Family Selfie

Selfie shots are all the rage these days. I'm not personally a fan of the selfie, although i do take them. I just don't post very many. Instead, I keep them for use in my Project Life album and my traveler's notebook. Or sometimes I just use them to torture my son (like when he gives me those goofy faces). ;)

And sometimes the selfies don't turn out all that great, especially when you're trying to do a group shot. 

But they can be fun - and memorable.

This past summer, my family took a once-in-a-lifetime trip to Disneyland. Sure, we've all been to Disneyland before, but it was always separately. I think we took a family trip to Disneyland about a million years ago, when I was about 8 or 9. I actually don't recall, and we don't have a lot of photos from that trip. But this time, we decided to take my mother, who is now in her 80s and will probably never take the trip again. And I took a LOT of photos, as well as using the Photo Pass feature that we purchased with our trip package. Lots and lots of photos, not all perfect, but definitely memorable. 

One of my favorite photos is a family selfie that I shot with my phone while we were at the end of The Many Adventures of Winnie the Pooh ride. It wasn't the best photo, but we were all smiling, my mother in particular - caught with a goofy grin and wearing her Mickey Mouse ears. Priceless. I finally scrapbooked that photo this past weekend.

We Are Family by cyranoscrap

CREDITS
Elements, papers: Family Forever (ninigoesdigi)
Template: DSD 2017 Freebie (Designed by Soco)
Font: Typewriterhand

Sometimes, it's just the not-so-perfect photos that capture the perfect moments!

Get the Family Forever collection from ninigoesdigi for 44% off through the end of today, as part of the Oscraps Mini O's sale! This collection also matches kits from other Oscrap designers, so you can mix and match to your liking.

Family Forever courtesy of ninigoesdigi

Vacation Time - Good Thymes!

As part of our summer vacation, we took a family trip to Disneyland. This was a very big deal since it would be my son's very first trip there, I hadn't been there since I was in college, and my mom hadn't visited since I was a kid.

One of the things we scheduled was a Character Breakfast so my son could have a chance to get pictures taken and get autographs from some of the infamous Disney characters - in the event we missed them while gallivanting around the Magic Kingdom. As part of the experience, we were able to get an official Disneyland photograph with Chef Goofy while dining in Goofy's Kitchen. I loved some of the candid photos that they captured and used the new release of Kitchen Good Thymes from ninigoesdigi to create my layout.

First, here's a look at Kitchen Good Thymes. There are three separate packs, as part of Oscraps' 4th Friday:

Kitchen Good Thymes - Elements courtesy of ninigoesdigi

Kitchen Good Thymes - Patterns courtesy of ninigoesdigi

Kitchen Good Thymes - Solids courtesy of ninigoesdigi

I know this entire collection is going to come in handy for my future recipe book and any layouts I create of my cooking experiences! In the meantime, however, I knew that it would work perfectly with some of our outtakes from Goofy's Kitchen. 

My layout turned out like this:

Good Thymes by cyranoscrap for ninigoesdigi

I have to applaud those Disneyland photographers. Those candids are some of my favorites of the trip. 

So, if you're looking to spice up your family recipe book (the holidays will be here before we know it!) or want to capture some of your culinary creations, adding the Kitchen Good Thymes collection may be a staple for your digiscrap library. It's on sale through Monday, July 31 for less than $2 per pack! (If you're a newsletter subscriber, there's a special coupon code to get 50% off the FULL kit!) Plus, there's a freebie too:

Kitchen Good Thymes - Freebie courtesy of ninigoesdigi

How can you lose with an incredible deal like this??? Grab it now through Monday! And happy scrapping - and cooking!

Far Far Away Collab

Happy DSD (aka Digital Scrapbooking Day)! Ninigoesdigi and Designed by Soco released a wonderful new collab yesterday - Far Far Away, available for purchase at both MScraps and Oscraps. These two designers created a mix of pieces easily used for travel creations and living abroad.

