December Daily + Journal Your Christmas = Holiday Journal!!!

The Purple Polkadot Crop yesterday was so much FUN!!! Why purple polkadot you ask??? Because it sounds more fun than calling it the Black Friday crop! It was proposed by the scrapbook store to be a protest against the craziness of Black Friday shopping.

For my non-US friends, the day after thanksgiving in our country is the biggest shoping day of the year. Stores have special HUGE discounts on certain items and people fight - quite literally sometimes - to get the stuff they want. In fact, we went by Best Buy on Thanksgiving night, and people were out there (in the winter cold I might add) in PUP TENTS camping out, so they could be the first in line on Black Friday morning. Ummm, not my cup of tea but okay...

Anyhoo, back to the Purple Polkadot Crop. One of the deals was that anyone who wore purple polkadots to the crop would get a special prize. I didn't have any purple polka dot outfits (surprise surprise), but I am not one to miss out on a special prize, so I got out some paint and created this...I must say it was a lot of fun! I may make some more painted t-shirts! And it did the trick - my prize was a cool pack of ribbon from Little Yellow Bicycle - yeayyy! It was funny too, cuz my friend Christina did the same thing - I wish I would have taken a picture but I forgot - she painted purple polkadots on a t-shirt too and it turned out super cute! Yeayyy Christina!!!

I spent the day working on my December Daily/Journal Your Christmas Journal and it was SO MUCH FUN!!! Here's how the cover turned out...

I used Walnut Stain Distress Ink to get the cover that rich dark brown color. I just rubbed the inkpad directly onto the chipboard and it worked really well. The rest is a combination of Crate Paper's "Snow Day" collection, Pieces from my Studio Calico "Yearbook" kit, and things from my stash. Now I'm super excited for December 1st to roll around so I can start filling it up! Yeayyy!

They had some fantabulous sales at the crop too. I just want to share a couple of my favorite buys (at 40% off!). This scrapbook pad - at first glance may not look like my cup of tea because of the muted colors but....

It has BUNNIES ON PLAID!!!!!!!!!!!! Check out that cute little fella!!!!! His image runs all through the designs in this pad - HOW CUTE IS HE???????????????? I am in loveeeee...

and my other favorite thing was this paper pad. How gorgeous is this???

The colors and designs on these papers literally made me gasp. Here's one example - I mean could you not just frame this piece of paper and hang it up as is???
This has art journal pages written all over it! I can't wait to dig in and start using it!!!

Oh, and while we are on the subject of Black Friday, I must mention the sale that Studio Calico had! SC rocks man - they had some of the greatest deals EVER!!! I managed to snag an add-on kit for $5.00! and a whole alphabet set of stamps for $4.50. Lots of other cool stuff too which I will share in photos when they arrive into my hot little hands! Thank you Studio Calico!!!!!

So, that's the update for today. I hope you had an awesome Black Friday, and thanks so much for visiting!!!

INXS at Scrapping The Music, December Daily and Journal Your Christmas!

I was able to get back to doing my Scrapping The Music layouts this week and it's been really fun! This week's song is "Need You Tonight" by INXS and it's not only a cool song, but the video is one of my favorites ever! I decided to do a journal page for this one. Here's how it turned out...


If you want to hear more about why I love the video and see it for yourself, along with the other design team members' layouts - come on over and check it out! We would LOVE to have you play along with us!!! Click here to go to the challenge.

I am going to a crop with my girlfriends on Friday and I can hardly wait!!! I signed up for Shimelle's "Journal Your Christmas" class, and plan to combine it with Ali Edwards' December Daily; and Friday is my day to prepare my Journal/album! I haven't done anything crafty when it comes to the holidays in years, so I am really excited! So far, here's what I plan to use:

Crate Paper's Snow Day Collection:


7 Gypsies 8x8 Book Boards:

& 7 Gypsies Large Cable Rings:
My goal is to make my book just full of textures and colors and ephemera and ribbons and embellies and everything else I can think of!!! I'm going to try to do as much advance prep as possible - I should have more to show you after Friday's crop!

