Journaling Blocks for Storytelling

It's Saturday! I'm looking forward to checking off several Scrapbook Circle tasks from my to-do list today and then watching my daughter play in her last soccer game of the season. Should be a great day!

Today I want to share one of my favorite quick journaling tips with you. Sometimes getting words on a scrapbook page isn't the most fun part of putting the page together. I've found that when I incorporate a few journaling blocks into the page design, it makes journaling easy because I have a designated and limited place to write.

On this page, it is designed using the rule of thirds to create a nice balance on the page. The top third includes the title, the middle is the photo and a subtitle and the bottom third was reserved for the journaling. I used the journaling blocks from the Scrapbook Circle April Printable on this page, but there are lots of different journaling block options available from a variety of companies.

I love journaling blocks because it gives a defined place to write. When I'm using a limited space like this, I think through what my journaling will be and think about much space that will take. Sometimes I air write just above the space to get an idea of how many words will fit in the space. 

Occasionally, the spacing a little off and I'll have extra room which is great for adding a date or location. If I start writing and it looks like I'm going to run out of space, then I do my best to use less words to tell the story. Or if I really have more that I want to share, then I would find a way to work another journaling block into the page design.

Hope this tip for working journaling onto your page gives you some inspiration for an upcoming layout!

Let's Do This!

I'm just loving the name of Scrapbook Circle's April Kit, Let's Do This. I've been doing a lot of spring cleaning and reorganizing around here the past couple of weeks and I feel like "Let's Do This" is going to be a perfect theme for the month. I'll have to post some pictures of some projects I've been working on around my house. It's mostly involved hanging things on our bare walls. It's so much fun adding some color and personality to our home.

Today I want to share one of my layouts using the Let's Do This April Kit. I had a creative burst last week and created five pages with the kit and I'll be sharing them all here soon.

It was so much fun to put this page together. The word paper in the background is one of my favorites and I wanted to have as much of it show without taking away from the photos and stories. Using some white cardstock in the center seemed like the perfect way to frame my photo and journaling while still letting a lot of the background paper show. Finishing off the page with a sprinkling of sequins added just the right playful touch I was looking for on the page.

This was one of my favorite photos from our recent trip to NYC and I'm happy to have it printed and on a page along with some journaling telling more about our trip.

All of the photos on my NYC trip were taken with my iPhone. I would have loved to have photos from my big camera, but it didn't seem worth it to carry that weight around the city with me. What do you think? Should a big camera go along on vacations or do the phone photos work for you?

Layout Supplies /// Let's Do This Kit /// NYC alphas from my stash (Pink Paislee Bella Rouge)

Love Life Love You

I've been having so much fun the last couple of weeks carving out time to scrapbook. It s something that I'm making a priority because it really is important to me.

The February Scrapbook Circle Kit, Today is Beautiful, went live today and so I wanted to share my favorite layout I've made with the kit so far. I still have this stack of goods from the kit to use, so I'm hoping there will be a few more layouts to come.

This layout came together with a bit of inspiration from my friend Jennie. She was working on a wedding video for her sister in law and said how many selfies they had taken over the past couple of years. I decided to look through my photos and see how many I could find from 2014 of Ward and I. We had about 20 decent photos of us together. Is this a lot? A little? I have no idea, but it was the perfect amount to put on this layout.

This paint chip paper from Crate Paper just called out to have lots of the little spaces filled with photos and embellishments. I loved printing out lots of small photos and then pairing them with bits and pieces from the February Kit.

I've noticed that Ward and I tend to mainly take photos together when we are on trips or at special occasions, so I'm going to work on taking more photos together during more regular daily moments this year.

Thanks for stopping by today! Hope you have a terrific Tuesday!

Sit Back and Relax

It seems that time and activities are coming at us at a record pace lately, so it was amazing last month to get away on a cruise and take some time to sit back and relax. One of the best things about a cruise is that you can really unplug and just enjoy time alone and with family and friends. No texting, very limited internet and a lounge chair by the pool forced me to slow down and I loved it.

One of my favorite pictures that I took was while I was in a hammock on the Disney private island, Castaway Cay, on the quiet adult only beach. My friend, Jennie, and I had gone to the beach to take a yoga class, but when we arrived, the class wasn't happening. We decided to each sit back in a hammock to wait and see if the yoga class was going to ever start. The class never started, but it turned out just fine. It was a perfect opportunity to just sit back and relax.