Far Far Away by ninigoesdigi and Designed by Soco

This collection includes everything from alphabets to templates, along with the usual elements, papers, and journal cards.

I had a great time searching through what travel pics I could find (they are spread across a few external hard drives) to create a sampling of my travels:

World Travel by cyranoscrap for ninigoesdigi

And, if you are newsletter subscribers of each of these designers, you'll get a special add-on freebie (one from ninigoesdigi, one from Designed by Soco) to add to the collection!

Along with this new release, ninigoesdigi also has new packs for the November Memory Mix - Cozy Cocoa!

Cozy Cocoa Elements by ninigoesdigi

Cozy Cocoa Patterns by ninigoesdigi

Cozy Cocoa Solids by ninigoesdigi

The colors remind me a bit of peppermint cocoa, and I had the perfect photo for it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find my original photo - just the one I had posted on Instagram.

Warm & Cozy by cyranoscrap for ninigoesdigi

Finally, you can get 40% off on ninigoesdigi products until November 12th! So if you've been building your wish list, now is the time to buy - and just in time for the holidays! 

Enjoy your DSD and Happy Scrapping!

Road Trip

Over the weekend, I purchased Ready Set Go, a new travel-themed kit from One Little Bird. I couldn't resist - loved the colors and the whimsical art. I didn't have any particular photos in mind (which is normally the case). I just wanted the kit. 

Late last month, during my birthday weekend, I decided to cross an item off my bucket list and paid a little visit to the Charles M. Schulz Museum - a homage to the creator of Peanuts! I took a lot of photos - almost 200 of them - and plan on putting them in a small album. In the meantime, I wanted to create a page of our excursion.

Road Trip by cyranoscrap

CREDITS

Kit: Ready Set Go (One Little Bird)

Template: Whip It Up Mega 2 (Amy Martin Designs)

Fonts: PW01 Script (journaling and date), Vaguely Repulsive and Zitz (title)

Using one of Amy Martin's templates (I'm going to miss them when she retires at the end of this month!), I was able to include a rough map (we didn't actually end up taking this route) of our trek to the museum. And while I took a LOT of photos, I neglected to take more than one of the two of us. Oops. Luckily, this one came out, so it was a pretty easy choice as far as what I was going to use for a photo on this layout.

I'm so glad I was finally able to document one of my long-awaited bucket list items!

Template Challenge with ninigoesdigi

Templates are my saving grace these days! With the demands of my full-time job, I've been having issues with creativity. So I turn to templates to help jumpstart my layouts.

This month, ninigoesdigi is holding her first ever Template Challenge on her blog! The challenge runs until March 20. All you have to do is use the free template and at least 75% of ninigoesdigi goodies. The prize? A $10 gift certificate! However, all entrants will receive a coupon for 25% off ninigoesdigi products, so no one is a loser!

Here's the template:

Courtesy of ninigoesdigi

Using the Streets of Kyoto collab (with Blue Flower Art), shown below, I chose to capture one of my experiences using the subway during my visit to Japan.

Courtesy of ninigoesdigi

The result...

Ginza Station by cyranoscrap

So join in on the fun! After all, what have you got to lose? ;)

Dreaming of Vacation

While I was skimming through my email this morning, I happened to open one to see this:

Courtesy of Liostasi Ios Hotel and Spa

Ahhhh...what I wouldn't do for a vacation, especially in Greece, one of my bucket list countries...sigh...

Happy Friday and keep those dreams going!

The Happy Challenge: Days 29 and 30

Days 29 and 30 of 100 Happy Days Challenge.

A bit of a crazy day yesterday, not to mention I was getting sick - that's what happens when you're around sick kids!

Happy stuff for Day 29 (April 9):
1.  Excited to be back home, especially when I wasn't feeling so hot.
2.  The toddler slept the entire way home!
3.  Checks in the mail.  :)
4.  Vietnamese food - I love those fresh rolls and lemongrass pork.
5.  Indulged in a little ice cream...

