Jurassic Layout

Today I have a layout to share with you.  I still have so many pictures from out trip to Universal Studios that need to be scrapbooked.  And yes, that's after I've already filled up one book.  I guess that's what happens when you visit your favorite place every year.

This layout features pictures that my husband and I took when we visited the Jurassic Park section of Universal Studios.  Tucked in between Camp Jurassic and the Discovery Center is an area where you can meet a 9 foot tall raptor.  It's a fun non-ride experience and we do it every time we go.

So for my layout I thought it would be fun to use pieces from the Dinosaur Park file by Marjorie Ann Designs.  Mix in some fun dinosaur background paper from the DCWV Kidosaurus Stack and you have a winning layout.

Swizzle Layout

I have one final layout to share with you, featuring the Cabana Bay Resort.  Since I had collected some of the swizzle stirs from my margaritas I thought they would be fun to use on a layout and thus the one picture was all I wanted to use.  At first I wasn't sure how I'd pull it off but I kept playing around with ideas until I settled on the one you see here.

The background paper and the paper used for my couch are both from the October Afternoon line titled Saturday Mornings.  This is an amazingly fun line of retro prints and they have been absolutely perfect for my layouts.  Now I want to take more pictures when we go back in September just so I can try to use the prints that are on the back of these papers.  That's right - there's double sided!!  And the papers have great names too.  Like this one is called "Bacon".  😁

The couch that I used for this layout is from the Marjorie Ann Designs file titled Classic Redhead.  It's another great, fun file where I've been able to use the different pieces as elements in my layouts.

The key cards are from my trip last year that we held onto.  I used them on this layout because they too had that retro look (before they started printing different pics of the Universal rides/characters on the keys).  I love having little souvenirs like this to add to my pages.  While the keys have the dates of stay printed on them I didn't want that part showing so I hid it behind the couch.

And that completes my layout tour of the Cabana Bay Resort.  If you missed my other layouts for the resort you see them here and here.

Cabana Bay Layout

I found more pictures of the resort we stayed at when we went to Universal Studios so of course I had to get them scrapbooked. 

 

I started off with this great paper from October Afternoon.  This is from their Saturday Morning line.  I love the retro, throw back look and it works perfectly with the retro theme of Cabana Bay.  The papers I used as my photo mats are from other companies but the prints worked well together and fit with my theme.

 

The TV is from Marjorie Ann Designs' file Classic Redhead.  I changed it up just a bit so that I could add a picture I took of the TV in the Bayliner Diner.  If you look at the photo on the bottom far right you'll see the complete picture I took.

 

The jukebox is also from Marjorie Ann Designs.  It's from the file 50's Diner.  I used the jukebox because as you walk around the resort you hear 50's/60's music playing. 

 

Needless to say we love this resort and we've already booked for our next trip later this year.

Jurassic Zookeeper

Today I'm going back a couple of years to when I first started using Marjorie Ann Designs for my layouts.  Granted I don't tend to create a lot of layouts, but as I've been moving and setting up my new craft room I've realized that I need to start doing more.  I have so many pictures of our trips to Universal and even more importantly our precious Granddaughter.  So getting ready because they're coming.

 

In the meantime though, this layout is one that I made a couple years ago using the When I Grow Up Zookeeper file.  Even though my pictures are from Jurassic park there were elements that I was able to tie in using this file.  For example the jeep and the tree.  And that's the beauty of files like this, you don't have to use every piece of the file - just those that work for what you need. 

 

Even my background paper was instrumental in tying it all together.  This is a page from the Kidosaurus stack from DCWV.  All those bones printed on the page worked perfectly to tie in with the picture we took of the dinosaur fossil along the path in Jurassic Park....

Cabana Bay Layout

 

My crafting will be a bit sparse over the next couple of weeks as I begin to pack up my room to prepare for my move.  One of my boys is moving out and so I'll be moving into his old room and moving my remaining son into mine.  The remaining son is seldom home anymore and is planning to move to Tallahassee soon so I figured there wasn't much point in waiting.  Instead I'll begin the shifting this week and in so doing that means there's some work I'll be doing in my "new" room before I complete the move in.

 

In the meantime though I sat down and pulled out pictures from our trip to Universal Studios which I'll be scrapbooking.  Yesterday was the first layout of the hotel in which we stayed on-site.  If you like things that are retro, you'll love Cabana Bay.  Everything from the décor to the music that plays throughout the resort, to the videos that play on the TV in the food court area is all from the 50's and 60's era.  The best thing is once you park, you don't have to leave property.  Everything you need is there - including a shuttle to take you back and forth to the parks.  Our first stay with them was last year and it's where we'll continue to stay because we love it so much.

