Good Times in Tulum

At the entrance of the Tulum ruins, there is all kinds of touristy shopping.  We had a good time looking around.  Pryce is taking a little rest in this picture.

When I saw sketch 491 at Scrapbook Challenges, I was super excited.  I thought it would go perfectly with my colorful picture.

This sketch also gave me a chance to use up some of my paper for my paper challenge!  I used 5 sheets of paper and several scraps!

Henna Tattoos in Cancun and a first for me

One night at our resort in Cancun, there was a henna tattoo artist set up in the commons area for Mexico night.  Cara was excited to get one so we took some pictures during the process.

When I saw the challenge going on at Stick it Down, I knew I wanted to use the double page sketch.  I LOVED the banners running everywhere.  I thought since it was Mexico night at the resort, using some Mexican fiesta banners would be perfect!

I rotated the 2nd page of the sketch to fit my pictures better, but other wise, I followed the sketch pretty closely.

I wanted to show a closeup of the banners I used.  Two things:  First, this was my first ever stitching layout!  I have seen so many layouts with stitching on them, but I have always been too lazy to pull my sewing machine out.  However, for these banners, I was struggling with how to attach the photos and banners to a string to hold the whole thing together.  I decided to use some zig zag stitching as the string.  The sewing was SO EASY!  I will definitely do it again.  Second thing: I made the fiesta banners with my silhouette cameo.  They were a great idea, but ended up taking FOREVER!  I cut them out of vinyl and then had to pick the tiny pieces of vinyl out of the design.  I love how they turned out, but I'm not sure I would do them again.

Picture This! Challenge Blog - Grand Re-opening

I am always looking for blogs that host challenges!  Picture This is starting up August 1st.  I can't wait to see what their first challenge will be!

Right now, they are hosting a giveaway to help promote their site.  Check it out!

Enjoy the View: Tulum Ruins

More Tulum Ruins! These ruins are close to the ocean so there are some beautiful views.

Here is my double page layout, with iguanas and more ruins!

Let's Scrap has a great double page sketch challenge this month.  I love the viewfinder!

I have individual pictures of the pages below. I used my silhouette cameo to cut out the view finders, the titles, and the mayan picture. I loved using left over photograph peaces to fill in the viewfinder.  Looks so cute!

I also am entering this in the July Mood Board challenge at Scrapbook challenges. The theme of that challenge is vacation. I used the orange, yellow, dark blue, and turquoise colors from the mood board

This layout ate up 5 sheets of paper for my paper challenge! I am going through paper way faster than I thought! Once I get to 100 sheets, I am going to reward myself with MORE paper!

Tulum Ruins in Mexico

The ruins near Tulum really are impressive. They are situated right by the ocean.  Beautiful views!

Another great challenge at Scrapbook Challenges uses the grid system -  challenge 485. I used multiple pictures in place of the big one. I think it turned out nice.

The Paper Girls Challenge Blog is having vacation theme challenge.  My layout fits perfectly for a vacation theme!

Mayan Ruins in Tulum

I love challenges at scrapbookchallenges.com right now. So many of them are a block style, which is right up my alley.  I am a simple scrapbooker - the layers of embellishments that are so beautiful just aren't natural to me.  I can sometimes pull those off with scraplifts, but never on my own.  You will probably be seeing several of the scrapbook challenge sketches on my blog!

First one up is their sketch #488. I loved the strips of paper off to the side.  It gave me a chance to use some of the cute papers I bought for my Mexico scrapbook.  I would like to try some stitches on this layout - I have never done them before, but I think they would add a lot to the layout.  

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Tulum Ruins: Mayan Clipart

This is a simple page I made to compliment a challenge layout I did. You can check out my previous blog post to see details about the other layout.

I have tons of pictures from our visit to the Tulum ruins so I will have quite a few layouts that have four or more pictures on it.  This is a very typical four picture layout.  It is easy to add a smaller 5th picture in the center or to use an accent there.

Here I used a neat Mayan image I created using the Maya Allstars font (it's free!).  I used my Silhouette Cameo and some black vinyl to create the image.  This is actually the negative space left over from the image (the inversion).  I will try and use both pieces to get more out of my vinyl.  There are several letters in the font that will work great on my layouts.  You will see them several times in the future!

Here are both layouts together:

As far as my paper challenge goes, I ended up using five sheets of paper for this double layout.  While I was making that cute sun, I used a whole sheet of yellow paper making different kinds of suns and symbols.  Those die cuts will show up in future layouts.