Happy stuff for Day 30  (April 10):
1.  Heard back from a company I applied to a month and a half ago - phone interview scheduled!
2.  The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio happened to be on TV when I finally turned it on. Love this movie!

Dreams of Spain

I was inspired to create this layout by some photos that a friend took when she was visiting Spain. She let me go through her photos, and I tried something a little artsy, with the help of a template from Anna Aspnes. These are just a few of the photos of a town called Besalu, but I'm hoping to be able to play with some of the other photos soon!

CREDITS

Facebook FreeART Artsy Layered Template (Anna Aspnes Designs)

The Traveler and Retrosweets (Paula Kesselring)

Fonts: Very Damaged and Vaguely Repulsive (title); Arial (journaling)

Photos by B. Christoffer

Carpe Diem!

One of the challenges at The Lilypad is the One Word challenge. This month, the challenge was to use the phrase "carpe diem." I've always loved this phrase, and I try to remember to live it as well. 

So, in completing this challenge, I thought about moments in my life, trying to remember when I actually lived by the phrase and had a photo to back it up. One of those moments happened to be the very first time I went kayaking. I was vacationing in the San Juan Islands, and the moment came up, so I went ahead and grabbed it. It was one of the most memorable days of my life. Granted, it's not like jumping out of a plane or ziplining, but it was still a big deal to a non-swimmer. I'm just glad I did it.

CREDITS

Papers: Talk to Me and Heart Light (Allison Pennington); Chirpy Solids (Micheline Martin); Cleaning Bug (Pink Reptile Designs)

Elements: Primavera (Gina Miller); Wanderlust and I Am Not Perfect (Pink Reptile Designs); February Facebook Freebie (Sabrina Dupre); Vagabond (One Little Bird); Project Mouse Elements (Sahlin Studio)

Brushes: Misty Paint (Lynne-Marie)

Fonts: For the One Hundredth Time (title); KG Seven Sixteen (journaling)

Template: Page 4 Pops (Our Misadventures)

Tour of Concord, Massachusetts

Back in January 1996, I took a trip to Massachusetts. Yes, a terrible time of year to take a trip to the East coast, and definitely not the best time to be outside touring the historical sites! But, life isn't perfect, and I found myself in Massachusetts during winter. I finally got around to scrapping a few pictures from that trip. These are specifically of the North Bridge area of Concord, where the first battle that kicked off the American Revolutionary War took place. As usual, I completed this page for a challenge - the May 2013 template challenge over at The Lilypad.

CREDITS

These Walls, Vagabond, and Scenes From Real Life (One Little Bird)

Fonts: BlackJack (title); Traveling Typewriter (journaling, date)

Template: May 2013 TLP Challenge Template (Amy Martin)

One Night with Blue Man Group

Looking back through old photos is always an adventure for me. For this month's template challenge at The Lilypad, I chose a photo from my "single" days (i.e. the days before the munchkin). I had traveled to Las Vegas for a girls' extended weekend. We did the usual touristy things, including a show - seeing the Blue Man Group! Although I had attended a Blue Man Group show before, it had been about nine years between shows. With a group of girl friends, it was definitely a different experience. And this time, I got a picture with one of the Blue men!

CREDITS

Papers: Barely There, Acid Washed (Micheline Martin)

Elements: Artistic Bits – VDay, Painted Little Dots V. 1 (Micheline Martin); Happygram (One Little Bird); Wanderlust (Pink Reptile Designs)

Brushes: Keep Calm and Splatter On (Michelle Godin Designs)
Fonts: McEnneking
Template: April 2013 Lilypad Template Challenge (Amy Martin)
Additional Blue Man Group image and Blue Man Group logo from Internet

It was nice to pull these photos out of the vault. Sometimes I forget what my life used to be like. :)

Winter Sunset in Tahoe

I don't get to travel much these days, so I live vicariously through friends. My friend Jennifer took some photos during a trip to Tahoe, and I decided to scrap one of them.

