Beach Braids

If you are looking for the Glitz blog hop, you can go here.

Happy Saturday! We are enjoying a beautiful Easter weekend here in AZ. I'm hoping to get a bunch of eggs cooked so that my kids can color them today. I'm also working on a talk that I'm giving in church tomorrow. What could be better that the topic of Easter for a church talk?

Today I want to share a layout I put together about a trip to Mexico a couple of years ago. We were there with friends and our girls decided to have their hair braided.

It was a bit of a funny event. We arrived at the beach and settled in on some lounge chairs and the kids immediately started splashing in the water. My husband, Ward, left to walk to the beach hoping to find a taco stand. When Ward came back about 10 minutes later, we were all involved with one of the many beach vendors that are well known on Mexican beaches.

The girls were getting their hair braided, Jennie and I were looking at dresses and our friend Dave was getting a massage in his lounge chair. I guess you could say that we were their target market!

Thanks for stopping by! Wishing you and your family a happy Easter!

Have You Seen It?

Looking for the Glitz blog hop >>> Go Here!

The April Scrapbook Circle Kit + Add-ons are live on their site. If I wasn't so busy packing for the move, I'd definitely be making something with it today.

Here's a look at the Happy Place Main Kit. I'm loving those wood die cuts, clear teal alphas and exclusive Scrapbook Circle tags!

Here's a look at the add-on. Can't wait to use those clear Heidi Swapp tags and the washi. Oh and the stickers and mini album too!

Main Kit /// Happy Place

Embellishment Add-on /// Good TImes

Cardstock Add-on /// Cardstock

Now I just need to clear some time and get to work with this kit!

Glitz Blog Hop: Uncharted Waters

Thanks for joining the Glitz Blog Hop today!

By now I'm sure you have seen the fabulous Glitz Designs Uncharted Waters line. I love the navy and yellow color combo with pops of pink and all with the great nautical designs.

Today I'd like to share a Project Life spread using the Uncharted Waters line. I love that the line works perfectly for layouts, but also for so much more.

One of my favorite Glitz products is their tape. The designs are all perfect. I find myself reaching for them on almost every project! Here I used some tape on my title card for the week to add some color and layering.

The Uncharted Waters Bits and Pieces paper is especially perfect for Project Life because the cards are sized to perfectly fit into the standard sized page protector pockets. 

The stickers are also perfect for creating little accents!

What do you think? Doesn't the Uncharted Waters line work nicely for Project Life pages?

Join in the Glitz Blog hop!  Glitz will be choosing one lucky winner who comments on the DT blogs to win a fabulous prize!

Lea Lawson – http://leascupcakesandsunshine.blogspot.com/
Audrey Yeager – http://audreysreflection.blogspot.com/
Camilla Ekman – http://camillaslillasida.blogspot.com/
Gerry Van Gent – http://www.gerryscrafts.blogspot.com/
Janna Werner – http://jannawerner.de/
Karola Witczak – http://www.karolakraftuje.blogspot.com/
Laurie Schmidlin – http://justgivemestamps.typepad.com/
YOU ARE HERE >>>  Lisa Andrews – http://lisaandrews.blogspot.com/
Mou Saha – http://collagecollagecollage.blogspot.com/
Nicole Martel – http://nicolemartel.blogspot.com/
Noel Culbertson – http://paperpassionpixels.blogspot.com/
Rommel Okuma – http://risqueerabisque.wordpress.com/
Teresa Kline – http://paperieblooms.blogspot.com/
Glitz Design – http://glitzitnow.com/blog/

Project Life 2013: Week 6

Keeping the Project Life ball rolling...

This week was really fun to put together because of all of the brightly colors Valentines I saved and put into the spread.

Grandma's Sugar Cookies /// New Shoes! /// Girls Scout Cookies /// Laptop Homework /// Travel Album

Half Day Lunch with Friends @ Five Guys /// School Valentine Party in Second Grade /// Love Notes /// Leaving on our Cruise

I'm so happy to have a place to store the fun Valentine notes I used on this spread. Before this project, I probably would have been tempted to throw these things away. 

Thanks for the visit today!

Project Life: Week 5

I haven't had very much time for creating lately. Our move is taking up a lot of my time since I'm meeting with contractors, driving an hour round trip almost daily and starting to pack and move things. It will all be worth it once we are moved!

Luckily, I have been able to do some Project Life spreads. They don't take as much time as regular layouts, so I'm able to squeeze in bits of time with this.

I apparently didn't do a very good job taking photos this week because there were not many to choose from. Thankfully, I had collected a couple of bags, a receipt and a ribbon to help in in the space. I'm happy when the pictures are a little low because it forces me to record other pieces from our daily life.

Super Bowl Party /// Haircut /// Petting Zoo Birthday Party

Haircut Receipt /// School Pick Up Line /// Dinner @ Gramps and Charlotte's House

That's it for the first full week of February!

Tomorrow morning I'll be at our new house meeting with someone from SPR irrigation who is going to teach me how to turn the water on and off. We've never had irrigation before, so this is a whole new things for me.  Good times!

Can You Ever Have Too Much Ice Cream?

I'm pretty sure that you can have too much ice cream, but on our cruise last month, all of our kids were frequent visitors to the self serve ice cream machine. Who can blame them? All of that running around the ship can really help you work up an appetite!

They even got creative with getting the most ice cream per trip by filling two cones and putting them together.

I had some fun putting this title together with a mix of sticker alphas and letter from these Dear Lizzy cards.

Ice cream is sounds pretty good right about now!

Layout Supplies /// Scrapbook Circle Charmed Life Kit /// Lucky You Kit

Going Green!

This week on the Glitz blog we had the challenge to "Go Green" on our layouts which could include the color green, St. Patrick's Day, recycling, etc. I'm always up for a scrapbooking challenge!