 

Since the hotel is retro 50's/60's style I decided to use the 50's Diner set from Marjorie Ann Designs.  Instead of using all the words that came for the license plate and sign I opted to use stamp in those areas. 

 

On the license plate and the heart of my sign I used the Teenage Dream stamp set from Craftin Desert Divas.

 

On the main sign, under Nifty, I used the Picture That stamp set from Craftin Desert Divas.

 

I have some more pictures from Cabana Bay to scrapbook so you'll get to see a bit more later.

 

On the bottom of the sign I used Magical Memories from Jaded Blossom.

Selfie Adventure

One of the things I decided to do this year when we visited Universal Studios was to take a selfie with my husband at every ride we rode.  Overall this was a successful venture; however, I did forget to take one while we were in line for The Mummy.  I was rather nervous for two reasons - I'd never been on this ride and I didn't know how it would affect my motion sickness.  But more about all that when I complete that layout......

 

As we were driving home from Orlando I saw these great selfie SVG files at Marjorie Ann Designs and just had to play with them.  So combining both the Just Be Your Selfie and Selfie Addict files I created this selfie layout with a couple of the pictures we took.

 

I used the girl inside the photograph from Selfie Addict and used her to replace one of the boys in the photo bomb from the Just Be Your Selfie.

 

The stamped sentiment at the bottom of the selfie 'photo' is from the Jaded Blossom stamp set titled Sweet Travels.

Spiderman Layout

It's been so long since I've created a scrapbook layout that I forgot just how long it can take to create one.  Needless to say it took me hours to get my creative juices going.  Not only did I have to decide what cuts I wanted to use but how I wanted to layout the pages because nothing I found for sketches or ideas on pintrest worked for me.

 

I finally got my pages done though.  My Spiderman cuts came from someone who used to create and share such files so they are not mine to share.  However, there is still a blog out there that shares similar files created from "fan art" and there's a cute chibi Spiderman there.  I didn't use this particular one for my pages, but I have used him in the past for other projects.  You can find it here.

 

This was also the first time in our past three years of riding the Spiderman ride that we had our picture taken while doing so.  And as you can tell I took pictures during the ride.  Since it's a 3D ride the pictures look blurry, but that's the nature of 3D.  I was just excited when I saw how well some of them actually turned out.

The Runs .... Mud Run Layout

This past Saturday was my first OCR (Obstacle Course Race) of the season and it was so exhilarating to get back out there doing what I love to do.  This year will be an even better race season because I have been paired with my I Run 4 buddy, Conner, giving me even more motivation to get out there and get it done.

 

Since this was a recent race I have not yet gone through all the pics to print for putting together any scrapbook pages.  BUT, I do have a page from a race I did with my son that I'd like to share with you.  This is from an event we did in Mississippi and it was rather cold when we ran this venue.  It was my son's first time running in a Spartan Race and I was excited to share the experience with him.

 

For this page I used one of the always hilarious Poopeez files.  This one is called........wait for it.....The Runs......

 

When I first saw this file I busted out laughing so hard.  Of course when I looked at the file I immediately knew I could pull it off as a pile of mud out there running and so that's just what I did for this layout.

 

And now I'm off to enter my layout into the following challenge:

 

SVG Cutting Files - Crafter's Choice - Ends March 14th

First Car Layout

After a year of saving money, our young son purchased his first car a couple weeks ago.  It's a great car and has a lot of features that really surprised us.  Needless to say he was one happy boy.  And I've been a happy mom in that he has not been out running the roads given his new found freedom.

 

So to commemorate this milestone in our son's life I decided to scrap about it in his smash book.  Knowing this, he asked me to include the price tag from the car.

 

The file I used for the layout is called License to Drive, and it's from Marjorie Ann Designs.  The car and keychain are both pieced but the boy is clipart that I printed and then cut by hand since my Cricut for whatever reason said it couldn't read the page in order to perform the cut.

 

The stamps on the license plate and key chain are from Cardz TV Stamps and the stamp set is called Planner Basics.

Scooby Dooby Doo Layout

So during our last trip to Universal Studios we got to have our picture taken with the characters (well most of them - Daphne was nowhere in sight.  Guess she was out solving a mystery.  lol) from Scooby Doo.  And finally I found a file that I could use for scrapbooking this picture. 

 

Just last week Marjorie Ann Designs released the new Scooby Doo and Mystery Gang file.  Of course I had to get my hands on it and that's just what I did.  And since most of the gang is in the picture I used most of the characters in the file.  A few pieces like the words and such were too small to cut so I just wrote them in by hand, but I think it all turned out well.

 

I love that I had this piece of paper in my stash too.  It fits in wonderfully with the flowers on the Mystery Machine.  And then adding in the strips of green and orange papers just tie it all together beautifully.

