Long Beach Mini Album

**quick note...I link a lot of the supplies, but I do not get paid from any one to link these :)

Back in April, my husband and I went to visit my daughter in Long Beach for a couple of days.  I have really embraced making mini albums of our quick trips.

When I got home, I put all the receipts and such aside...seriously, I do not know how I accumulate so many pieces of things on a 2 1/2 day trip!

In May, I met up with Jossie and Liz for a craft day and I made myself limit the supplies I was going to use on this mini album and I left the house with only 1 bag!!!!  woo hoo!

Here are the supplies I limited myself to use:

For roller stamps, I closed my eyes and picked a few roller stamps that I had to use...Amy Tangerine Ready Set Go, Maggie Holmes Shine, Amy Tangerine Cut & Paste, and Jennifer Garner-We Made It (exclusive at Joann-no longer available)...after I decided I was definitely going to need and use the time roller stamp from Ali Edwards...so that came along with me as well.  Later, I went back to my basket and pulled out the Jasmine Jones Foodie stamp.  During the trip, I had bought 2 more roller stamps from Typo, so I decided to use those as well...but those I just stamped to show on my page about buying them :D

For the washi and stickers, I closed my eyes and pulled out just a few:  
The red hearts washi is from the Dollar Tree
The lime green has white dots I don't know from where
I think the rainbow diagonal stripes came in a Studio Calico Project Life kit
I don't know where the red/white washi came from 
and the "Tickets" are from Shimelle  

The stickers are Dear Lizzy Fine and Dandy, Typo, and Amy Tangerine Better Together.  I also pulled out 4 sheets of letter stickers--I don't think I used them all.

Stamps were a bit harder just to pick willy nilly, so I just took a few that would work with my album.  Amy Tangerine, Ali Edwards, and a Kelly Purkey exclusive California set that is no longer available.  I later used a Kelly Purkey Bright Ideas stamp that is not pictured for the lines to write on.  I also used an older Close to My Heart baseball set not pictured.

I tried to just take the basic stamp pads along.  3 Hero Arts Ombre pads (they stain the stamps and acrylic blocks!) and 3 Close to My Heart stamp pads.

Here is the mini album I started with from American Crafts.

 I used a few papers from 2 older Michaels paper stack pad.

I printed all the photos in the album with either the LG Portable Printer or the Pringo.  Both can be used with the iPhone, but the quality isn't that excellent.

And a few other embellishments.

And they all fit into 1 bag...sometimes I take too much stuff to crops and it is overwhelming.  Of course I didn't finish the album that day, but when I came home, I limited myself to stick to what was in the bag to finish the album.

Since there are already so many photos in this post, I decided do a video to show the finished product.



I will note that I first made a video with my 2008 Pentax Optio camera and the sound was horrible...it sounded like a ghost was in the background making noises--hahaha...so I used my iPhone 6 and I am so happy with the quality...not only was the sound way better, but I think the quality was much better as well.

Thank you for getting to the end and watching!

Wicked Good Time...

About a month ago, my mom took me, my daughter and two of my nieces to San Francisco to see the play Wicked.

It was nice...my daughter and I had seen it before, but it is still awesome...and funny!  It was the first time that my mom and nieces watched it though and they had a great time.

It took me a couple of weeks to complete the layout (and another couple to post because I am a slow creator), but it is finally done.

One of my main blocks was the background papers.  I didn't know if I wanted to use plain black cardstock or plain white card stock, but then I found this Amy Tangerine Plus One paper in my stash that was perfect to mimic the black and white of the poster.

The inspiration for the layout was the poster (in the layout above) and the playbill.

I actually wanted to put it on the layout, but it was too big for the layout plus I already had a good picture of the girls in front of the poster for my layout.

From the playbill, I pulled out the black and the white and of course the green, but I also pulled out the red from her lips.

Everything I used was from my stash (yippee!) and I am sure it is all pretty old.  Along with the background paper, I used the backside of another Plus One paper (the polka dot), a black glitter sheet from the DCWV Street Lace pack, green swirly glittery paper from K&Company, American Crafts white and dark red cardstock, white glitter paper, my mega date stamp, green thickers, Heidi Swapp color shine in white, black velvet, & citron, and a journal card from the Stampin' Up PL Love Story. 

I am really trying to use stuff that I have and not buy too much anymore...but that doesn't mean I haven't bought anything this past month! haha

Thank you for looking! :)

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.

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. 

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!

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 :)

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!

Florida 2012 (#6)/Silhouette Sunday

Today, I'm combining Silhouette Sunday with my continuing effort to complete our 2012 Florida trip. This is the 2nd post on our 5th day. 

