Epic Journey

Good morning friends!

I hope you are all happy & well this morning.

Personally, I am freezing my hoobie off here in North Dallas today.

Which, frankly, just ticks me off.

 

I'm pretty sure I moved to TX and tolerate 120* summer days and living 1500 miles away from my family for the express purpose of NOT having to freeze my hoobie off.  

Clearly, I am getting screwed in this deal.

Anyway-

I have a non-Christmas-y project to share with you today.

As you know, I took a week-long vacation with my family at the beach just a few weeks ago. 

(Remember, back when it was warm?)

I printed the 8 bazillion photos that we took that week and am in the process of creating an album.

All of the photos are in the album, and all organized, I just have to make the layouts.

 

But, ya know, it's a slow process.

It's a huge album.

It's 8 bazillion photos.

So, I decided to make a mini-album from some of the left-over photos.

(As an FYI to the Fam-- this album and it's significantly larger sibling album are the reason that ya'll are getting store-bought Christmas cards this year.  

Just so ya know.)

Bound using 3" book rings from  an office supply store.

It's a little fat, but so am I, so I'm good with it.

Everything is 4"x6".  

I wanted to be able to just use the photos that I had, as is, so I cut all of my chipboard & PP to match the size photos I already had printed.

Here are some of the inside pages:

 

I really like the format of this album.

It was so simple and I love that the photos are the star.

And it was a great way to use a ton of older  supplies and stamps that I'd never even opened.

Supplies I used:

PP-MAMBI

Cardstock- Paper Studio

Flowers- Recollections

White Alpha Tiles- JoAnn Craft Essentials

Red Alphas- Spare Parts

Yellow Alpha- Chip Chatter

Acrylic Emblies- JoAnn Craft Essentials

Bling Swirl- Want To Scrap

Stickers- DCWV, Bo Bunny, Heidi Grace, K & Co, Colorbok, MAMBI, October Afternoon

Page Tabs- October Afternoon

Journal Tags & Left Over Word Strip- Creative Imaginations

Red Words & Brackets- Anna Griffin

Stamps- Theresa Collins, Ali Edwards for Technique Tuesday, Clearly Wordsworth, Art Gone Wild

Green Bling & Pearls- Making Memories

Blue & Orange Pearls- Glitterazzi

Pens- Slick Writers from American Crafts

Ribbons- Scraps from my stash

I'm definitely going to do this style album again.  

It was so simple & freeing to think only about jazzing up the photos themselves and nothing else.

Ok, off to get some more work done.

Hope ya'll are warmer than I am.

Maybe I'll ask Santa for some flannel jammies for Christmas.

Or a hot tub... Yeah, a hot tub would be good....

Beach, Baby

Hello out there in Blogland!

I'm sorry that I've been MIA for the past couple of weeks.

I promise, I have been working on some fabulous new creations that I will be sharing soon.

In the meantime, I just wanted to show you a little of what I've been doing while I was gone.

Together with most of my Dad's side of the family, we rented a beach house on Emerald Isle, NC.

While we were together, we:

 

Made a list and Packed accordingly.

We traveled, 

hung out in the airport

then traveled some more.

When we got to the house

 we unpacked

and took over the tiny local grocery store.

For the rest of the week, we:

Munched on yummy goodness from back home.

We walked on the beach.

We colored pictures.

 We Bar-B-QED.

We got VERY impatient when it took 45minutes to get a slice of pizza.

We fished on the beach.

We swam in the ocean.

We surfed.

(well, sorta)

We ate & ate & ate.

We finally found a way to watch the Cowboys game,

and we won!

We enjoyed the view from our balcony.

We played games.

We celebrated

and gave gifts.

We watched Chase use Grayci as a trampoline.

(no teenagers were harmed in the taking of these photos)

We looked at the world from a different perspective.

We napped.

We hung Granny Panties from the chandelier.

(you might not want to ask too many questions about that one)

We explored the area.

 

We learned things.

We got to run for 1 minute.

We gained some perspective.

We bonded.

We picked up shells on the beach.

We shared cocktails

and then laughed

and laughed

and laughed.

We visited the police station.

 We took group photos,

and family photos,

and sibling photos,

and generational photos,

and cousin photos,

and parent photos,

(some turned out better than others)

and classy photos,

and Auntie photos,

and couples photos,

and kissy-face photos,

running-on-the-beach photos,

casual photos,

and people-who-are-really-friggin-sick-of-having-their-photo-taken photos.

We watched the storm roll in.

We found the beauty in our surroundings.

We put our toes in the water, ass in the sand.

We played football on the beach

and just enjoyed our time together.

So, what have YOU been doing?