Dream On & Live Happy in Alaska

Good Morning and welcome back to my blog.  It's been a busy week with band so I haven't had much time to scrapbook, but I did get this page finished and I just love this photo of my kids in Alaska last summer.  

We had an amazing adventure on this trip & I'm pretty sure it's one we will never forget.  We chartered a small boat called The Darby for a 3-day private tour of Resurrection Bay.  It was just our family of four, the captain and his daughter, his first-mate & chef.  The boat was nothing fancy, no wi-fi, and no TV.  We saw some amazing sights, caught fresh salmon, watched dozens and dozens of whale, saw a glacier up close, hiked on an island, and then had a campfire on a stone beach... complete with s'mores.  The weather was perfect... especially when you consider we were in Alaska. This trip was AMAZING!

On the first afternoon of our trip, the captain found this very picturesque private cove and got down the kayaks so we could paddle around in a safe spot.  It was one of those moments where you can't quite believe you are there experiencing what you are doing.  There were many surreal moments on this trip that brought me to tears.   For this photo, Tim lined up the kids just right so he could show the amazing scenery behind them.

WOW ~ that was fun to remember.  OK - a few details about my page... I used items from the March and April Hip Kits for this page.  I also added some washi tape I had in my stash.  The pattern paper and "dream on" sentiment, enamel dots, and phrase stickers are from March main & PL kits.  The "our trip", letter stickers and flair are from the April kit.

{ETA: Once I posted my original page, I thought the photo got lost on it, so I added a few layers and updated my photo.}

Here are a few more photos from this amazing day!

Not a great photo below, but I kept it because it shows how close the whale was to our boat.

I encourage you... take that adventure, explore the world & experience what it has to offer!   How are you going to make the world a better place, if you never see it?  GO... SEE... DO!

Felicity Jane ~ Remember This

Earlier this week, I posted a page about my son using the Felicity Jane Kit called Jane.  Now I have a coordinating girly page about my daughter using the same kit.  Pretty awesome... one kit, two completely different looks.

Everything on my page is from the FJ Jane kit except the white cardstock and the black ink.  The roses and the "beautiful" title are wood veneers & the little rose flair button is super sweet.  The strip of white/black hearts is washi tape from the kit & the date tab is from the cut apart sticker sheet.   I did my journaling on the computer and trimmed it with a stitched rectangle die from Taylored Expressions.  Easy peasy!

Have a Fabulous Weekend!

Felicity Jane Kit ~ Just Be You

Hello my friends... I'm so glad you decided to join me today.  Last week I pulled out my new Felicity Jane kit ~ called Jane and made a double page spread using some 5x7 photos of my son & daughter. How awesome to have a kit that can so perfectly be used for masculine or girly photos. Today's layout features the photo of my son.

So I began with the green dotted pattern paper and added several other strips of papers to the top and bottom.  I also added one of the washi tape heart strips.  The wooden embellishment "Just Be You" and the row of hearts were also in the kit.  I cut one of the hearts off to fit in the space and then used it below the photo.  The doily, flair button and date tab were also in the kit.  The "Love You" heart was a printable from last month's kit.  Then I typed and added journaling to the page.  A clean and simple layout.  

Later this week, I'll share the one coordinating layout I made of my daughter.  

Thanks for stopping by today!

Felicity Jane ~ Today was Fabulous

Happy Monday!  I hope your weekend was awesome and you're ready for this new week!  I have a new page to share today using my Felicity Jane London Kit ~ I really love this kit!   When a new kit arrives on my doorstep, my goal is to make at least 2 layouts with that kit, either 12x12 or pocket pages.  I've already made a few layouts with this one, but I just can't stop because the supplies are so amazing!

I started with a full sheet of 12x12 pattern paper as the background border and then added Bazzill white cardstock on top.  I fussy cut the flowers and the "today" title from the sticker sheet and colored just a bit of the flowers with a few shades of yellow watercolor pencils.

I used the stamp set in the kit to finish off the title and few other words on the page.  I added the word "was" and the little hearts using a Hero Arts alphabet stamp set.

