St Kitts - Independence Square

On our tour of St Kitts, we drove by Independence Square.  Historically, this was the cultural and social center of St Kitts.  So much history here - much of it sad slave trade history.  I wish we could have just spent the day learning more about the history.  I would like to come back some day to spend that time learning.

 I was able to use two pattern challenges to complete this layout:

I lucked out this month on the pattern challenges. (Must be since this is a lucky month!) There were two challenges that required the chevron pattern!  Yay!

First, Rochelle was having a This or That challenge:  you choose polka dots OR chevron.

Second, Scrapbook Challenges had a chevron pattern challenge!

Brimstone Hill Fortress - St Kitts

We had the best tour of St Kitts.  It was an all day, all island private tour through Royston's Tours.  I highly recommend this tour! One of the stops was the Brimstone Hill Fortress.  Such a beautifully preserved site!

This fortress was first started in 1690 and worked on through out the next 100 years.  It was a British fort with the work done by slaves.  St Kitts has a lot of slave trade history.  I wish we had more time to look through the fort and learn more about the history.

I used two challenges on this layout: one sketch challenge and one inspiration challenge.

The sketch challenge is a double layout from Stick it Down.

The inspiration challenge is from Pixels and Paper Challenge Blog.  The challenge was to use a monochromatic color scheme on your layout.  I used brown as the color.

St Maarten - Great Bay Beach

On our cruise, we also visited St Maarten.  The plan was to go to the famous airport beach - Maho beach. This is the beach where airplanes land and take off right over the beach.  However that morning, everyone was tired so we decided to sleep in a little and make it an easier day.  Great Bay Beach is right by the cruise port - just a water taxi ride away.  That was our new destination.

The water was amazing!  So many pretty blues - deep blues:)  The beach was great and we had a good time hanging out there.  We also did some shopping at the near by stores.

If you ever go to St Maarten and land near Philipsburg, you HAVE to try the coconut smoothie kiosk. It is on the left as you are walking along the port.  I think just past the water taxis.  If you like coconut, that smoothie is to die for!  I mean REALLY!  It was incredible!  I want to go back just for that!

I used a color challenge from Scrap Much?

They had this beautiful color board and the challenge says use at least 4 of the colors.  I used the pink, yellow, jade and blue.  Fun colors!

The sketch layout came from a recipe card at The Scrap Room

Cruise Embarkment

2013 - After spending 5 days in Puerto Rico, we finally came to our cruise embarkment day!  We got there early so we could get checked in and onboard for lunch.  What an exciting time for the family!

I was able to enter this double layout in two different challenges.

First, I love the color challenges going on over at Lasting Memories this month: Blues!  Since I am working on our Caribbean cruise scrapbook, the color blue is perfect for pretty much every layout!

This layout is for the Lasting Memories #278 Blues Challenge

Also, there is a challenge at Scrapbook Challenges: Crush on Cathy. 

The challenge is to create a double layout.  I was inspired by a layout I found on Sketches in Thyme

St Thomas - Sapphire Beach

St Thomas was the first port of call on our South Caribbean cruise.  We took a taxi to Sapphire Beach.  It was great - no crowds, beautiful water, interesting ducks, iguanas to feed, and shade too!

I was able to use this double layout for two different challenges.

First, the double layout comes from the Sketches in Thyme February challenge:

The second challenge is a color challenge from Lasting Memories.  Love those colors.  They worked out perfectly for my layout.  Beach, water, and ducks.

Open Air Jeep Tour of St Lucia

St Lucia was our favorite day of the cruise.  We have so many fun memories from that day.  This layout shows us during the ride to / from the rainforest. We rode in an open air jeep.  The scenery was beautiful, our tour guide Lisa was fun and informative, but the ride itself was the best!  We were allowed to stand up the whole way.  Better than memories of riding in the back of a pickup truck!  Music was playing the whole time. It rained some of the time, but we didn't care!

I was able to combine two different challenges in this double layout.

Stick it Down was having a double layout sketch challenge.  I used their sketch, with a few modifications - I turned the second page to accommodate my horizontal pictures.

Scrap Our Stash was having a stash challenge - using supplies that spell STAMP

S - STRIPED PAPER

T - TAPE

A - Alphabet Stickers

M - Marker for journaling

P - Patterned Paper.

Sunny Shores in St Martin

The last stop of our 7 Day Southern Caribbean cruise was St Martin (well, it was actually Sint Maarten). We originally planned to go to the Airport Beach - Maho Beach.  This is where the airplanes take off and land VERY close to the beach.  We wanted to experience that, but everyone was tired and it was an ordeal trying to get there, so we opted for the nearby Great Bay Beach.  That beach is just a water taxi away from the cruise port.

This ended up being a great option.  The water was just beautiful.  I could have ridden the water taxi back and forth many times and been completely happy.  Did I mention how beautiful the water was?  We were able to check out the beach in the morning, go back to the ship for lunch, and then head back out to explore the beach and shopping some more.

Lasting Memories has a great theme challenge going this month - Travel.  This fits perfectly with my vacation book I am working on. The theme for this layout is Sunny Shores

I totally scrap lifted the layout from Renee, a DT member from Lasting Memories. Thanks for the great idea Renee.