Keeping Cool in the Pool

This summer, one of our favorite ways to stay (sort of) cool is to swim in our pool. I usually do a quick dip in the pool and then spend time relaxing poolside. One of my favorite things to do while watching the kids is take pictures.

I used my iPhone to snap photos of the kids and then played around with a couple of phone apps (Diptic and Picfx) to create the photo collage.

Layout Supplies /// Upcoming Scrapbook Circle August Kit

Here's a peek at the Scrapbook Circle August Kit:

Sketch Challenge at Two Peas

Sorry I've been a bit MIA this week. I had braces put on this week on my top teeth and some oral surgery on a bottom molar, so I've been a little out of sorts with a very achy mouth this week. Thanks to some pain meds I'm feeling pretty good today!

Last week I shared a layout I made with some photos from our trip to Rocky Point, Mexico. One of my favorite things about this page was that I was able to fit 12 photos onto one 12 X 12 spread.

Two Peas is using this layout as a sketch inspiration for CHA Summer '12 Challenge #6 - Use this sketch! You can stop by Two Peas to see the sketch and play along with their challenge. The challenge ends this Sunday, the 22nd.

Hope you have a fabulous Friday!

Summer Bucket List

This month on the Scrapbook Circle blog we have a challenge to scrapbook your summer bucket list. Love that Tessa came up with such a fun challenge!

I decided to play along with the challenge. First, I wrote down a list of things that I'd like to do this summer and then choose a few of my favorite photos that I've already taken this summer.

The photos and list are paired together and I hope to be able to cross everything off the list this summer. Although it's still plenty hot outside, I feel like a bit of summer is coming to an end because my kids go back to school in just a week and a half.

We still have so much to do, so we better get cracking on the list!

If you want to play along with the summer bucket list challenge, you can find all of the details here.

Layout Supplies /// Sunshine Day Kit ///  Summer Sun Add-on

Rocky Point, Mexico

I love the beach. It can be hot weather, cold weather, at the ocean or at a lake. It doesn't matter what type of beach it is, I love to be there. This could stem from the fact that I have lived in the desert nearly my entire life and large bodies of water are a welcome change while on vacation. Since I enjoy the beach so much, I usually tend to take a lot of pictures while we are there. Last month in Rocky Point was no exception and I ended up with many photos that I wanted to scrapbook.

Yesterday I shared the octopus photos on a page and today I'd like to share 12 of my favorite beach photos from that trip on a page. It took some time to narrow my favorites down to only 12 photos, but I can only fit so many photos on a page! All of the photos were taken on my phone because I didn't want to have to worry about our big camera at the beach.

Since I wanted to use so many photos on the page, I printed them out at a smaller 2 X 3 inch size so more photos would fit on the page.

I'm loving all of the bright and sunny colors on this page since it really reflects what our day at the beach was like.

The mini striped bags are one of my favorite elements on the page. I considered adding journaling tags inside the bags, bur decided that I like how they looked as empty bags.

A little fun news...a couple of days ago one of my Glitz Design layouts was the featured layout of the day on Two Peas. Fun!

 Thanks for stopping by today!

P.S. All of the supplies for the Rocky Point layout came from the upcoming August Scrapbook Circle Kit.

Sunshine Day

Today I'm feeling pretty lucky because our family gets to spend the entire week enjoying Lake Tahoe. We spent an hour this morning kayaking on the lake. We didnt really get very far, but we did have a lot of fun.

Since I knew my husband would have to be working part of this trip, I decided to bring along some scrapbooking stuff to use during our downtime. Here's a look at my "office." Not a bad view in sight.

I was able to put this layout together this afternoon using some photos from our weekend trip to Rocky Point last month.  The kids found a dead octopus while exploring some tide pools so of course they had to show it off of the camera.

This was our first trip to Rocky Point and we hope to go back. The beaches were beautiful and the water was warm. 

Hope you are having a fantastic Monday!

Layout Supplies /// Sunshine Day Kit /// Summer Sun Add-on

Surprise 40th Anniversary Party

Last weekend my siblings and I threw a surprise 40th anniversary party for our parents. One of my favorite things about planning the party was the almost daily phone calls with my siblings.  We even did a couple of video conferences since we live in three different states and couldn't get together to plan the party.