For my first layout I used some of my favorite photos from St. Patrick's Day last year. We don't normally do anything really fun on this holiday, but we were visiting my sister and she was ready for fun. Leprechauns even visited us during the night and left a bunch of green and rainbow treats, hats and necklaces! I wonder if the leprechauns will find us again this year.

Since I've been using the Color Me Happy line so much, I'm starting to run a little low on 12 X 12 sheets. No problem though, here I just used four of the 6 X 6 papers from the paper pad to create the background. I also added one of the 8 X 8 papers too. I love having a variety of paper sizes!

The photo for my next page was also taken last St. Patrick's Day and I loved that it worked perfectly with the green theme with green shoes and green clover.

Have you noticed how the Glitz 6 X 6 paper pads have a strip of paper along the top with a different design?  I love those little strips and decided to frame my page with a few of them.

Thanks for stopping by today!

Lucky Little Leprechauns Layout Supplies
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" 6 X 6 Paper Pad
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" 8 X 8 Paper Pad
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Patterned Paper: Bits and Pieces
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Journaling Stickers
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Peek a Boo
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Rainbow Teeny Alpha
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Rainbow Washi Tape
Glitz Designs Chevron Roller Stamp

Hello Layout Supplies
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Patterned Paper: Chalkboard, Woodgrain
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Whatnots
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" 6 X 6 Paper Pad
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" 8 X 8 Paper Pad
Glitz Designs Teeny Gold Alpha
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Rainbow Washi Tape
Glitz Designs "Color Me Happy" Peek a Boo

Castaway Cay

Spending a day at the beach on a warm, sunny day is pretty much a perfect day for me. While we were on our cruise, we spent at day on the Disney Island and it really was wonderful!

I took my photo, Instax and regular camera to the beach that day and tried to take a lot of pictures. Of course, once I'm home it doesn't seem like enough pictures. Oh well, maybe we can go back someday and I'll be sure to take even more pictures!

I used my Scrapbook Circle March Kit, Charmed Life, plus the Lucky Girl add-on for this page. 

I'm not sure when we will make it back to the beach again, but I'm already looking forward to spending another day at the beach!

Project Life 2013: Week 4

Another week of Project Life is complete! I had fun this week incorporating a drawing from Hannah and some packaging from a new thermostat.

This week came together really quickly!

Hannah's first swim of the season /// Bicycle Riding /// Sick Audrey /// Paddleboat Cleanup /// Travel for Work /// Homework

Diana's Birthday /// Crepe Bar Lunch

Project Supplies /// Scrapbook Circle Charmed Life Kit

Our Disney Cruise

Our family seriously feels so lucky that we got to go on a Disney Cruise a couple of weeks ago. The planning started last fall when we found a "kids sail free" deal on the Disney Cruise site. We had taken advantage of this deal a couple of years ago and knew that it was too good to pass up. We booked the trip along with our friends the Blasers. We kept it a secret from the kids and had the cruise announced Christmas morning as their present.

The great thing about a cruise is that you get a lot of family time plus couple time and alone time. You also get to see a few new places and never have to unpack. Plus you don't have to cook or clean for a whole week! One of my favorite things to do was to take my book (The Distant Hours) and find a cozy spot near the adult only pool in a lounge chair and read. Perfect!

One of the kids favorite things was the self serve ice cream. Hannah came up with a clever way to get the most ice cream at one time by putting two cones together.

The activities on the ship were running non stop. We took part in lots of trivia games. My boys won the foosball tournament! We also went to a lot of movies at the ship's full sized movie theatre. We saw Wreck it Ralph in 3D, Chimpanzee, Lincoln, The Odd Life of Timothy Green and Brave. Plus every night after dinner we went to a show. It was either a Broadway style Disney play or a magician or ventriloquist.

The ship has an adult only restaurant and the food is truly amazing. The four adults booked dinner there on two nights of the trip. The great thing about service on the ship was that we sent the kids off to our assigned dining room for the night and our regular servers took care of them. The boys did order and eat 5 desserts while they were dining without parents. I think they enjoyed themselves!

Did you know Disney has their own private island that many of their Disney Cruise ships visit. It really was a perfect day. It started off with Jennie and I running a 5K and then doing an hour long yoga class on the beach. Yoga at the gym will never compare to the Bahamian beach in the background. We had a BBQ lunch, kids played in the water all day and we had time to rent bikes and relax in hammocks. When can we go back?!?

One of our days on land included a visit to Disney World. We has such a fun time checking out Animal Kingdom and Magic Kingdom. We were exhausted by the end of the day and happy to return to the slower pace back on the boat. 

We made a morning stop in Key West, Florida where we do to walk to the southernmost point in the continental USA. We also bought and devoured a key lime pie while we were there.

The dining on the boat is a smooth operation  We had one morning assigned for a character breakfast where we had all of the favorite Disney characters visit our table during our meal. Lunch was either at a buffet or pizza, sandwiches or burgers by the pool. French fries always went with lunch or for an afternoon snack. I'm pretty sure I ate fries everyday of the trip. 

For dinner, we rotated between three assigned dining rooms and our servers stayed with us each night. It was fun to dress up a little bit and enjoy a four course meal every night. The bonus is that if you can't decide between the steak and salmon, you can order both! Or more importantly, if you want both the chocolate cake and ice cream sundae, no one will tell you can can't order both desserts. 

I really didn't take any good pictures of our staterooms, but decided to show this one of all six kids passed out after watching a movie while the parents were out playing cards. Our rooms each had a queen bed, plus two bunk beds and a murphy bed. Plenty of space for the 5 of us to sleep.

If you ever get a chance to go on a Disney Cruise, I highly recommend it! We will be watching for the next "kids sail free" deal for sure!