I'm sure plenty of people really enjoy Epcot--I mean they haven't closed it, right?  But we really didn't care for this park. 

Again, I placed the map in the Smash Book. 

Here is where I used my Silhouette. I cut the names of the countries. Pretty simple but glueing each letter is a pain. 

And that was it. Not much journaling was needed. 

Thank you for looking! :)

Florida 2012 (#5)

I think I might have CADD (creative attention deficit disorder--ok, I just made that up) because I can never finish a project. I will start one album, get bored, then start another project.

Yesterday, I want to start to scrapbook a trip to Disneyland, but I am making myself finish a project that has been sitting on my desk for sometime--Our 2012 Florida trip. 

This album is nearly complete but I have to do the journaling for it and add a few more embellishments to the pages. 

I've blogged about Days 1-4 late last year.

Because we did a lot on Day 5 in Florida, I am going to split the day out into 3 separate posts. 

We were told that it isn't recommended to see all the Disney World parks in one day but we only had 1 day to visit them. 

Prior to leaving on our trip, I had printed a list of the rides/attractions at each park and crossed off anything that we have been on at Disneyland/California Adventure. I chose 3 of the 4 parks to visit. Then I seen which park opened the earliest and which one closed the latest. I even had an estimated schedule to try to stick to. One thing that I didn't account for is that Epcot is pretty boring and we had extra time on our hands. We probably could have gone to Animal Kingdom after all, but it was just as well since our feet were hurting pretty bad. We used the time between Epcot and Magic Kingdom to go back to the hotel to soak our feet. 

Our first stop at 8 am (5 am our normal pacific time!!!) was Hollywood Studios which is similar to California Adventures. 

I added the map to each park in the album. To make them a bit sturdier, I taped the folded areas with packing tape. Hopefully they hold up. 

We were there for four hours and we were right on scheduled. 3 of the 4 of us loved the Rock 'N' Roller Coaster. 

One of the rides we wanted to get on was closed--Toy Story Midway Mania, but the area was cute. We skipped Hollywood Tower and Indiana Jones because they are similar to rides we've been on (at this point I still thought we were on a tight schedule). 

The Backlot Tour was pretty neat to see some of the special effects--it is pretty similar to the tour you can take at Universal Studios Hollywood. 

Then it was time to find breakfast. There was only one place that had a descent looking breakfast buffet. It was a Disney Jr. Place which had characters walking around for the younger kids. My kids were 15 & 17, so we just went for the food. 

At one point, either Handy Manny or Jake the Pirate came over and hugged my daughter. I thought it was funny but my husband wasn't laughing--he told the guy in is I-am-her-father-and-carry-a-shotgun voice, "that is enough". I truly hope it was either just a girl or a teenage boy--that is what I choose to believe. 

After breakfast we walked around some more and I took a lot of photos of the cute props--there were a lot! 

Sometimes it seems like a chore to journal, but if I don't do it, future generations won't know about our family life :D

Thank you for looking!

Florida 2012 (#4)

We left Miami at 9am on the 4th day and headed up to Orlando where we were going to spend the rest of our vacation (because you can't go to Florida and NOT go to Disney World, right?).  I highlighted our route, but it is a bit hard to see with all the other lines on the map.

We made one stop to eat breakfast and go to Target to pick up snacks and laundry detergent for the Disney World Resort (Saratoga Springs) condo.  My husband's co-worker graciously let us use 3 nights of her time share!!

We got to the Resort at 2:15 pm. After cleaning up, my daughter and I jumped on the Ferry to Downtown Disney to walk around and have dinner.  In true Floridian weather, it poured on us, but I love the rain and don't mind walking in it :)

While we were browsing around, the boys drove about an hour west (in some scary rain...what is crappier than driving in the rain?  driving in the rain on a road you don't know!).  They caught a Tampa Bay Ray's game (in St. Petersburg). {I guess it is now like watching a San Francisco 49er game in Santa Clara.}

There was a "hall of fame" type area that they enjoyed.  They actually liked this stadium better than the brand new Marlins' stadium we were at a few days before!

This was our AMAZING home away from home

Unfortunately, we were not able to enjoy it to it's fullest extent since we had planned a jam packed vacation.  It would have been perfect to set up my scrapbooking since there was a large kitchen table (and kitchen that I would not have used even if we had more time there! ahahaha)  The kids had one "wing" with their own bathroom and we had our own master sweet with tub...it came in handy the 5th day when we had to soak our feet after walking and walking and walking the whole day.

Thank you for looking.  I have been reminded of our vacation as I am finishing up on the journaling...it is like we just came back all over again :)