Tulum Ruins - Just Nick cut file

Tulum Ruins!  What an experience! I will have quite a few layouts of our trip to the Mayan ruins near Tulum: this is the first one.

Just Nick  and Creative Scrappers teamed up this month for a great challenge.  Creative Scrappers provided a great sketch to use, and Just Nick provided a great cut file to use as well.

I had a great time with the Just Nick Chopsticks cut file.  I found some papers that look very Mayan to me so I was thrilled to be able to use them here.  I actually made the chopsticks file as big as I could fit for the page. Then I cut it in half so I could use the other half on another layout later.  It took me quite some time to get all the papers incorporated into the cutouts so I figured I should stretch it out as much as I could.

Some other items I used for the layout:

Sun is a cut file from Juliana Michaels at 17 Turtles #julianamichaels   I love her stuff!
Neat flat buttons I found at Walmart last week!  I like the look of buttons, but I'm not a fan of bulky pages so these are perfect!

I like to work my vacation scrapbooks as double layouts as much as I can so below is the entire double layout.  I'll talk about the 2nd half in the next post.

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Mojitos

Mojito - The National drink of Mexico!  Just kidding!  I don't know about that, but I do know that the Mojito was my drink of choice during our Mexico vacation!

There was a fun little hotel and restaurant near the villa we were staying at on Tankah Bay: Blue Sky. We enjoyed dinner at the restaurant one night, and had carry out pizza several other nights.  The waiting was the best part - Mojitos while we waited.

I used Laura Whitlock's sketch as inspiration for my layout:

I was also inspired by Scrap Our Stash's book cover challenge. The challenge also required 5 patterned papers and at least one round embellishment.  I used exactly 5 patterned papers and quite a few round limes.  I was inspired by the book's title: Oh, the places you will go.  Mexico is definitely one of the places I have gone!

I also used Lasting Memories #300 challenge as inspiration.  Their challenge is to use the photo below as inspiration.  I used the roundness with my limes.

Paper Challenge:  Used 2 sheets.

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Hello Sunshine

I am starting a brand new vacation scrapbook: Mexico 2015.  We spent 11 days in Mexico: Six days near Tulum at a villa on the beach and five days in Cancun.  It was a fun time:)

It was so hard deciding which pictures to use first, but since I just got done making tons of die cut limes, I decided to go with some pictures we took at one of the beach restaurants near our villa.  We ate there once and got pizza to go a few other times.  These pictures were taken while we were waiting for our pizza.

Really, isn't he just beautiful?!?  Preston was 18 in these pictures, just graduated from high school.  This was a special trip for him since we let him pick the place to go, as a graduation present.  I added on a few days for me:)  He wanted to go to Mach Picchu in Peru! I was like, NO WAY!  However, we settled for the Mayan ruins in the Yucatan:) You will see lots of pictures of the ruins later!

I used the great sketch over at The Scraproom. It is the July challenge and works great for my pictures.

I also am entering this layout over at Cut It Up. They are celebrating their 100th challenge, and it is an Anything Goes challenge, as long as it has at least one die cut.

Paper Challenge: Used 1 sheet
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Celebrate and a Challenge

I can't believe it!  I finished!  I'm done!  Two scrapbooks, 70 scrapbook inserts, 140 layouts later, I have finished my cruise vacation from 2013! I am so happy!

I haven't been scrapbooking continuously since that vacation, I scrapbook in spurts.  I have been on a long spurt this time though - working since February!

So, now I am on to our vacation to Mexico last summer.  I'm looking forward to doing it while it is still fresh in my memory.  I hate losing the details!

Along with the new focus, I am starting a new personal challenge I saw over at Lori's blog, A Happy Life.  She wants to use up her old patterned papers - her goal is to use 100 patterned papers! (Old papers, NO new ones).  I like this idea.  I have tons of old paper(some is from my original scrapbooking days, over 10 years old!) as well, patterned and cardstock, so  I am changing the challenge up a little: USE 100 old papers. I am going to see if I can find some type of counter to keep track!

To start the challenge, I used up 2 sheets making the lemons and limes below:)  We used lots of limes on this Mexico trip - Mojitos, Guacamole, Fresh Salsa, etc!  Thanks to Michelle McClure from A Page out of My Book for the lime Silhouette Cut file!  I found her site through a lime google search!

 

I'm off and scrapping!

St Lucia - Sightseeing

For Scrapbook Challenges Sketch 486, I pulled out the last of my St Lucia pictures.  I have scrapped SO many of those pictures but I just don't want to leave any out! Here is Sketch 486.  Love the digital strips.  It think they worked great.