To dress up the beautiful photo of my daughter, I added the cardstock stacked labels to one side of the photo, tucking them under the left edge.  Then for some balance, I added strips of pattern paper & a die cut heart to the other side.  I'm super happy with how it turned out.

Enjoy your day!

Felicity Jane Kit ~ Be Happy, One Day at a Time

Woohooo ~ It's FRIDAY!!!  I'm super excited today because my sweet girl is coming home today for spring break!!   The other day I started using the Felicity Jane London Kit & I just love it.  I made two 12x12 layouts and my pages went together so quickly.

My page today features a picture of my daughter that I took last summer in Alaska.  It's a little dark in this page photo, but it's much lighter in real life.   All of the supplies for this page were from the London Kit, except for the black enamel dots, the black cardstock and the white paper doily.

Here are some details on how I made my page:

• I began my page with the 3" strip of floral paper and I trimmed the word strip from one of the other sheets of pattern paper.  Each piece of paper has a decorative strip along one edge that works perfectly for 12x12 layouts or even pocket pages.  I used the black/white polka-dot washi tape so they would have a nice clean edge.   
• The black/white gingham heart was from the cut apart sticker sheet & the "my favorite" banner and seafoam green heart circle were both from the downloadable cut-apart file.
• The "Hello Lovely" tag was actually part of the packaging of the kit, but I saved it to use.  I used a seafoam green marker to color in the leaves and added a bit of the washi tape at the top of the tag.  Then I added some gingham ribbon at the top.  
• The date tab is from the cut-apart sticker sheet & I used the Becky Higgins date stamp.
• For the rest of the sentiment, I used the chipboard alphabet letters along with the "happy" chipboard and seafoam green arrows.  Then I finished the grouping with a white enamel heart.
• I added the "one day at a time" stamped sentiment with white ink and heat embossed it with white embossing powder.

I'm thrilled with how my page turned out and excited to use more from this beautiful Felicity Jane kit.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Three, Two, One & GO!

As promised, I'm back today with the rest of the zipline story.  Yesterday, I posted part one of our story last summer, so make sure you scroll down if you missed it.

You know how they say a picture is worth a thousand words? Well I couldn't agree more! The picture I used on this page of my BFF Stephanie, is one of my favorites from our vacation.  She was pretty nervous about doing the Ziprider (which is the longest zip line in the world), but everyone else was, so she reluctantly booked the tour also.  Pretty much, once your get to the top of the hill, there is no turning back.  This was her reaction when we reached the bottom of the mountain ~ PRICELESS!  I was so glad my husband was right there to snap the picture!

Page Supplies:
As soon as I saw the Ali Edwards Numbers Story Kit for this month, I knew I wanted to use this photo for it. Since it is such a great photo, I knew I wanted to do a full 12x12 layout rather than a pocket page.  The title is big, so I printed my photo at 8 1/2 x 11 so it would cover the entire right side of my layout.  I felt a smaller photo would get lost on the page.  The rubber spelled out numbers and the blue ampersand are both from the kit.  The large red chipboard letters are from the Ali Edwards December Daily 2015 kit that I had in my stash.  I also used the Ali Edwards Photos stamp set & some Ali Edwards phrase stickers in the top corner.  The washi tape & pattern paper are the same that I used on my page yesterday to tie the two pages together.  I am so pleased with how this page came together ~ it was a very special memory with great friends!

Do you have some special stories to tell?  Get them down in your albums... they are too precious not to share!  I'll be back tomorrow with my next Project 52 page!  Thanks for stopping by...

Numbers Story Kit ~ Zip It!

One of our all-time favorite things to do as a family is to travel together & one of our favorite experiences has been to go on the Ziprider in Icy Strait Point, Alaska.  We've been on it three times now & it is always a thrill!  Last June, we were able to share this experience with our best friends and although my sweet friend Steph was pretty nervous about it, she went with us anyway.  I was so proud of her for doing this, even though it really was way outside of her comfort zone!

