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!

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.

Shopping trip to Rio Piedras

Day 4 in Puerto Rico: We decided to visit a local food market to experience some Puerto Rican culture.  We went to a market in Rio Piedras, which is a part of San Juan. While we were hunting for the market, we did some shopping along the busy streets.  We also came across a curious pink church that was abandoned.  It was a very pretty church - totally boarded up.  I later found out it was a Catholic church that used to also serve as a school.  I never could find out what happened to it - other than the area was in need of revitalization..

On the first half of the double layout, I used the layout from Sketch N Scrap's challenge #77

I also was able to use the March color challenge at Scrap Much

Here is the first side of the layout:

The other side of the layout uses Sketch 430 from Scrapbook Challenges.  I rotated the layout.

and Challenge 75 from The Paper Girls Challenge, which says use the color Marsala somewhere in the layout.

And the whole double layout together:

Old San Juan Walking Tour - Rest time!

As we worked our way through Old San Juan, we rested A LOT!  I loved this beautiful fountain that we happened upon!  We wandered to the Old San Juan Gate, which is one of the original entrances into Old San Juan from the 1500's.    This layout shows us resting by the fountain and then again by the gate area.

I found a neat Pi-Day challenge at A Cherry On Top.  I picked pecan as my pi(e).  This means I was supposed to make a layout that uses at least 3 colors.  It actually says "Go nuts!"  I also had to use at least 3 circles in honor of pie.  I picked brown, turquoise, and a pinkish orangish red for the colors.


I also used the layout for the March Rewind challenge at A Cherry on Top as well!

Deep Sea Fishing - Got the Big One

Vacation 2013

Puerto Rico: During the boys' Deep Sea Fishing trip with Captain Marcos, they kept catching small fish for bait.  In one of my very favorite pics of the trip, you can see how a big fish bit into a smaller fish and left just his head on the hook! Love the expression on Preston's face.  Persistence pays off though because Preston finally hooked a BIG one.  After much reeling, he brought it in.  A large King Mackerel!

For the first half of the layout, I used a Map pattern challenge from Scrapbook Challenges.  Thanks so much for the inspiration!

And here is the full double layout.

Old San Juan Walking Tour

After our cruise was over, we spent one night in Old San Juan before we fly home.  Old San Juan is beautiful, and there is SO much history to see.  I wish we had more time to explore and experience it. But, you do what you can, right? So, after getting of the ship, we CRAMMED as much as we could into that afternoon. This layout shows just a small amount of what we saw!

I followed a sketch from Stick It Down. This was March's Double Sketch Challenge.

Luquillo Kiosks - Puerto Rico

During our summer vacation in 2013, we spent 5 days in Puerto Rico.  We tried to get out and enjoy the culture as much as we could.  One great local hangout we visited was the Luquillo Kiosks. The kiosks are a long strip building divided up into around 60 little shops, bars, and restaurants. It is a great place to sample food, get to know some friendly locals, and shop.

Over at Scrap Our Stash, they have a great challenge up right now.  Challenge #24 is to use elements on your scrapbook page that spell out the word "STENCIL".  Here is my double layout that I made for the challenge:

S - Stitches
T - Torn paper
E - Embossing (the black stitches are stamped and embossed)
N - Numbers - For date in journaling
C - Circle
I - Ink for edges
L - Letters for title

Fishing and Eating - Puerto Rico

While we were in Puerto Rico a few years ago, the guys went deep sea fishing. They caught all kinds of fish: big ones and little ones.  The mentionables are the King Mackerel that my son caught, and the Jack fish that my husband caught.  After fishing, they took the fish to the marina grill, El Varadero Seaside Grill, and had some of the smaller fish cooked up for dinner.  The girls joined them for a nice fishy dinner!

I scrapped one page of my two page layout using the challenge (LM #229) at Lasting Memories.
The layout doesn't make tons of sense yet since I don't have the first page done, but hopefully, you will get the idea.  The complete quote for the title: Teach a man to fish, and he will EAT IT!