...I am too old for hangovers!

Since I stopped reading so much, I have actually been scrapbooking a lot more :D I am happy to get this Road Trip mini album completed.

Instead of posting all the photos of my album, I did another slideshow.



Thank you for viewing.

Sunday, October 25, 2015

Florida 2012 (#8-Final)

It has taken a while, but I finally finished my Florida Smash book. I was on a mission to just complete my journaling for the last day of this trip--whoo hoo. Sometimes you just need to force yourself to sit there and complete an "assignment" :)

Our last day was spent at Universal's Islands of Adventure. It is way better than Universal Studios, in my opinion, because of all the awesome rides. I wanted to go because HARRY POTTER!!!


One of the best things we did was upgrade and bought the express pass  they have two versions--one is unlimited "shorter" lines--we got the other which allows you to skip the lines once per ride. Since we got as much done in a short time it was so worth it for us. 

Seuss Landing was fun to look at, but we were too old and tall to ride anything but The Cat in the Hat ride. 


The Wizarding World of Harry Potter did not disappoint--although I was the only one nerding out in my family :)


We rode a few more roller coasters before leaving--I'd totally skip Disney all together and only come here if we ever go back haha


We were so exhausted by the last day. My husband was a trooper, 10 weeks prior to our trip he had broke his ankle--it was so swollen but he did all the walking for us :D


Our travel day was bittersweet...we had to get up way to early, but we were home around noon. 


When we unpacked, we found out TSA had gone through our suitcase...I guess they didn't like the look of all our charger wires together...oops. 


Thank you for reading. I'm hoping to craft more often and blog more. 

*I used the blogger app to post this on the road (the middle of nowhere on highway 5) :) hopefully the formatting isn't too crazy. 

Sunday, September 13, 2015

Beach Fauxdori


Earlier this year, my friend, Liz, was telling me how she was making a Fauxdori...what is that?  Well if you want to spend a fortune, you can buy a Midori Traveler's notebook.  Or you can make your own Fake (Faux) one and call it a Fauxdori :)

So I went to Michaels and got the leather and elastic and made my own.


Unfortunately, it was kinda thin/flimsy leather so I had to glue thick paper inside.  It was ok, but I had no idea what to do with it!

I bought some Moleskine notebooks to put inside, but was still clueless on what I was going to fill it with.  Then I just started painting the cover using blue water colors and a bit of gold acrylic paint...and I thought about all the day trips to the beach my family takes. 

Hence "Let's Go to the Beach" was born (first photo)--my writing in watercolors is lacking :)

  





I am usually a chronological scrapbooker, but I have decided I will just make entries when I feel like it.  So the first entry started in January this year, then February, then I went back to 2011 :)

I have been using my LG Portable Printer and Pringo which I can print from my iPhone.  (Someday I'll review my printers.) (*Please note I do not get any money or discounts on my links--I just like to help people out.)

The concept of these traveler notebooks is to take them with you and journal as you go...mine actually just stays at home :)  

Thank you for reading!

Friday, July 10, 2015

Some Things Old and Some Things New

A few weeks ago, a couple friends and I were drooling over the new Target Spot goodies (thanks to the Instagram enablers--haha), so we went all on scavenger hunts checking the Targets around us looking for these cute supplies (over about a week's time).

After we had rounded up the items we wanted, we met up at Starbucks to trade our goodies with each other--It was so fun!


At our meet-up, we challenged each other to do some memory keeping and use the stuff we just got :)

Our challenges were to:

~Do 1 Project Life (pocket page) layout
~Do 1 (traditional) Scrapbook page
~Decorate our Planners
~Journal/Create in our Fauxdori
~Use the stuff we just got (either on 1 or all 4 of the above)

We gave each other 2 weeks--although, we are so lenient that we will get them done when we get them done--haha.

Since I haven't watched too much tv lately (there is nothing on!) and I gave up reading for a week, I completed 3 of the 4 challenges on the 4th of July weekend.

Here is my traditional scrapbook layout:


I used the gold washi tape from the Target Spot.  I also used washi tape from the Dear Lizzy Fine & Dandy line and some plain lime green and some green polka dot washi that I've had in my stash (I don't remember from where).

The two wood veneers (the pineapple and flamingo) are from the Pink Paislee Citrus Bliss line.  I used Color Shine to color them both.  On the flamingo, I had first sprayed the primrose color shine, but you couldn't really see the outline of the bird, so I went over it with a marker...well then the outline was too dark, so I sprayed a couple more layers of color shine and it worked out ok for my liking (the pack gives you 2 flamingos so if anything I could have started over with the other one).  On the pineapple, I used a paint brush to color the top with Citron Color Shine and Gold Lame Color Shine on the bottom--the gold is just enough without being too much for the layout.


I used a yellow cardstock (just from a Recollections pack I've had forever) as the base and the accent papers were all from old lines.  The Pink with swirls was from Sandylion Barbie line.  The pink plaid is from the DCWV Blossoms & Butterflies 6x6 pack.  The white with yellow polka dots is from the Dear Lizzy 5th and Frolic line.  And the yellow plaid is an old KI Memories Summer line.