This layout was really fun to put together. I started out knowing that I wanted to use the picture plus the "grateful for" card on this page. Then I started trying out different 6 X6 papers to see what looked best. I just stacked them on each other to try out the patterns and then bumped the paper and the papers all fanned out a bit and had lots of pieces of patterns showing. I loved the look of all of the different patterns on the page, so I stuck them all down and had a finished page.

Layout Supplies /// November Scrapbook Circle Little Moments Kit /// Sweetness Add-on /// Home Sweet Home Add-on

Hello, Santa Barbara

This month has been so busy and full of good things. I guess too many things going on means that I'm not getting to this little blog space.

Last week I got to spend 4 full days in Santa Barbara, CA with my daughter Audrey where she sang with an honors choir at a choral conference. The great thing about this trip was that I had a lot of free time to myself to explore the city while Audrey was in rehearsals. I almost didn't know what to do with myself, but seemed to manage just fine.

Here's a look at some of the highlights of the trip including trips to the beach, touring the Santa Barbara Mission, exploring shops, renting a bike to ride along the beach, visiting a farmers market, running along the beach and of course, finding new places to eat.

And for the Psych fans in our house, we had to take a picture of the Santa Barbara Police Department. Sadly, it is not the same building used in the show, but it was still fun to see it.

Audrey and I had a great time together. It was a great opportunity for the two of us to spend time together. Plus, we got to spend time with other choir friends which was a lot of fun.

This was my first trip to Santa Barbara and I hope to get to back again someday!

NYC w/Kids Day 2

As I was editing the pictures for this post, I was saddened to think of all of the damage and destruction that Hurricane Sandy brought to the east coast this week. Our family's thoughts and prayers have been with all those who were changed and challenged because of the storm.  We love NYC and hope they are able to quickly get things back up and running.

We started off day two of our NYC adventure by walking to meet up with friends who traveled from Baltimore to be with us for the weekend. Janet and I have have been friends for around 14 years and it's always great when we can get together! Janet also has 3 kids and they were all born the same three years as my kids. Perfect!

My husband was in a conference all day and Janet's husband was working and he came up to meet us the next day.

Here's a look at what we did on our first day together.

Chinatown

Max really wanted to go to Chinatown because one of his favorite book series  Percy Jackson, has some scenes that took place there. Plus he was hoping to find a cheep souvenir. The girls all found some cute head wrap for the bargain price of only $5. Perfect for being warm and stylish!

We walked around for about 30 minutes and that was really all of the time we needed. Max did find an inexpensive Statue of Liberty statue, so we were all set on souvenirs.

Georgetown Cupcakes

Not only does our family love good food, but we also watch food t.v. shows. My kids love the TLC show DC Cupcakes and Audrey knew that they had a location in NYC. We mapped it and found that it was really close to Chinatown, so we walked over for a breakfast of cupcakes.

I tried to snap a photo of our cupcakes before they were eaten, but as you can see, we had some anxious cupcake eaters!

They really were delicious. Cupcakes are not usually my first dessert choice, but the thick and creamy frosting really made these some of the best cupcakes I've had.

Brooklyn Bridge

After fueling ourselves with cupcakes, we set off to walk over to Brooklyn via the Brooklyn Bridge to Grimaldi's Pizza for lunch.

As you can see from the map, we had some distance to cover. 2.3 miles to be exact. The kids were not convinced that walking way the best idea, but they all survived.

The bridge was under some construction, but it was still cool and we had some great views of the city.

Grimaldi's Pizza

After walking across the bridge, we walked over to Grimaldi's Pizza. (You can see my layout about our Grimaldi's experience here.) We waited in a line outside of the restaurant for about 30 minutes and were then seated at a cozy upstairs table.

This pizza was really delicious! I loved the ricatta and sun dried tomato pizza.

Baked

Did I mention that we did A  LOT of walking on this trip? I wasn't exaggerating. After lunch, we decided to walk another 2.3 miles to get to a bakery named Baked in Brooklyn.

I own a couple of the cookbooks written by the chefs at this restaurant (this book and this one) and have loved the treats baked at home with their recipes. We decided to it was time for another treat after all of our walking.

Since we'd all had cupcakes that morning, we tried different baked treats here. The Peanut Butter Crispy (dark chocolate ganache topping and peanut butter milk chocolate center on a bed of caramelized crisped rice cereal) was a popular choice for our group.

Worth the walk? I say yes!

Central Park

We decided to take a bus and then the subway to get back to Manhattan and go to Central Park.

