Birthday Card

There are a lot of birthdays coming up in my family so this birthday card challenge (create a birthday card with non-birthday papers) is very timely. I used TaDa Studios's Whirlygig Collection papers, Basic Grey's Out of Print Collection alphabet stickers, Creative Studios's rhinestone brads, and Unhinged Creative acrylic charms. The way I used the charm was to adhere a piece of patterned paper to the back of it and tie it off with some ribbon. You can find all of these supplies at The Paper Trail store: http://www.leaveapapertrail.com/zencart.

Out of Print

The Paper Trail store (http://www.leaveapapertrail.com/zencart) is carrying Basic Grey's new Out of Print line, which I used to create this layout of our frozen adventure on the ridge of Sandia mountain. My favorite part of this line are the butterflies, which I accented with Prima rhinestone flourishes.

Jesse's Chile Trip

Once again, Jesse's brother is living someplace cool and Jesse used it as an excuse to visit him! This time around, it was Chile! Being that it is their wintertime, it was quite chilly (ha! pun!) and they were able to hike near icebergs!

Most of their time was spent doing some sort of physical activity or the other. Here, they were indoor rock climbing in preparation for their outdoor climb.



They also took a trip to a port town, where they took a boat ride and saw the coast at night.

Jesse's dad's family was able to join him on his trip, which was pretty neat.

Chile has some great wines and they were able to do a tour while they were there (yes, Jesse brought back many bottles!)

Although they enjoyed the local fare, Jesse was able to sneak in his customary McDonald's stop.

Jesse took tons of cool pictures of these stairs that they paint and this one is my favorite.

Last, but not least, they got some outdoor rock climbing in.

MME Projects

Here are a couple things I have been working on lately. I made this card using MME's Lush line and card sketch:

and I used MME's Union Square line and layout sketch here:

Happy 4th!

Happy 4th everyone! We spent this weekend at Pop-Pop's cottage at the bay and did the usual crab-eating, damnation-playing, water-skiing, and book-reading. One new thing we tried was kayaking:

Despite an early mishap . . .



. . . it was smooth sailing for Jesse.

His mom even said that he was "showing off" . . .

. . . but found that she did well too after Jesse gave her a couple pointers!

Anything Goes Challenge

I love challenges, but it was super-fun to just go wild and create a layout without any rules! This kit is my favorite to date -- the color combo is striking and the patterns are so easy to work with! Even though the kit is packed with amazing embellishments, I had fun making a few of my own from this kit. I made a flower using the ribbon that came with the kit and one of the metal embellishments as the flower center. Another fun embellishment that I made with this kit was the centerpiece of this layout -- the clock hands that I fussy cut from one of the papers. The last handmade embellishment was also fussy cut out of one of the patterned papers and I used a rhinestone circle to accent the clock.

I know you will have fun with the kit too -- check it out here: http://www.leaveapapertrail.com

MME Layout

I have been very focused on the scrapbook company My Mind's Eye lately. Both their old and new collections are so completely my style and extremely easy to work with. I used the current MME sketch and MME's Union Square collection to create this layout of our trip to New York. As you can see, we enjoyed our celebrity encounter and Chloe made friends with (i.e. terrorized) all of the pigeons in Times Square (hence the reference to the musical "Bye Bye Birdie").

I used the following MME products in this layout: MME Lost & Found Union Square Moments Charming; MME Lost & Found Union Square Beautiful Day Journey; MME Lost & Found Union Square Perfect Damask; MME Lush black ribbon; and MME Hattie brads.

8 YEARS!

Jesse and I celebrated our eighth anniversary over memorial day weekend. We took a road trip to Phoenix and picked Jesse up a car (VW Golf TDI)! Because it is a manual, Jesse had the honors of driving the whole way home! (I am in need of some serious driving lessons).

We had a nice dinner at this eclectic Japanese tapas place downtown, where we had bites of pork belly, duck, tofu, and squid.

We also got a tour of Taliesin West -- Frank Lloyd Wright's winter home, which is now a school of architecture and museum.

We had a good time and learned a lot -- neither of us had been to a Frank Lloyd Wright building before.



One of the first things we noticed as we approached Phoenix was the huge and plentiful cacti. We saw a huge variety of them and other plants at their botanical gardens.

There were flowers and hummingbirds too, and since we went in the morning it wasn't too hot.

They had a cute/corny photo op place, so here you go!

Father's Day Card

It was so easy to make a Father's Day card with this kit! With all of the neutral papers (and amazing pops of red) and great embellishments (buttons and ribbon are so versatile!), this card came together so quickly. I can't wait to send it off!

Check out the June kit and contest details at http://trailmakers.blogspot.com/

June Debut Project

Bo Bunny's Timepiece collection is one of my favorites so I was very excited when I found out that this month's kit features this line! With all of the clocks on these papers I thought it would be fun to make a belated gift card from this kit. I fussy cut the clocks from the patterned paper and added some of the embellishments from the kit to make this card.

Check out the entire kit and other debut projects at http://trailmakers.blogspot.com/