Carnival Valor

We really enjoyed our cruise on the Valor.  Sometimes you hear that Carnival is the party ship, with the impression that it is low class.  Well, I either like low class or that impression is wrong:)  Our family really enjoyed the cruise and we are not big party people.  I'm sure there are higher class cruises, but for the price, we were super happy.

This layout shows the ship and where are rooms were.

Let's Scrap is having a great double layout sketch challenge this month.  I used their sketch for the basis of my layout.

St Kitts - Waters

Did I mention that St Kitts has beautiful waters?  We saw so many different water areas on our island tour (Royston Tours - AWESOME).  I want to go back and explore more! This layout just shows some of the different waters!

Barrichina - Home of the Pina Colada

During our "after the cruise" tour of Old San Juan, we stopped by Barrichina, the Home of THE pina colada.  They even give out free pina coladas if you eat there:)

I say this layout on pinterest and loved it so I recreated it and made it a double layout.

All the papers used allowed me to enter challenge 106 at The Paper Girls challenge blog. This challenge was to "use your scraps".  I definitely did that with this layout!

St Kitts - Land of Wonder

Our tour of the island of St Kitts was a great tour.  We saw so many things and so many aspects of St Kitts, from the beautiful water to the historic fort to the ruins of sugar plantations.  This layout shows some of the things at one of the sugar plantations/ rum distilleries.

The title is from the June challenge at Another Freaking Scrappy Challenge. That challenge requires you to use the word Wonder or Wonderful in a title or journaling.  Go check it out.

St Thomas - Where the Wild Things are

On St Thomas, we feed lunch to the many iguanas around.  Some seagulls also wanted some action so they came flying over for their share!

Challenge 105 at The Paper Girls Challenge Blog is to scrap about The Great Outdoors.  I think feeding Iguanas on the beach counts:)

Tour of the Town - Old San Juan, Puerto Rico

After our cruise, we stayed an extra day in Old San Juan.  We took the afternoon and did a walking tour.  So much to see.  Cute buildings, narrow streets, old history! This layout just shows a few of these things.

I used a fun single page sketch from Scrapbook Challenges.  I do mostly double layouts so I used the sketch twice, flipped, and mirror imaged to get what I needed.  I think it turned out pretty nice!

Here is a close up of the first page:

I used my silhouette cameo for the flowers and the title.  I also was able to use up some of my scraps!

Here is a close up of the 2nd page:

I was also able to play along with the color challenge at Scrap Much? I used 4 of the colors: powder puff pink, robin's egg, glittery gold (the brads in the blue flowers), and sunny yellow.

Castillo San Cristobal - Old San Juan

I don't know what I would do without layout sketches.  I am so uncreative sometimes.  For this Old San Juan page, I used a sketch from Scrap Much?.

Scrapbook Challenges is having May Pattern Challenge that requires grid paper.  My background paper is a grid.

Beautiful Ocean - St Martin

St Martin!

I did a major scrap lift this week!  Juliana Michaels at 17 Turtles has a great pie chart cut file last month.  I downloaded the free file and then fell in love with the sketch she had - as well as her layout.  I loved her layout so much, I scrap lifted it!  #julianamichaels #17turtles

This layout worked well with the May single page layout challenge at Stick it Down.

I also was able to use this layout for the challenge at Another Freaky Scrappy Challenge. The May challenge was to create a layout about one of my favorite places.  I picked the Ocean!  I love the ocean and wish I could go more often.

Lasting Memories has a challenge to make a layout with only one photo.  This is usually very hard for me.  I have SO MANY pictures to scrapbook!  However, I did it this time!  I made up for it with the second half of my double layout!

Another Lasting Memories challenge for May is to make a layout with exactly 4 photos.  

The only way to travel - St Lucia Open Air Truck

During our 2013 cruise, our stop at St Lucia was one of the favorites.  On the way to and from the rainforest for zip lining, we got to ride in an open air truck.  It was quite an experience!  We would stand up and just enjoy the view!

I made a double layout for these pictures.

For the first half of the layout, I played along with The scrappy Friends. I completed all three of their challenges so I could get 4 entries in their drawing!

First, I used the sketch from Brenda at Grand Diva's Creative Corner. My photos were landscape so I rotated the sketch.

I also used Kelly's mood board at Creating with Paper & More. I was inspired by the colors and the saying ( I actually used the saying)

Finally, I used Rochelle's This or That Challenge. I used a flair.

For the second half of the layout, I used a sketch challenge from Stuck?! Sketches

I rotated it so I could use it with my landscape photos.