Nature on Parade

Hello All-

 

There's nothing about the great outdoors that I don't love.  The warmpth of the sun on my cheeks, the fresh smell of rain.  Nature is amazing!  However most of us are too busy with our daily lives to pay any attention to the wealth all around us. Growing up in central Cali I was outside all of the time so in celebration of the great outdoors today's post features LOs from great places I have been.

 

My family owns a bit of land up by Chico, CA.  It's set way back in the mountains, has several cabins and offers year round activities.  It was one of my favorite places to go as a child.  We'd spend hours hiking trails or swimming in the creek,  digging history out of the dirt or haning around the fire pit.

 

The only place I loved more than our family cabin was Fort Bragg.  I can 't resist the draw of the ocean.  It's beauty and energy amaze me no matter how many times I visit.

 

 

With years and marriage I've moved around quite a bit and have yet to find a place that I would love to call home, though each place has left a bounty of wonderful memories with me.  In Missisippi we had a bird's eye view in our 10th story studio appartment.  It was litterally across the street from the beach.  Our entire back wall was glass and looked out over the gulf.  It was heaven watching the sunset every night from our balcony.

 

The New Mexico desert offered White Sands National Park, white sand as far as the eye can see and Cloudcroft, a rustic mountian town.

 

Las Vegas is our latest stop and though it isn't one of my favorite places, the sun and heat make most outdoor activities rather unpleasant, I have found some places that I do love.   
 

Red Rock Canyon is a spectacular national park.  There are tons of hiking trails, rock climbing and numerous excellent photography locations.  The key to enjoying this wonderful place is to go in March or September when the weather is cooler; a cloudy day doesn't hurt either.

 

And my favorite place in Vegas is Aliante Park, I have a thing for water.  This park may be man-made but it is beautiful and when I'm there I can almost forget that I'm in the desert.  My favorite thing about the park as you can guess is the giant waterfall. I love to sit at the base of it and just listen to its calming rhythm.  There are hundreds of turtles and birds that call this park home and if you're quite enough you can get great photos of them. 

 

 

If you're not the great outdoors-man, I hope you can enjoy the beauty of nature through these LOs.  And if you are I hope that you continue to bask in the many wonders of our world.  Our world is precious and something to be enjoyed so why not slow down and take a look around!

Inspirational Fridays

Good morning crafters!

Thanksgiving has filled me with joy, laughter and tons of yummy food.  And though this scrapbooker enjoys not fighting the chaos and crowds of black Friday I know that many of you are out and about hunting down those wondrous treasures.  I wish you all the best of luck in finding everything you seek and hope that everyone returns home safely from their adventures.

Art flourishes where there is a sense of adventure, a sense of nothing having been done before, of complete freedom to experiment...
-- Alfred North Whitehead

Giving Thanks

Alright all, here it is Simply Scrappy's first prize raffle!

How to play!
The first person to leave 10 comments will win this wonderful mini card set:

 

Rules: 

Raffle runs 11/13/12 to 11/21/12.  Once you've made your 10 comments, message me your email address.  Emails will only be used to notify the raffle winner.  Prize will be sent out after Thanksgiving.

Fall Into Cropping

I just can't get enough of good friends and scrapbooking!  Not only do I host a monthly crop night at Michaels I also hold one at my house every other month.  Each month has a special theme and we all get together to have a great time laughing, cropping and eating.  With fall in the air September's crop was of course fall themed.

 

I used my Autumn Celebrations Cricut cartridge to make fun name tags, food tags, festive bingo boards and a super cute fall banner to adorn the wall. 

 

And what crop would be complete without a LO to show it off!  I chose to keep the LO pretty simple so it wouldn't compete with my favorite fall PP.  I added just a pop of color with the bright green and threw in some deep reds just for fun.  I used my Bloom Cricut cartridge and the leftover leaves from our bingo boards to add the perfect fall touch to finish off the LO.

October's Crop Night

Every month I host a crop night at my local Michaels.  I enjoy getting to spend time with friends and meeting new ones!  This wonderful 5 hour event gives me the opportunities to express my passion for scrapbooking with others and allows them to share their lives with me.

I have met many wonderful, creative women through my love of scrapbooking and I always enjoy finding someone new to share with.  Scrapbookers are a fantastic group of woman with tons of joy, friendship, support and energy that the willingly share with open hearts.

The inspiration for my LO colors were these wonderful Twinkle Motifs that I picked up from the CK convention back in June.  Being two of my favorite colors I just couldn't resist using them.

In addition to the Twinkle Motifs I needed to add some pizazz to my papers since I'd chosen to use all solid colors and no PP.  For the hot pink paper I chose an almost perfect match of ink so the images would blend into the paper not pop out.  I kept the same floral pattern as the motifs and stamped all over the page.  Creating my very own special and unique PP!

I continued the stamped effect to my green page but decided to give it a little more "wow" by stamping in a darker ink so the image would be front and center on the paper.

My page now embodies the bright and beautiful essence of the wonderful woman with whom I crop.  They truly are magnificent!



The Run Around

My puppies are a huge part of my life.  They bring me great joy and peace.  So naturally the star in hundreds of my LOs.  My sweet Shadow is an excitable, playful 9 year old Cocker Spaniel and my lovie Coco is a clam, laid back 8 1/2 year old Terrier/Chow mix.  On occasion Coco gets in a very playful mood and she chases Shadow around the yard playing "tag".  It is hilarious to watch him as he does his famous "run by barkings" as he tries to avoid her. 

Ninety percent of the time these play sessions don't last long enough for me to get my camera and I miss out on whimsical LO opportunities.  Luckily things have a way of working themselves out and I was sitting outside with my camera the other day when they decided to have some fun!

 

As I watched, laughed and took dozens of photos of this rare event, the perfect LO idea struck me.  I have a film strip embellishment upstairs that I've never had a LO for!  With all the action shots I got a decided that this was going to be the perfect LO for such and embellishment. 

 



Keeping with the beautiful day we were having I added a subtle background and some flower clusters. Using my Plantin Schoolbook Cricut cartridge I cut a black shadow for my words and then added a top layer from my background giving the title a great pop-out look.  To finish off this action packed LO, I used my journaling space to describe the LO as a movie! 

I love the way it all came together!  Have a wonderful and crafty day y'all.

Yummy Cookies

I love baking and one of my favorite things to bake are cookies.  Being a scrapbooker I usually take photos of everything that goes on in a typical day.  However I've never been able to get photos of myself baking cookies. 

Until last week!  With my mom visiting, I finally had someone available to take pictures for me and voila!  I was able to make a super cute LO all about my love of making cookies.

Since I love color I decided to add a much needed "pop" to my otherwise subtle background choices and added in some butterfly PP to add some flair.  As a finishing touch I used my Pooh Font Set Cricut cartridge and an acid free marker to make a yummy cookie title.

What a delicious LO!  Makes me wanna start baking some more cookies.  I hope y'all enjoy this project and that it inspires you to get creative; whether you bake, scrapbook or just enjoy life. 

Inspirational Fridays

Happy Friday guys and gals!

Anther wonderful week has flown by and the year is drawing to a close.  So far this year has been a productive one for me and its only getting better.  I'm well on my way in my online classes, I'm getting my new business up and running but most importantly I'm living life to the fullest.  I've made wonderful friends, improved my marriage, am spending time with my mother, and most important enjoying what I'm doing.

As we reflect on days gone by, we learn that it's the shared moments and simple pleasures that matter most of all.
-- Flavia