And now I'm off to enter this into the following challenge:

Bimini Moose - This Day in History - Ends June 8th

A Jurassic of a Layout

I have a layout that I'd like to share with you today.  It's a one page layout and this finishes up the scrapping of our pictures from the Jurassic Park section of our trip to Universal Studios.

 

Since the one picture had the jeep in the background I thought that it would be perfect to use the jeep from the When I Grow Up Zookeeper file over at Marjorie Ann Designs.  Since this file is a zoo theme and my layout is more dinosaur I had to use only those pieces that would fit my theme.  So that meant not using the adorable monkey that sits in the passenger seat.  That's okay though because it still looks fine.

 

And the page I found in the Kidosaurus stack from DCWV was perfect too.  All those bones printed on the page worked perfectly to tie in with the picture we took of the dinosaur fossil along the path in Jurassic Park....

Marching to the Beat

 

I have a layout to share with you today.  This is one that features two of my sons that were in marching band during their high school days.  One of the boys played cymbals and xylophone while the other played clarinet.  And now that they are out of school the one who played cymbals has taught himself to play guitar and drums while the other one has decided he has no interest in playing an instrument but just wants to sing in his band.  Yes, both of these boys are now a part of their own band and they are two of the three that were featured in my recent boys rock layout.

 

For this layout I used a combination of both paper piecing and print 'n cut.  All pieces though are from the When I Grow Up - Marching Band file by Marjorie Ann Designs.  I did redesign the uniform a bit differently than that file so that mine would look more like that of the school uniform.  But then that's part of the beauty of Marjorie's files.  It's easy to do when you need to.

 

In addition to the Marching Band file, I also used the Cricut cartridge Locker Talk for the clarinet which I print 'n cut and then I also used a true type font from my computer for the letter B on the uniform.

Happy Birthday, Fiesta Style

 

When my youngest (of six) turned 17 last December we took him to dinner at his favorite place - Pepitos.  You see, like me, my son loves to eat Mexican food - even if it is Tex-Mex.  Since we have been dining at this particular location for as long as we have we have built a relationship with our server - Ted.  Every time we go we would request him and then wait until he had a free table for us to sit.  There have been times when we've waited an hour to be sat in his section, but it's always worth the wait because he is that good to us.

 

So it was no surprise that when the guys brought out the birthday dessert (some kind of fried ice cream in a flour tortilla bowl and loaded with chocolate drizzles and whip cream), put the sombrero on Nathaniel's head and then sang Happy Birthday, Ted would take it one step further and have some fun.  I'm just glad I was smart enough to whip out my phone so I could capture it.

 

Of course it wasn't until I saw this new Fiesta Bears file at Marjorie Ann Designs that I thought about scrapbooking the pictures.  These bears are the perfect compliment for these pictures.  Then I also decided to do something a bit different and I used stamps on my layout.  These are all from the Picture That set from Craftin Desert Diva's.

Crawling in the Mud

Happy Tuesday everyone.  Today I have a layout that I'd like to share with you.  This one is another page in my mud run album featuring a picture from the Spartan Sprint I ran with my son last October in Kiln, Mississippi.  I was so excited when I came across this and a couple of other photos that I didn't even realize existed.

 

For this layout I chose to use a couple of different files.  I used the Mud Run file from Little Scraps of Heaven for the wall.  Then I also used the Mud Run file from Marjorie Ann Designs for the boy, girl and splats of mud.  

Initially, the girl was used for crawling through a tire and I thought that would be the perfect cut for crawling out from under a wall like we're doing in the picture.  And since I wanted both a boy and a girl I copy and pasted two of everything except the girl's pony tails.  How perfect is that?

 

After putting my wall together I decided to use one of the Spartan stickers from my stash to 'decorate' the wall similar to what Spartan does.  (Look closed at the picture and you'll see their Spartan painted on the wall.)  Of course mine turned out a bit more oval since my boards are spaced farther apart but that's okay.

 

And there you have it.  Yet another of the many mud run scrapbook pages for filling my album.  Heck I'm almost ready to being a new album.  And not a moment too soon as I currently have two more runs scheduled for May and June........

Color Run Layout

 

Marjorie Ann Designs released this new AWESOME Color Run file the other day and as soon as I saw it I knew I had to sit down and play.  I can't begin to tell you how excited I am that some of the wonderful ladies who are talented and create SVG files are beginning to try their hand at files for sports such as this.  I have been waiting for over a year to find something like this I could use for scrapping my color and mud run memories and slowly but surely they are being released!!

 

For this layout I used almost ever cut in this Color Run file.  Most I paper pieced, but the title at the bottom of the page I did as a print 'n cut.  Every one of these were easy to put together and they cut very well - even down to the smallest 'splats'.