CREDITS

Papers: Winter Solstice, Mischief, and Sunny Laura (Blue Flower Art)

Elements: Winter Solstice (Blue Flower Art)

Font: Vladimir Script (title, date)

Template: March 2013 Freebie (Amy Martin)

Mini Adventure Scrapping

Life has been pretty busy this week! I'm not sure why (even though I am keeping track with Project Life), but how can it be Friday already???

I wanted to share a little project that I started at least a month ago. Although I've been scrapping a lot, there were some other photos that I've been wanting to scrap and just wasn't sure how or what to do with them. Which photos - my travel photos. 

In the last 20 years (yikes that makes me sound so old!), I've had lots of different photos from trips I've taken all over the place. These aren't necessarily "huge" vacation trips, but they are all from places I've been. I guess you can consider them "mini adventures." 

I've always wanted to do a scrapbook for all these different places, but it just seems like an overwhelming task. So, I decided to attempt something a little more manageable. I started a mini album (love these!) that had a variety of photos taken on different trips! I'm using the Recollections Journey album (see photo at right) that I purchased at Michaels (love those 40% off coupons!). Here are pics of how I used the album:

None of the pages are in order. I've just used random sections of the book, depending on my needs. The cool thing is that I can include the smaller page protectors (8.5" x 5.5") to hold ticket stubs, brochures, or even maps! Anything that I can't put on the pages or don't want to cut up can fit in the page protector pockets. 

I'll have to make progress slowly on this album, since I really have other scrapping priorities, but I'm so excited about finally being able to gather some of my travels in one place!

Live In the Moment

I started thinking about getting some challenge layouts done, so I attempted one today for one of the ScrapMatters challenges. These were photos from a helicopter ride over Maui back in 1995 when I was there for a wedding.

CREDITS

Papers: Almost Autumn Solids (Adorable Pixels)

Embellishments: Crazy Beautiful Life (Memory Clips); Capture A Memory, This Boys Life, and Jane (Stolen Moments Designs); Snippets of Life (ScrapMatters Designers); Eye See You (Tracy Monette)

Font: Scrap Script

Template: 10/9 Tuesday Template (Crossbone Cuts)

New Technique Down!

I LOVE when I learn how to do something new in Photoshop! I had purchased some paper tear hole masks, but had no idea how to use them. There were instructions, but they were a little fuzzy to me, so I had to keep trying different things to figure out how to get the mask to do what I wanted. I had no idea how to "invert" a selection and cut, which is what the instructions said to do. Every time I tried to do it per the instructions, the paper and the tear hole would disappear! Finally, I got it, then was able to clip the paper to the inverted mask. And here are the results!

I know it doesn't seem like a big deal, but I was so excited when I got the layout to look just like I wanted! And now, I can submit it to the scraplift challenge on Zig Zag Scrap - woo hoo!

CREDITS

Papers: Tombo (NiniGoesDigi)

Embellishments: Tombo (NiniGoesDigi)

Fonts: Century Gothic (title); Shelter Me (journaling, date)

Masks: Paper TearHoles (Jeanelle Paige)

Template: A Cherry On Top Newsletter Exclusive (Sweet Cherry Designs, Kristianne Swanson)

Visiting Japan

I have waited 20 years to scrap these photos from my visit to Japan. Truthfully, it's not exactly what I had in mind when I decided to put these in a scrapbook. I was going to do the traditional route, including bits and pieces picked up during my travel. I can still do that - once I find where I stashed all the mementos I collected! (I've moved a few times in 20 years...)

In the meantime, the photos were available because I had scanned them quite a few years ago. But they sat on my hard drive, just waiting for me to DO something with them. And now, here they are.

A two-page digital layout highlighting my trip to Japan. It seems so, so...small. But, at least I can get the guilt of not doing anything with them off my shoulders.