Are any of you doing either the December Daily or the Journal Your Christmas workshop? I'd love to hear about what you are going to use and how you are planning for it!

Have a great day everyone and thanks so much for visiting!

New Journal Pages and The Last Highlight of Honeymoon Four...

Hello and Happy Saturday! I've got one last post about Honeymoon Four for you, but first I want to share some new journal pages. These are pages from the journal I shared in the last post.

First, the title page. The bookplate is a free download from Helen Dardik. You can find them here and there are three different styles to choose from! The page on the opposite side was torn from a vintage magazine...


The rest of the stuff is mostly from Noel Mignon's Dear Diary kit, plus extras from my stash...



The last big highlight of Honeymoon Four was attending The "Howloween" Festival for pets, in Colorado Springs, which was put on by a non-profit organization called "Safe Place for Pets". "Safe Place" helps people with terminal illnesses find caring homes for their animals. What an amazing cause.


The best part of the festival was the canine costume parade! HA!!!!! We had so much fun watching all the animals parade around in their costumes it was just ADORABLE!!! Here's the beginning of the parade...

The best part of the parade was how proud the dogs seemed to be about their costumes - it was so cute! And as you will see, some of the people dressed in coordinating outfits too. Here was one of my favorites. The dog was dressed as a "fallen angel..." Doesn't she just look proud of herself?

Check out the tiny little samba dancer peeking over her mom's shoulder...

and her is a full view of her in costume - omg how cute is she?????

You can't get much cuter than two pit bull fairies...

Or a golden retriever ballerina...


how about this little devil???

or the teeniest participants in their tiny red devil outfits...

There was a court jester...

one of my personal favorites, a spotted horse, complete with a stuffed cowboy rider in the saddle...

Here's a hot dog...

And - drum roll please.....

The grand champion of the contest was this doberman pincher who was totally fabulous as a black dragon! Here you can see him from the back and get somewhat of a look at his wings...

Here he is from the front, along with a tiny pirate...

Being a former companion to a red doberman myself, I have a special place in my heart for dobes, and this one seemed especially sweet. He kept wanting to make friends with all the other dogs, and when he wasn't doing that he was snuggling up to his "dad."
As you can about imagine, we were grinning from ear to ear during this whole extravaganza. I'm so glad we happened upon the Howloween Festival!!!

So that's about all for the Honeymoon Four pics - at least for now. I still have a few finishing touches to put on the Honeymoon Four Travel Journal, and then I will post some highlights from that too.

In other news, the new song is at Scrapping The Music is "Upside Down" by Jack Johnson. It's a fun one - come on over and play along with us!

I will be back soon - thanks so much for visiting!!!

The Weather Outside is Frightful...

Wow - I guess winter has arrived!!! I woke up this morning to this...


Willie is mesmerized by it all...

and just a few days ago it was in the high 60's. Oh well - that's Minnesota for ya, eh?



Anyhoo, I've got a bunch of stuff to share with you today! First of all - the story of Honeymoon Four continues...

Our last stop in Estes Park was to head over to the infamous Stanley Hotel and take a look around. The Stanley (as you may or may not know), is the hotel that Stephen King stayed at, which inspired him to write the classic book/movie "The Shining." Being a Stephen King fan, I simply could not leave Estes without at least seeing it for myself. It's quite a grand place, and I don't mind saying, just a little eerie...

Of course we had to take the obligatory picture on the front steps. It proves we were there, ya know?
The place is really supposed to be haunted, and they give ghost tours, but we didn't have time - so that's first on our list next time we are in Colorado! You can find out more about the Stanley's eerie history here and here.


Next stop was the Royal Gorge Bridge, which is the worlds HIGHEST suspension bridge!!! EEEK!!! They say you haven't lived til you've walked the Royal Gorge bridge, so OF COURSE we had to do it! Don't look down!!! You can't really tell how high it is in this picture, but notice how Michael is walking right down the middle - as far away from each edge as possible? HA. And not even looking while he takes the video? This is how we started out...

