Category: travel

Z is for ZOOM!

Hello there friends and welcome to April already!  I do not know if this year seems to be flying by because I’ve been busy with life or it’s just flying by anyway!  Speaking of things flying by…

Today starts up a new challenge over at the Alphabet Challenge Blog!  We are on the last letter of the alphabet this time and the hostess has chosen “Z” is for ZOOM (anything that goes fast) for the theme.  *Remember that this is a bi-weekly challenge, so you have two weeks to enter*  I hope you will find some time to join us in the gallery!  Here’s what I’ve created:

How cute is that pup standing on the bike seat to look over his bird friend perched on the basket!  The name of these adorable animal friends are called “Gus & Gertie” which are a set of characters designed by Taylored Expressions. (If you click on the link, you can see the full line of them.)  The set I’ve chosen is called Gus & Gertie Best Buds.  I like these animals because they’re very easy to color!

I could’ve chosen the airplane from the set, but I kept thinking of those electric bikes & scooters you can rent from cities and they seem to go really fast when I see kids whizzing by on them! LOL

I kept my scene in a circle and added some clouds in the background that I stenciled in and then layered some hills/slopes and a grass border on the front.  I just popped the “ride or die” sentiment at the top and attached the die cut image with foam tape.  I layered the scene onto a black circle base that was attached to a red brick embossed background.  All was attached to a top folding A2 white card base.

That’s all for me today!  Thanks so much for checking in with me as I enjoy reading what you have to say!  Enjoy your weekend and I’ll see you soon!

Challenges:

  1. Critter Crazy – Anything Goes with a Featured Creature
  2. Unicorn – Use Dies
  3. Crafty Animals – Anything Goes with Animal(s)
  4. Crafts Galore Encore – Anything Goes
  5. Just Us Girls – Die Week (no flowers)

Christmas Transport at Sparkles Monthly-It’s almost Christmas!

Hey friends!  Wow, how in the world did Christmas get here so darn fast?!  I feel like we just got through Thanksgiving and then things were a blur after that!😳  So, I’m also now realizing that it’s been a whole month since I’ve posted!  YIKES!

Since it IS December…and the middle of it…that means today starts the December challenge over at Sparkles Monthly and for this month, our hostess is asking to see Christmas Transport on your project.  Be sure to stop by the blog to see what the rest of the team has created for you.  Here’s my project for this challenge:

For me, Christmas transport is not planes, trains or anything busy or noisy, but something a little more outdoors around the countryside.  There’s nothing better than a good road trip with snow falling and the smell of fresh pine in the air!  I live in an area where there are lots of tree farms to pick out your perfect tree.  (Do I pick out a real tree?  Nope…but I do love them and the smell.  Just not the mess. LOL) I prefer to visit the trees and not chop one down.

I’ve used the adorable Inky Stamper set called Vintage Truck and I’ve decided to add the tree image to the back of his truck as he’s taking it home to decorate for Christmas!  I’ve fussy cut the image out after coloring and even added a snowflake stamp to the truck door from the Inky Stamper Toboggan stamp set.  I’ve also stamped a few more along with the larger snowflake and cut out to add to the background of the card.

For the background, I’ve used some paper from the Lisa Horton A Festive Tapestry pack as it was perfect for a landscape of trees.  At the bottom, I’ve used the road die from Lawn Fawn and then placed it over my tree landscape and added the truck over it by popping up with foam tape so it looks like he’s on the road.  

So while making this card, I had the song stuck in my head and so I found a perfect sentiment to go with it from the Inky Stamper Tree stamp set.  I white heat embossed over a green piece and cut out a banner to add to the top left of the card.  Everything was placed over a white A2 top folding card base and I lastly added some Iridescent Clear Drops in the center of the snowflakes.

  • Hope you’ve enjoyed my card for you today and I hope that you’ll hop on over to the challenge blog and play along!  I’d love to see what you come up with!

Challenges:

  1. 613 Avenue Create – Anything Goes optional: Any Winter Holiday (Christmas)
  2. We Love Stamping – Winter/Anything Goes
  3. Stamping Sensations – Anything Goes Winter
  4. Sparkles Christmas – #167 Christmas Song-Carol (“Oh Tannenbaum”/Oh Christmas Tree”)
  5. Cardz for Guyz – #362 Holiday/Christmas Card/Tag
  6. Krafty Chicks – #746 Christmas
  7. As You Like It – Anything Goes Christmas
  8. C.R.A.F.T. – #744 Christmas/The Last Stretch 

Anniversary Gnomes

Hello friends!  I hope you’re having a great start to your week!  I’m just popping in to share the card I made my husband for our 25th wedding anniversary…he’ll be getting it this morning and then we’re off to a date night (afternoon as we’ve gotten older)!😆 

I think this turned out pretty cute!  I dug into my Whimsy Stamps stash and colored up these cute gnomes and fussy cut them by hand to add to the scene.  I cut off the string and heart in the center of their hats and stamped the image over the green cardstock with the cut out image layered over top of it.