 

I ran this race last July 4th with one of my best friends and was thrilled that we were able to run it together.  I had some issues though as I had tweaked my knee in the mud run I ran the last week of May prior to this race.  So for this one I had to do a bit of walking because the impact of running would cause my knee to burn.  But Millie was great and hung with me every step of the race.

Aviator Layout

Today I have a layout that I'd like to share with you.  It's a simple one but one that means a lot to me as it features a picture of my Grandad during his stint in WWII.  My Grandad was an awesome man and even after his retirement from the Army he found a way to keep serving and giving back.

 

For this layout I used the new When I Grow Up - Aviator file from Marjorie Ann Designs.  Initially I had intended to use the paratrooper on a card but after I cut her out and put her together I realized that she was larger than I thought.  So then I decided to make a layout with her.  Of course I realize I used a girl on the layout of my Grandad but that's okay because I think it looks perfect....

And now I'm off to enter this layout into the following challenges:

Bimini Moose - Anything Goes - Ends March 2nd

DL Art - Thankful Thursday, Use Blue - Ends February 24th

MS Spartan Layout

 

Happy Tuesday everyone and welcome to another PDE Linky Party challenge.  This week we are creating anything but a card.  As you can tell I chose to create a layout for my project.  This week's challenge was absolutely perfect for me because it gave me that push I needed to get another layout completed.  I have all these pictures printed and sorted just waiting to be committed to a layout and yet I spend more time creating cards and other projects. 

 

So this week I did it.  I created my first layout using pictures from the Spartan Sprint my son Andrew and I ran together this past October in Mississippi.  The pictures on this layout are from the last portion of the race.  We had to trudge through about 150 yards of water.  Of course we could have swam but I don't recall anyone thinking to do so.  After we got from one side of the pond to the other we were met with a slip wall right on the bank.  Thus my scrapping at the bottom of the layout.

 

It's somewhat difficult to scrap pictures from my mud runs/obstacle course races but thank goodness for Little Scraps of Heaven Designs.  I sent an email to Tricia along with a couple of other SVG creators last year asking if they'd ever thought about creating something for this theme and Tricia was the only one to respond.  Needless to say I snatched up this mud run file as soon as it was released!

 

And in a couple of weeks I'll be doing my first race of the season with my oldest daughter Faith.  I can't wait either.....

 

Now that you've seen my take on this week's project, be sure to check out the other great designs our team created for you this week.  Then after you've been amply inspired, create your own project, link up and play along with us.

And now I'm off to enter my layout into the following challenge:

Bimini Moose - Anything Goes - Ends March 2nd

Pirates Layout

Today I'd like to share a quick layout with you that I created using the Villains cut file from Too Cute by Jessica.  I love how easy all of the cuts from this file are to put together.  I've made every one of them and as I use them on my projects I'll be sharing them with you.

 

For now though I'm using Captain Hook on this layout.  The pictures are some that I took during our time at Disney a couple years ago.  These are from the Pirates of the Caribbean ride.  Yes, I know Captain Hook has nothing to do with that movie, but hey a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do.  And well a pirate is a pirate......unless he's Johnny Depp and well I didn't have any cuts like that available.

 

For now though I think this cut does quite well. 

Radioactive Love

 

Today I have a layout that I would like to share with you.  To create my layout I used this wonderful file from Too Cute by Jessica called We Have Great Chemistry.  Now I'm going to admit that I did not paper piece all of this together.  Instead I used a combination of piecing and print 'n cut.  My boy and girl are both print 'n cut and everything else is pieced.

 

The larger hearts are from the Cricut cartridge Create a Critter.

 

The stamped sentiment on the black board is from the recently released stamp set by Pretty Cute Stamps titled We Have Great Chemistry.  It's almost as if this file and stamp set were made for each other.

Jurassic Park Layout

Folks have we got a challenge for you this week!  The PDE Linky Party design team was challenged with creating a project using 3 or more different patterned papers.  Sounds easy right?  Perhaps for some of you, and certainly depending on the project your designing.  However, I admit it did not come as easy for me.....at first.

I chose to use this challenge to get some more of my scrapbook layouts completed from our trip to Universal Studios last May.  After all we're going back in November and it would be a shame to not have the pictures from our last trip done before taking new ones this go round. 

All of my cuts on this two page layout are from the Cricut cartridge Dinosaur Tracks.  My main papers are from the DCWV Kidosaurus mat stack.  I don't know if you can tell but other than for the main page and the picture mats I used patterned paper for the green portion of my mountains, the palms of my trees and the dinosaur tracks (faint polka dot print).

Now that you've seen my take on this week's challenge be sure to check out he other awesome designs our creative team have put together for you.  Then create your own project, link up and play along with us.  I can't wait to see what you create!