One thing I ran into while I was trying to scrapbook this was the lack of Japanese embellishments available. I ended up having to find stuff on the Internet, but even then, it was hard to find anything that was scrap-ready. 

CREDITS

Papers: Kokeshi (Samantha Walker)

Embellishments: Anemone flowers and gingko leaves (downloaded from Internet); Taste of Asia  - Japanese maple leaf and flag (Britt-ish Designs and Sahlin Studio); Nostalgia – ticket (Yoshiko Utsunomiya); This & Thats – blue tickets (The Tattered Pear)

Stitching: In Stitches – Red & Cream (Robyn Meierotto)

Mask: Scalloped Strip (Katie Pertiet)

Template: Press Plate No. 27 (Paislee Press)

Fonts: Karate (title); Century Gothic (date); KG Seven Sixteen (journaling)

I also scrapped one of the photos from Japan with a quick page that I found on Two Peas in a Bucket. There really wasn't any room for this photo on the two-page layout, so I figured taking a shortcut for this one wasn't too bad.

CREDITS:

Template/Quick Page: World Traveler (Sande Krieger)

Font: Baby Boston

Maybe these two layouts aren't exactly what I had in mind, but at least I know that I've captured the moment!

Wales Mini Album

Courtesy of Emily Pitts, Write Click Scrapbook

While surfing the Internet for something - I don't even recall what it was now, I came across this wonderful Wales mini album by Emily Pitts on Write Click Scrapbook.

Emily wrote about some of the challenges with creating a mini album in her blog posting. I think we all run into challenges with mini albums because it's a matter of focusing. The word "album" implies this "big" project, when it really doesn't have to be. I love how she made an album of these 4x6 tags. I haven't done any mini albums in a few months, but I may just have to tackle one again very soon!

Korea Mini Album

Courtesy of Michelle McClure

As I was blog hopping the other day, I came across a great mini album about a trip to Korea, created by Michelle McClure, that I had to share.

Michelle used the Simple Stories Mix and Match Album, which is a 6" x 8" mini 2-ring album. What I love about these smaller albums is that they are so "doable." What I mean is they don't feel completely overwhelming to me. And I love ring binders so that I can insert whatever I want, wherever I want. The post-bound albums are so much harder to work with in that respect. I can't just put in pages here or there, or stick in a brochure or envelope using a hole punch.

So far, I haven't seen this album in any of my local stores, but I really think I need to buy one - and soon!  ;)

Places I Want To Go

Last week, I saw a layout on the Two Peas site by Amy Tan that inspired me to create a layout of my own about places I want to visit. The result - which took several days since I couldn't make up my mind on embellishments and because I kept getting interrupted...

Places I Want to Go by cyranoscrap

Supplies used:

Paper: Bloom Vintage Papers (Nancie Rowe Janitz)

Frames: Instamatic Frames No. 4 (Katie Pertiet)

Stamps: The Traveler Stamps (Paula Kesselring)

Passport: The Traveler-Passport (Paula Kesselring)

Stickers/Labels: International Wonders and Credentials (Lettering Delights); Life Is An Adventure (Jenn Barrette); Happy Travels (Glitz)

Twine: Bakers Twine No. 2 (Katie Pertiet)

Pin: Fasten Its (Patti Knox)

Tape: Winter Tapes (Jessica Sprague)

Fonts: Baby Boston (journaling), Capture It (title)

It was lots of fun turning these dreams into a picture. Now, just waiting for the day I can go...sigh...

Disney Pages

M-I-C-K-E-Y... M-O-U-S-E...

Courtesy of Disney-Clipart.com

Although I'm not scheduled to do anything Disney this summer, there are lots of folks who are busily looking forward to their Walt Disney World or Disneyland trips. Scrapbook.com is currently having a sale (save 15% through Saturday) on their Disney-themed products. Also, there are some great articles for scrapping those Disney photos.

I might not be going to a Disney amusement park, but the little guy loves Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, so I may use that as an excuse to do some Disney pages of my own! :)