The night of the party, we had arranged for my parents and some of their friends to go out to dinner near our house. The plan was that they were then going to check out a house near ours and our kids were going to be waiting out front of our house and spot my parents and ask them to come see something in our backyard. Instead, my mom ended up calling me during their dinner to see if they could stop by and show our house to their friends. Perfect!

My parents were completely shocked when they arrived and saw all of their kids (one sister had traveled across the country to be there and another had traveled from Utah) and then they saw our yard full of 80 friends and family. So fun! I've never thrown a surprise party before, but I'll be on the lookout for another opportunity to do it.

We decorated the yard with hot pink and purple paper lanterns in the trees. Those were my parents wedding colors! We had tables with white tablecloths topped with candlelit mason jars with wedding and older family photos.

We had a few different food sections set up at the party. First, we had a cake, punch, mints and nuts table since these were the food items at our parents' wedding reception. My sister, Michelle made all of the cakes and they were each so delicious. We has a dark chocolate cake, coconut creme cake, fresh strawberry cake and a peanut butter cup cake. She really outdid herself on the cakes.  We made this punch recipe and it was perfectly refreshing and delicious.

Another one of our food tables was cookies and milk station.  We had skim milk, dark chocolate almond milk and regular chocolate milk along with an mix of homemade and store bought cookies. We also added a tray of homemade (by Michelle) brownies plus a canister of homemade vanilla ice cream. We also had some funfetti Chex mix made by my sister Kristen.

Our third food station was a popcorn mix station. We popped a bunch of fresh popcorn and filled a giant basket. We had several little containers that held a bunch of different candies (Whoppers, mini M&M's, Reeces Pieces, nuts, and Junior Mints) plus some flavors that could shake on the popcorn so everyone could do a custom popcorn mix. We bought the flavors from this online store. We decorated white paper bags that everyone could use to hold their popcorn.

My brother put together a video with wedding photos and older photos that we had running during the party.

We set up a photobooth where we asked the guests to pose as they arrived at the party. My sister Kristen ran the booth. Nice work, Kristen!

Once the sun went down, our paper lanterns light up perfectly. We used these battery operated lights in each lantern. The lights were perfect because we didn't have to rig up any electric lights. We also lined our pool fence with white lights.

Overall, I'd say that we threw a very successful party. It was such a fun night spent celebrating my amazing parents.

Travel + Food = Happiness

This month my Glitz layouts focus on two of my favorite things: traveling and good food.

My travel themed layout was inspired by the Glitz Designs blog challenge this month which to to create a layout focused on summer.

One of my favorite things about summer is traveling to the beach, so of course, I had to do a page with a few of my favorite beach photos from our vacation to California in June. I printed off a few of my favorite Instagram photos to use on the page.

The Glitz Designs Happy Travels line was perfect for my page. I really love the background paper with the subtle map design. The map adds a cool texture to the page, but still keeps the background neutral and not too busy. Plus the blues and sandy colors were perfect for a beach themed page.

 My second layout today is about one of my favorite restaurants, Pizzaria Bianco. I was lucky enough to go twice in a month with two different friends for lunch.

I had some fun with the tiny alphas on the journaling. Those letters are just the right size for adding text to a page. Plus there are lots of each letter on the sheet, so I didn't need to worry about running out of a letter. 

If you are ever in Phoenix and get a chance to go, you must try the Rosa pizza. Seriously one of the best food combinations ever. It's red onion, parmigiano reggiano, rosemary, AZ pistachios on a fresh wood fired crust. My mouth is watering.

Beach Layout Supplies
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Patterned Paper: Floral, Bicycle, World, Polka
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Travels Chipboard Album
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Glitzers
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Journaling Stickers
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" 6X6 Paper Pad

Pizzaria Bianco Supplies
Glitz Designs "French Kiss" Patterned Paper: Floral
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" Patterned Paper: Floral, Bicycle
Glitz Designs "French Kiss" Epoxy Stickers
Glitz Designs "French Kiss" Paper Layers
Glitz Designs "Happy Travel" Glitzers
Glitz Designs Teeny Alphas Black Type
Glitz Designs "Happy Travels" 6X6 Paper Pad