For the background:  I blended some Autumn colored inks in various places and then stenciled in the leaves with a light brown ink.  I die cut the mountains and attached them to the background by sizing it up with the green die cut tree border for placement.  I stamped the “love you” sentiment all over the green background and then layered the colored image over top of the other.  I added some silver sparkle on the heart in the center of the hats.

I also took a die cut silver cardstock frame to go around it and then I silver heat embossed the “happy anniversary” sentiment at the top of the scene.

All the layers were cut with a scallop rectangle die and placed over a side folding A2 grey card base.

And here’s what I put on the inside of the card.  I thought it up myself and printed it out on the computer.  It was cut out with the same scalloped rectangle die and attached.  I still need to sign it as I’m typing this up!

Here’s the inspiration that I used to help me create this card:

These are some more photos that we took while we were in Alaska last month.  After our cruise, we took a land tour and went on a train ride that took us up to Denali Park.  We had a good day to take a 3 mile hike one day and ran into someone that took our photo and we took their photo too!

I will be back later to share some photos of the stamp retreat I just came back from!  Always lots of fun and great to see my crafty friends!  Thanks for stopping by today!

Challenges:

  1. Retro Rubber – #rrcb242 Fall by the Lake (all products are at least 3 yrs old)RRCB #242
  2. Little Red Wagon – Emboss it! (sentiment)
  3. Penny’s Challenge – #583 Anything Goes Using Paper
  4. Krafty Chicks – #739 All Occasions (Anniversary)
  5. CRAFT – #738 Anything Goes
  6. Just Us Girls – #750 Stencil Week (leaves)
  7. Creative Knockouts – #533 Halloween or Fall (Fall)
  8. Crafty Catz – #681 Anything Goes with optional: dies/punches (I used dies)

Bon Voyage! Blog Break

Hello friends! I have a project to share which is a great send off post for an announcement of a blog break I’ll be taking for the next month🛳️🛫.

I wanted to share a project I made by request of my husband which was to recycle a plain notebook for traveling, so I pulled out some Doodlebug items and had some fun:

This is the front cover of the notebook which I covered with some Doodlebug papers, but I thought it would look way to busy, so I decided to tone down the papers by adding a wash of white paint over it.  I think it makes the stamped images stand out better.

I’ve used a wave border die to cut some blue cardstock so that the boat could be in the “water” and I’ve added the sentiment underneath it.  I stamped and colored the boat and airplane images and die cut them out with the coordinating dies.  I also die cut a few clouds to add to the scene. 

When I attached the painted pattern papers to the notebook, I decided to add an additional strip along the side of the wire spiral before adding the waves.  I then took a black marker to create stitch marks with.

On the inside cover of the notebook, I took some more of those Doodlebug papers and attached them to the inside.  I’ve made a pocket using the same papers that I’ve used on the front cover and you can see how bright and colorful they are which is why I decided to paint over them.

I added one of the cards from the paper pack to the front of the pocket and then I put a few pieces of washi tape with the airplane postage and travel stamps on the notebook paper.

And this is the inside back cover which was done similar to the inside front cover.

If you look inside the pocket of this, you can see that I’ve also made a bookmark for him that I’ve laminated.  He can use it for his notebook or for another book he may be reading.

And here is the back of the notebook.  This is where I’ve added a black elastic closure for the book BEFORE attaching any papers to it.  The strips from the paper pack help to give it a little design and I’ve also included another shallow pocket.

He seems very pleased with it and has already put it to good use including the pockets and bookmark!  He’s already wrote in it too!  I tried to be sneaky and write a secret message on one of the random pages within the book, but he found it too early!  I don’t get much past him!

I have lots of fun papers and ephemera left over from this cute Doodlebug paper pad, so I will probably be using it for a special scrapbook at some point…hopefully more on that later.

I would like to also let you know that I will be MIA for a while as we will be away on a much needed vacation time!

Thank you so kindly for stopping in and enjoy the rest of your summer!

Challenges:

  1. Ally’s Angels – Anything Goes
  2. The Creative Crafters – Anything Goes #79