I was fine until I made the mistake of noticing that there are gaps in the bridge where you can see all the way down. I took this pic thru one of those gaps...
After that, I had trouble walking normally, cuz I was afraid of falling through the gaps!!! HA.

Okay, and some people actually CATAPULT themselves over the gorge just for fun - WHAT ARE THEY THINKING???

Here's a pic of the bridge from a distance. It's a quarter mile long, so I couldn't get the whole thing in the picture...

Needless to say we were quite proud of ourselves when we made it to the other side...


Of course we still had to go back, but that's another story. (grin)


In other news, I made a new journal and I'm so excited to start using it today! Here it is...
The cover is cut from a vintage children's record album, and the papers and embellies mostly come from my new Noel Mignon kit called "Dear Diary!" How appropriate, eh? It's an awesome kit, and there are still a few left in case you are interested. I used my trusty bind-it-all for the spiral binding.

Here's a couple closeups of the danglies that are on the spine...

There's a reason for the big number 7, but that's for another post!

I hope you are having a great weekend my friends! I will be back soon with more project updates and the final highlights of honeymoon four! It feels great to be back to blogging, and I thank you so much for visiting!!!

Finally - Honeymoon Four Part Two - Estes Park...

OMG it's been far too long and I have missed you all! I am still busy with the Mixed Emotions workshop, but I absolutely have to get back to blogging!!! I've got so much to share!!!

I promised to share part two of our Colorado Honeymoon over a week ago, so without further adieu, here are a few of my fave pics.

Estes Park is a cute little town right at the entrance to Rocky Mountain National Park, and we stayed there for three nights. The first thing we did after we checked in to our hotel was take a little walk down mainstreet; and guess what we happened upon??? A scrapbook store! Yeayyy!!! And a fringe benefit was we got to meet the owner's adorable dog Cody...
Isn't he cute? It was hard to get him to sit still for a photo, he was so playful!

The name of the store is Rocky Mountain Memories - here's a pic of the outside, and they even have a website! Click here to check it out...

I loved feeling like a kid with some cotton candy...


And here starts the photos of our day in Rocky Mountain National Park. Now, we had heard that it was going to be the season of the Elk Rut (also known as mating season), so we were really hoping to be lucky enough to see some elk. Well, the minute we pulled into the visitors center at the entrance to the park, look who was sauntering across the parking lot??? We were so excited!!!

The weather was beautiful - sunny and warm, altho it was a bit chilly in spots. Here's Michael at one of the scenic spots we stopped at. It was a beautiful little secluded lake, and there was some snow on the ground in spots here!!!

This was taken at a different spot - a lake whose name I forgot, but it was so beautiful and serene there, I actually make the statement that we should consider retiring there (I never say that!)


Michael made a little friend who wanted to accompany us home...

And the elk - ohhhh the elk! We thought we were lucky to see the one at the visitors center. WELL, little did we know what was in store! Later in the afternoon, we saw a couple of elk up on a hill, and then a few more, and then a whole herd was gathering! And THEN they slowly all started sauntering right towards us; real slow and peaceful-like. It was AMAZING!


There were a few other cars that had gathered there to watch, and everyone was completely silent as the elk came towards our cars. They stopped when they got near us, looked us all over for a minute, and then continued on sauntering right thru the parked cars, and walked right past us! Evidently this was their path and they didn't seem to mind at all that we were right there - jaws dropped - they just walked right on by! I took a gazillion pictures, but here are just a few...

There's something completely adorable about this guy's backside - don't you agree?


Look at the antlers on this guy...


Oh, and these birds (I found out later they are magpies) love to hang out with the elk. I thought they were gorgeous...

here's the little meadow they were heading to - this is only part of the herd...

It was truly amazing and surreal to see them all up that close!

That's it for today's pics, but I will be back with more on honeymoon four, plus photos of new projects soon - I promise!!!

Thanks so much for stopping by, and for your patience while I've been busy!!!