When we went to get on the bus (it was going to drive us over 3 miles to the nearest subway station) we discovered that you had to pay in coins or use a metro pass. We didn't have $18 in coins or Metro passes. The bus driver just let all 8 of us get on the bus for free. The bus driver's generosity may have been fueled by the panicked looks on the kids faces when they momentarily thought they were going to be walking three more miles to the subway.  We were thankful for his kindness!

This playground in Central Park was probably the kids' favorite place on the trip. The kids made up a game that they played on the playground. They even made friends with two boys from England who played with them. When we were leaving the boys and their parents wanted to know if we were coming back the next day so they could play again.

Times Square

Once it got dark, we left the park and walked to Times Square. We checked out the M&M's store and Toys R Us. Hannah was extremely happy to visit the huge Barbie display in Toys R Us and just as happy to discover that all of the Barbies were on sale for half off.

Schnipper's

After shopping in Times Square we were all pretty worn out, but needed some dinner before heading back to the hotel. Janet had been to Schnipper's on a previous trip and suggested it for dinner. It was perfect!  Burgers for the kids and salads for the moms.

After dinner we walked a little over a mile to get back to the hotel and then fell into our beds for a fantastic night's sleep. We walked over 12 miles that day, so our rest (and treats) were well deserved.

Want to see our other NYC adventures?

Day 1

Stand Up Paddle Boarding

Have you ever been stand up paddle boarding?  I went out on one for the first time this summer while we were visiting Lake Tahoe. My sister Kristen and I decided that it would be a fun new adventure and we rented SUPs while others rented kayaks.

I thought that it would be hard to balance, but it was really easy and neither of us fell in the water on our two hour ride. We has fun paddling around the lake and even jumped in the cold water a few times to cool off.

One of my favorite things about visiting Lake Tahoe was that we were out everyday doing something fun that counted as exercise. We kayaked, rafted and walked a lot. Can't wait to go back to Tahoe again someday to enjoy the beautiful water and cool summer days!

Layout supplies /// Talk of the Town Kit /// Say It Like It Is Kit

Party + Sand Dunes

A couple of months ago my siblings and I threw a surprise 40th anniversary party for our parents. We has so much fun planning the party and we were rewarded with completely surprising our parents at the party. I have tons of pictures from that night and I've finally printed off a few of the pictures for a layout.

These Glitz Design papers were perfect for my page. I love the bright, cheery and party feel from the Pretty in Pink line. It's perfect for documenting a celebration!

For a little added dimension on the page, I sewed some tulle to the page and then sewed the photos on top of the tulle.

For my second layout today, I have a page documenting a visit to Jockey's Ridge Sand Dunes while we were visiting my sister and North Carolina. I've been want to use the arm/heart picture for a while and I was happy to use it on this page.

I mixed several different Glitz Designs line on this page. I love how their different lines can coordinate so well. For now, I only have the Cashmere Dame 6 X 6 Paper Pad, but I really wanted to use this line on my page. I used smaller pieces of the paper in little groupings around the page since I didn't have any big pieces of paper.

The hexagons were leftover from a layout I did a few months ago, but I held onto the little hexagons because I knew they would eventually be put to good use.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Anniversary Party Supplies
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Patterned Paper: Stripe, Polka, Ledger
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" 6X6 Paper Pad
Glitz Designs Pink Woodgrain Alpha
Glitz Designs "French Kiss" Layered Stickers
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Paper Layers
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Epoxy Stickers
Glitz Designs "Pretty in Pink" Peek a Boo Transparency
Glitz Designs "Dance in the Sunshine" Tulle

Jockey's Ridge Supplies
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Patterned Paper: Polka, Bicycle, Stripe
Glitz Designs "French Kiss" Patterned Paper: Floral
Glitz Designs "Cashmere Dame" 6X6 Paper Pad
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Giant Rhinestones
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Title Cardstock Stickers
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Layered Stickers

Carlsbad Travel Mini

Today over on the Scrapbook Circle blog I'm sharing my completed travel album documenting our trip to the beach last week. The Scrapbook Circle blog challenge this month is to create a mini travel album and I knew that I wanted to play along.

I thought I'd share a few of the album pages here today.

The Heidi Swapp Color Magic File Folders that I used as a base for this album were so much fun to work with. They start out white and are perfect for misting. They take the color really well and I love how bright it turned out.

If you'd like to see more of the album, just stop by the Scrapbook Circle blog.

Hope you enjoy your day!