LIVING THE DREAM

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff.  This week's challenge is to create a project with "romance" as the theme.  I've got to be honest here...I'm not the most romantic of people.  My husband says I was born without the wedding gene.  I didn't want a huge wedding, I don't like going to weddings...I blame it on being an introvert.  So I was struggling coming up with an idea for this project until I found this picture from my honeymoon.  My husband and I look so young and happy in this pic.  We had rented a jeep and drove it all around the island of Aruba until we got to this place called "the Natural Bridge" which was a major tourist stop.  I'm so glad we took this picture because the bridge collapsed in 2005.  So in honor of romance and my 20th wedding anniversary, I decided to be romantic and create this project.  To pull this project together, I used Kaisercraft's "Havana Night's" collection because I not only loved the tropical theme of the paper, but the patterns also reminded me of so many places we visited in Aruba.

PURA VIDA

This is my latest project for Sketches in Thyme using the following sketch.  My daughter and I recently returned from a trip to Costa Rica.  I have never seen such a beautiful place in my life which is why I have so many recent projects featuring Costa Rica pics; I don't want to forget the magic of this place.  This was a picture I took of my daughter walking along the Pacific the first day we arrived. It was our first time ever seeing the Pacific Ocean let alone in a setting such as this.  I thought it would be the perfect photo to feature for this layout.  I continued to use paper from Graphic 45's "Lost in Paradise" collection to accent these pictures.  Finally for the title, I decided to use the phrase that Costa Rican's say about everything good, "Pura Vida," since this picture shows one of the greatest days in our lives.

PROUD TO BE AN AMERICAN

This is my latest project for Creative Inspiration's July Crop.  My challenge was to create a July 4th project.  Being an American History teacher, I was more than happy to be assigned this task.  I dipped into my picture archives and chose two of my favorites of my daughter celebrating Independence Day when she was tiny.  She loved dressing up and decorating her dog for the holiday.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Authentique's  "Liberty Collection."  In addition, I used the Creative Inspiration layout for July 7 as a guide when putting this project together.

WELCOME TO THE JUNGLE

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  Last week I returned from a trip to Costa Rica with my oldest daughter.  It's safe to say, I have never seen such an incredible place in my life.  Everywhere you looked was indescribably beauty.  But my favorite place we visited was Manuel Antonio National Park.  My hope for this trip was to see a sloth.  It happened about two minutes into our walk in the park.  We also saw all the creatures featured on this layout which also include tons of capuchin monkeys, agoutis (Costa Rican tailless rats), fruit bats, and a yellow frog that my tour guide was super excited to see, and lot of other critters.  It was like walking through a zoo and a botanical garden without any protective barriers.  Truly this was one of the greatest experiences of my life.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Graphic 45's "Lost in Paradise" papers.

THIS IS MY HAPPY PLACE

This is my latest project for Creative Inspiration using the following sketch.  For this project, I wanted to use one of the favorite pictures I took of my daughter during a recent trip we took to Costa Rica.  We were waiting on a taxi to take us to dinner, and she was staring out at the ocean admiring the scenery.  She repeated throughout the trip, "I don't ever want to leave here."  I agreed; it was pure paradise.  So when I came home and started looking closely at my Graphic 45 "Lost in Paradise" papers, I saw the tag that said, "This is my Happy Place," & I knew I wanted to use it with this particular picture.

SPRING

This is my latest project for Use Your Stuff where our theme for the week is birds, bees, or butterflies.  I decided to feature birds for this project.  I truly think the most beautiful shade of blue that can be found in nature is the blue of a robin's egg.  They are the most spectacular shade of turquoise, and it makes my heart happy when I see a nest.  These are pics of a nest of eggs I found in my daughter's window and in my parents' yard.  We never disturb the eggs, but boy do we like admiring their color!  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Doodlebug Design's "Spring Things" collection.  I was also inspired by the following sketches when pulling this project together; one from my current design team Creative Inspiration and the other from my former design team 2 Broke Girls.

MONKEY TIME

This is my latest project for Creative Inspiration using the following sketch.  I returned from Costa Rica last Tuesday.  I can honestly say, I have NEVER seen such a beautiful place on this Earth.  The flowers, the trees, and my favorite part, the wildlife!  At our hotel, monkeys were everywhere.  The hotel's slogan was, "Still more monkeys than people..."  They weren't kidding!  Everyday about 5 pm, a tribe of capuchin monkeys would come sit on the roof and surrounding trees of our hotel.  And everyday about 5 pm, a guava would fall from the tree from all the rustling in the branches.  So one day, my daughter cut up the guava and fed pieces to our new found friends.  (SIDENOTE:  The hotel next to ours said this particular group of monkeys basically lived at their complex and were friendly; the only reason we did this).  This was the highlight of my daughter's trip.  She prefers animals to humans, and was absolutely overjoyed to have this experience.  To pull this project together, I used a variety of papers from Doodlebug Design's "Fun in the Sun" collection.

CHEERS

This is my latest project for Let's Scrap using the following sketch.  A few weeks ago, I travelled to Boston, Massachusetts with my cousin.  We had all sorts of places we wanted to see the few days we were there, and one of the top items on our to do list was seeing the bar Cheers where the television show was filmed.  We actually drove past it because it was so inconspicuous from the street.  But once we found it, we had a ball checking out all the memorabilia.  I wanted this project to have a pub feel, so I used a variety of papers from a variety of different lines that I thought gave the project a bar vibe.

TIMES SQUARE

This is my latest project for Sketchy Boards Challenge using the following sketch.  I was inspired by the clock and decided to go literal for this project.  Back in May, my daughter and her high school television production class went to New York City for a week.  This is one of my favorite pictures from the trip of the group in Times Square.  To play up the time theme, I used a variety of chipboard clocks throughout the layout.  To pull the project together, I used a variety of papers from Kaisercraft's "Let's Go" collection.