For my page today, I used the Ali Edwards Number Story Kit for the journaling & filler cards.  I did my journaling on the computer and printed them out on the cards.  I also used the Messy Circles & Surprise Story Set for the stamps on the page.  The big red letters were left over in my stash from the Ali Edwards December Daily kit.

Check back tomorrow to see how the experience turned out!  

You won't want to miss it ;)

The ALASKA Project... THE END!

Ahhhh.... Ketchikan, Alaska... One of our very favorite spots!   This trip was amazing and every single day was so special ~ but this day {and Juneau} were two of the best.  Our little family of 4 did a Zodiac Boat Tour where we had our own little boat and followed a guide.  WHAT A BLAST!!!  Tim actually captured this photo of the bald eagle catching a fish!  HOW AWESOME IS THAT!  Now our guide did tell us to watch for it & threw the fish... but Tim did capture it, so it was still pretty impressive!

Like all of the other ports, I included basic facts about Ketchikan for my book.

Tim caught some MAJOR waves as we came closer to the dock... Meg was in pain for a few days!  We drove right past our ship... boy, did we look tiny!

We sailed the Inside Passage on the last day of our trip.  It was beautiful and a fun day to just enjoy the ship and our extended family.

Well that's it for my Alaska Project!  Up next, our cruise to Rome/Turkey/Greece; a few RV trips to the Smokey Mountains & the Outer Banks; and a Spring Break cruise to the Western Caribbean.  Not to mention 3 years of Marching Band pictures.  I can't even continue listing everything I still need to scrapbook ~ it's just too overwhelming!

I hope you enjoyed my Alaska Project... and now I can say THE END {of this project anyway}.

The ALASKA Project... Zipline Adventure!

Oh goodness!  I looked back and it's been since February since I posted any of my Alaska pages!  I was able to finish up this book this winter and I'm so happy with how it turned out.   Note: I apologize in advance for some of the poorly lined up photos... at this point I just needed to get them done!  LOL!

First up is one of our favorite dinners we had on the ship {or any other trip for that matter}.  The ship has a specialty restaurant called Samba Grill and it is a Brazilian steakhouse.  It was a BLAST and the food was outstanding!

Next up was our day in Hoonah, Alaska ~ Icy Strait Point.  We went on the world's longest zipline and it was THE BEST!  Tim and I had done this before on our last Alaskan Adventure; however, Megan was sick and Matt was too little to go.  So on this trip, there was no doubt that all of us were going on the ZipRider!

For the journing block below, I printed off information about the port and zipline from the internet to add to my page.  I love including information about the places we've been, even if it wasn't something I learned while we were there.  It's a great way to add journaling to your pages and it's so easy!

That night the kids posed for some photos for the ship photographers.  I just added the 8x10 photos to cardstock and a few simple embellishments/stamping and put them inside 8.5x11 page protectors in my 3-Ring binder album.  It's great to be able to add different size pages to the 3-Ring binders.

So that's it for today... tomorrow I will have the final pages and that will be the end of the posts for this trip!  Oh but don't worry... I have TONS more to scrapbook!  It will NEVER end!

The Alaska Project: Skagway part 2...

Today I'm sharing part 2 of our day in Skagway. We took the train from the city 20 miles north to the Canada. We boarded a motor coach and then stopped at the Yukon Suspension Bridge ~ super cool!

and of course we made friends with the resident Golden Retriever!

the final stop was a lesson in Panning for Gold!

I'll be back next week with more Alaskan Adventures!

The Alaska Project: Juneau ~ the best day ever...

I warned you a few days ago that I would be sharing lots of scrapbook pages from my recently completed Alaska Project.  Here are my pages from Juneau ~ Day #9 of our trip and probably our favorite day.   Just wait until you see the whale photos below... IT WAS MIND BLOWING!!!

Who knew Alaska has such gorgeous rain forests?

No on to the Whale Watching part of the trip...

We even saw one of the whales spy hopping!  It was SO COOL!

There were 3 right in front of our boat... it was incredible
and it lasted for a good 30 minutes. 

This was seriously one our best vacation days EVER!
Next up... Skagway, Alaska and the Canadian Rockies with some breathtaking views!