The photo frame is from Crate Paper.  The journaling block on the left side is from Crate Paper Darling line.  On the bottom left, the journal sticker came from Pebbles--from 2009 and I can't find them online.  The title stickers are from the Amy Tangerine Rise and Shine line.  I also used the Heidi Swapp date stamp and the Amy Tangerine markers throughout.

On the right, I used a journal card from the Project Life Trinkets Value kit and word embellishments ("the little things" and "good times") from the Project Life Notes & Things Value Kit.  The "laugh more" sticker is from Amy Tangerine's Yes, Please line.  The pink  arrow is from Amy Tangerine Rise & Shine and the black arrow is from Heidi Swapp Hello Beautiful Collection.  The yellow with white polka dots is also a very old line from Bo Bunny Shabby Princess line.  And the "Create" epoxy sticker is from White Blossom (I can't find online).

I know most of the supplies I listed are so old and maybe it is pointless to point them all out, but I wanted to show how I used some new stuff with lots of older stuff that I have been hoarding.  I had pulled all my supplies that I wanted to use and tried to do a 15 minute page like Jaime Waters showed was possible in her BPC class, but I totally failed.  It took me about 2 hours to complete this page! ha ha.  That is ok, I wasn't doing it for the race, I enjoyed making this page.

About the page--this past May, I got together with Jossie, Liz, and Theresa on National Scrapbook day...the theme was Pineapples and Flamingos (hence the theme of my page).  We had an awesome fun time and I couldn't wait to use the supplies I've had gotten for the page (the veneers and Dear Lizzy washi) and incorporate them with older supplies.

Thank you for reading all my babbling, if you made it this far--haha :D

I was going to show all the challenges complete on this post, but it got way too long...so I will do separate posts for each :)

Sunday, June 14, 2015

Silhouette Sunday-High Chair Banner

A few months ago, my brother asked if I could make a high chair banner for his daughter's first birthday...of course, I said yes!!


He had sent me some photos as inspiration and they gave me a bunch of ribbon to make it.  The color scheme was turquoise and pink with white, grey, and black as accent colors.  The theme was cameras (A year in a Flash).

I wasn't sure how I was going to attached the ribbon--I even searching the internet, but I didn't find many tutorials!  So I got some elastic and tied the ribbon on.  (If they want, they can take it off the tray, pull the elastic tighter and have a ribbon tutu--haha.)

Then I used double sided tape to secure the pink satin ribbon to the entire tray.  I also used the double sided tape to attached the ribbon (which is held together by the elastic) to the tray.  This seemed to work fine.  It was completed a couple of weeks prior to the event and it held up throughout the party :)

This is where my silhouette came in, I found a scalloped circle that I already had (I just erased the lines I didn't need) and cut 3 out (I used black as the background because blue or pink would have just gotten lost against the ribbon--I actually had cut blue scallops at first, but didn't like them).  Then I cut pink circles.  I have a ton of fonts and I went through a lot...I finally settled on plain ol' Lucida Handwriting since I like the way the welding of the letters flowed together.

Once I was done with that...I was off to find a cute camera.  I found this one on Miss Kate Cuttables...she has the cutest cuts for so cheap!  (She also has a freebie every day, but you have to download it to the computer where you use your Silhouette because you cannot go and download it again after the day is over and you can't send the file either.)


I was happy with the way it came out.  My daughter was a big help letting me know what didn't look right.  I would also email the mom of the baby to make sure she liked certain colors and ask which type of banner...I could have done squares or triangles...there are a lot of different types.

If you ever think of doing something like this, I will warn you it isn't cheap.  I used a lot of ribbon.  I was given 8 spools of ribbon and it got me 1/2 way around the tray (each cut was about 20 inches so that it would be about 8 inches long).  I am sure I could have just used that and spaced it out a bit more, but I wanted it to be fuller.  So 16 spools of ribbon isn't very cheap--even with a coupon (or two).  Then there is the elastic, the double sided tape, the paper, and cuts (if you don't already have them).


But it was pretty fun to make.

Thank you for reading. :)

Saturday, May 9, 2015

Monterey 2013 Album (Amy Tan class--2015)

Last month, my good friend Liz and I drove up to Scrapbook Territory in Berkeley (it just recently closed--boo!) to take an Amy Tan class. It was so much fun! And we got a ton of goodies! (Seriously, the amount of product was totally worth the price of the class!)



We didn't get much done, but it was a blast. Amy is such a great person. I highly recommend taking a class with her if you ever get the chance. 

During National Scrapbook Day (see Jossie's post--we had so much fun!), I actually got a lot of the book complete by just copying Amy's layouts. I worked on completing the album all last week and I finally finished.


There are a lot of pages (47) and I think I figured out how to do a slideshow (ok, it works on a computer, but it won't show the slide show on an iPhone/iPad).

Since I had more photos that didn't fit on the finished pages, I actually added a few more of my own design--whoo hoo! I love Sea Anemones...this one looked like a sunflower :)

 

I also love Sea Horses! This one looks like a leaf. The paper I used, the numbers really didn't work, so I painted over with lime green and white acrylic paint.



