Mesmerized

As you can tell we really enjoyed our time at Sea World, San Diego.

Here is a layout I created showing how mesmerized my daughter was with the Orcas.  They were such incredible creatures..  The female in this tank was quite old and un-interested in things until this young male Orca came to the park.  She came alive and wanted to play. they are like soulmate as one of the Sea World volunteers was telling me.  They stick together whenever they can.  My daughter just stood so close to the viewing glass she was almost part of the glass.  She could have stood there for hours just watching these two swim, and play.  They had a toy in the water that they took turns playing with.  It seems the 'string' part of the toy was made from old fire hoses (to be strong enough to last with Orcas playing with it).

With this layout I used a Hero Arts stencil and some Lawn Fawn coloured inks (a blue and a grey) and added this mesmerizing pattern over half of my background card stock.

I added my photos, a title (cut using my Silhouette Cameo), some twine and some journaling on a piece of vellum.

The results with this finished layout share the feeling my daughter had with the whales.

Workshop Layouts

I have two layouts to share with you.  Both I started at my last workshop.  The first I want to share with you is the last layout I did at my workshop.  To be honest all I did with this one at my workshop was to adhere a 5"x 7" photo to a scene pattern paper (I covered the yellow submarine with the photos LOL).
Yesterday using my Silhouette Cameo I cut out the title and the Orca.  I started with just 'Amazing' but then added the 'Creatures'.  Then using a date stamp I added the date we went to Sea World.

The second layout was my first layout I did at my workshop.  I wanted a red gingham paper for my background as we had gone to a traditional Italian pizza place for lunch that day.  But it needed breaking. I cut a narrow frame from black cardstock and a narrow circle frame from kraft cardstock, I adhered these to my layout then added my photos.
Today I cut out the title and stamped two tickets stamps for a bit of fun.  Lastly I added a journaling block (which now has journaling in it)

Can you believe, at this pizza place I had a huge tasty ... salad.  The food and company was amazing.  We had some good laughs.  It was great to stop briefly after shopping in Coronado - a beautiful sea side town with amazing houses (one of my next layouts)

It is so much fun to work on my holiday album.  I love remembering all the fun we had as I look at the photos before and after I scrapbook them.

I'm Back!!!!

It has been such a long time since I last posted (almost a year).  So much has happened since I last posted.  I am and have continued to craft while I was gone.  I have been thinking lately about whether or not to carry on/pick up my blog again.  I number of people encouraged me to start writing my blog again, so here I am.

I have decided to make this a personal blog and to share my cards and scrapbooking layouts.  Even to share how I have done some of them.

First of all let me catch you up of a few things.
About three months ago my father-in-law had a heart attach and a triple bypass heart surgery.  My sister-in-law flew over from the UK to spend time with her Dad and to be here for his initial recovery.  She also spent some time with us which was lovely. She even got me knitting - haven't done that in a long time.  It has been fun.

About six weeks ago my daughters and I went for a wonderful two week holiday to America.  Grace went to Orlando, Florida for the Zumba convention. While she was at convention Melissa and i spent time with my friends Andrew and Katie in San Diego.  Melissa's friend from Canada also joined us.

After convention Grace joined us in San Diego for a couple of days, Then Grace, Melissa and I went to San Francisco for three days before coming home.

Recently my Dad has been diagnosed with Dementia.  For me this was not a total surprise. But it is still something my family and I are needing to come to terms with.

I have just done my first training to become a Zumba instructor.  I do not know where this will lead but I am looking forward to the adventure.  So much to learn - exciting.

So currently I have many scrapbooking projects on the go.  I am also seeing a great need to document family stories from both sides of the family.

So come join me on a journey of learning, discovery and creativity.