My niece had given me a thank you card for taking her, so I used it in the back and added her picture inside the card.



One of the techniques Amy showed us was with the Fuse tool. Of course I had to buy one! On one of the layouts I did, I added sequins and loved the look.



ok...one last photo from our trip because jellyfish are also one of my favorite!

 

I really love sea creatures, but I don't like the water! hahaha...my brain freezes and I can't breathe right when trying to swim or use snorkel gear! 

Thank you for letting me share my album!

Saturday, April 25, 2015

San Diego 2015 Mini Album

I didn't think it would ever happen, but it did...I completed an album in less than a month of my trip!!!  Whoo Hoo!!!! :D

On March 27, my mom, my daughter, and I embarked on a Road Trip to San Diego.  In a perfect non-traffic world, it should take less than 7 hours.  But it took us nearly 10 hours to get there and 9 hours to get home thanks to LA traffic and a few stops going down there and only 1 stop coming home.

It was a short trip and I actually brought my portable LG printer and some supplies thinking I could do some scrapbooking in the car and at the hotel.  But I did very little scrapbooking--how do those girls (Amy Tan and Kelly Purkey--to name a couple) do it???

This is my first time trying this type of "non-conformist" mini album...I don't know how else to describe it haha!  The pages aren't all the same size.  I am not sure if I love it, it is kinda hard to focus on a page when you can see parts of the pages behind it.  But it was fun to try.

I tried to add a flipagram, but I didn't know what I was doing wrong and I couldn't get it to work in the post...so please excuse all the photos of my album.

I finished the cover before we left.  Using some Color Shine, washi tape, and Amy Tangerine stickers from a couple of her lines.  You can't really tell, but I added a transparency on the front cover and the back cover to make it a bit sturdier.



See how the "Here We Go" PL card hides and messes with the layout behind it?


Yes, I could have left it out, but the PL card was used to journal on the back.  I actually completed the majority of the "polaroid" layout in the hotel.  I printed the photo of the 3 of us at In N Out burger!!  


My daughter knew I would used the receipt, so she wrote on it ha ha! To make the receipt a little sturdier, I put some washi tape on the back.  I used watercolors on the left side of the page and it kinda blend through--ugh--so I had to add the washi and some pink watercolor to the front of the page.


Again, I wanted to use another PL card to extend my journal space...not sure if I am a fan of this technique...Maybe I just need bigger journaling cards! :)







The right side is one of my favorite parts of the album.  I actually started most of it at the hotel and did some (very little) in the car.  The sand is actual sand from the beach we were at!  I brought the bag with me to the beach.  It is a SMASHbook bag which I don't know if they even make them anymore.  The Highway 1 picture inside the back is from a Message In A Box tin from Typo.  (I am not sure if they sell that set anymore either.)


I was so excited to be able to finally get to Paper Tales.  The receipt got wet in my bag, but I thought the tied dye look was still ok to use.  (sorry you can see me from the page behind this one!)



While at the restaurant, they took a few photos of us.  My mom and my cousin both bought a couple each--which were in some touristy paper frames...I just kept the free one that included photos of the foods. :)



Of course, no trip is complete without a few stops at Starbucks haha!



Thank you for looking.  I really had fun making this album.  As I am using the latest trends, I realize how much I enjoy my 2-page 12x12 layouts...but I will still keep trying new things out :)

Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Altered Journal Notebook

This summer, my husband and I are going to Puerto Rico for our 20th Anniversary-eek :)

I bought this cute 5x7 journal at Michaels (in the dollar bins). 


I like the gold and the pink, but I'm not really a pink person haha. So I found a cute vintage print online and covered the front using my Xyron for the adhesive (I never have any luck with modge podge).


And since the pink back wouldn't match, I went through my stack of old Basic Grey papers. 


There was a time when I "needed" two sheets of each paper in every line--ugh!  


After, I covered it with clear ConTact paper.

Now I really hope I will journal a bit each day so I don't forget too many details. 

Thank you for looking :)

Saturday, March 14, 2015

Florida 2012 (#7)

We finished off our 5th day in Florida at the Magic Kingdom.


After a couple of hours at the hotel, we arrived at 5:20 pm.  It was still pretty humid.  That may be why 3 of the lines to awesome rides were so short!


The lines to the Pirates of the Caribbean and to the Haunted Mansion were only 10 minutes each!  Unfortunately, the line to Big Thunder was too long for us to wait and we ended up leaving the park way before our FastPasses would have worked for us.


We then lucked out again with the It's a Small World ride.  Even though my husband gets irritated by this ride, we were ready for some more air conditioning and the line was only 15 minutes!


But that was the end of the short lines.  Space Mountain was a 90 minute wait and we were completely exhausted by 7:50, so we skipped it.  It had been a 12 hour day for our feet!


One of the statements in the Smash Book was "if money wasn't a concern"...I wrote we would have stayed a week longer and took more time to enjoy each park.

My review of Disney World was jaded by the fact that we have been to Disneyland a few times and besides the Cinderella Castle, the Magic Kingdom did not compare.

Thank you for looking!