The happiest place on earth or what???

So it's Spring Break in Vancouver.     We're on our annual trip to Palm Springs and decided that this year we'd pop in and visit The land of Disney.

 

 

We tried to find an inexpensive place to stay, but Wow - did we find a dump.  Fortunately it was right across the street from Disney, and it had this funky 50's feel.  (probably because that's the last time anything was updated.   I thought the courtyard was so kitschy that I had to share a photo with you.

Here we are in California Adventures.   I have a new personal record.    We waited in line for this ride for an hour and a half!   Here's a photo taken after 45 Minutes in line.  Disney has this Fast Pass system on its most popular rides, where you can scan your ticket and it will give you an hour window to come back and line up in a much shorter line.  The Cars Land (like the movie Cars) is a new attraction, and thus the most important attraction in the park at the moment.  So they had a separate Fast Pass line where you lined up and there was a person handing out the Fast Passes, not a machine.  Well, the lineup to GET a Fast Pass, was almost as long as the actual ride lineup, and there was no guarantee that they wouldn't run out of passes before I got to the end of the line, so we just got in the line for the ride, without Fast Passes. 

And here's what we were waiting for.

 

These are the cute cars we got to ride in.  All the cars have these cute faces, just like in the movie.

It was worth the smiles on the kids faces.

Here's a smile from one of the big kids.

Brad was such a good sport, squishing his over 6 foot tall frame into these tiny rides.

Here's a few of the smiles that made it all worthwhile.

Stampin' Royalty Challenge #168

 It's Wednesday and you know what that means - a new challenge over at Stampin' Royalty.

This week we have a photo inspiration challenge.

 

Are you getting ready for Easter?  We are currently in California visiting the mouse with the big black ears   'wink, wink'.   Get what I mean??

 

I love these frames.  And when I recoloured them, they realy look like the photo; especially the pink one right?   Although I really love the colours in this photo, I really struggled with this page.  Believe it or not, it took me hours.  But I'm really pleased with how it turned out.

 

Thanks for popping by today!

 

Colour Q Challenge #181

 

 

So we have another great colour combo for you over at the Colour Q this week,

 

 

I just love how bright these colours are and I also love the contrast between

the yellow and the blues.  It's a very happy combo.

 

I decided to scrap these silly photos of my son.  He's finding

it very difficult to produce a nice smile for the camera, but

he can sure hamm it up!

 

Most of the emblishments and papers come from Pixels and Co.

And some are from Stampin' Up!

 

 

Thanks for stopping by,

and have a great day!

 

 

Stampin' Royalty Challenge #167

 It's Wednesday!!!!  That means another challenge over at Stampin' Royalty.  This week we have my favourite type of challenge - a COLOUR CHALLENGE!!!

 

 

My Sister-in-Law took this adorable photo of Brad's brother and their little girl.

She's 6 months old now, and has the most adorable smile!

The colours in this challenge really reminded me of my Brother-in-Law.  He not only wore a mustardy coloured shirt at my wedding, but he also wore one with his tux at his own wedding.  And although some people think of Summer Starfruit as a greenish colour, to  me, it reminds me of Mustard.

 

This page is full of recoloured elements from all sorts of MDS kits.

I also used a ton of overlays. 

 

Thanks for stopping by today!

 

Colour Q Challenge #180

So it's time for another challenge over at the Colour Q.

This week we have a seasonal colour combo for you.

Does it remind you of any upcomining Irish holidays?????

 

 

Well I didn't have any Irish type photos to scrap (despite my Irish last name)

So I found this great photo of the green Barn at my former University, and used

a combo of kits from Pixels and Co, to come up with this page.

 

And on a side note- my Irish last name is my married name.  My husband thinks that it's terribly funny that when his relatives immigrated to the United States, from Ireland, over 100 years ago, they thought they'd try to hide their Irish roots by removing the O' from the name.  So originally the name was O'Farrell.  He thinks it's funny becuase, really, anyone who knows anything about last names can still tell that Farrell is Irish.   My maiden name was changed too.  My maiden name is Icelandic, and it was anglicized to Anderson, from the original Icelandic.  I have a group of relatives whose last name is Arnason, which comes from the same last name.  So people have thought my last name was Scottish for the longest time, because there are a lot of Scots named Anderson.  Just goes to show that in today's world, last names don't always tell people where your family came from.

Stampin' Royalty Challenge #166

This week at Stampin' Royalty its a Clean and Simple Challenge 

 

 

I've been trying to take more photos of myself these days.  Like most Mommies out there, I'm not too proud of how I look these days, so I figured if I take more photos, I might start to feel happier about my weight, and that always makes it easier for me to stop overeating and start losing weight.

 

So this photo was taken last weekend, and it's OK.  I photoshopped out all the red spots as my skin hasn't been fabulous either.  Who gets a ton of pimples in their 40's??  Me!

I guess Karma is getting back at me for the awesome skin I had in my 20's. 

 

Anyway, other than that, I really like the simplicity of this page.  I think that I probably should have layered another background paper to frame it all, but maybe I'll do that later.  I love making these layered bows and I haven't made one in a while.  I tried to keep the colours focused on the colours in the photo and so I used pastel colours on the title stamp which is from the set "Be Awesome Today".

Colour Q Challenge #179

 Well I finally got to scrap these cute photos of my kids dressed up as Superheros.  This was for my nephew's birthday party last November.  Teagan really wanted to be Bat Girl.  You can't see it in the photo, but she got out Connor's old Batman costume and put a dark skirt on over top.  She looked so adorable.  And Connor wore his Halloween costume.  He's showing off the gloves because that was the most important part of the costume to him.  I looked everywhere and finally bought these gloves down in the 'States at Target.  Crazy what we do for our kids right?

 

 

 

 

This page uses a variety of products, but it was created using My Digital Studio 2.  You can use any png file and use the photo option in MDS2 to place it on a page. 

 

That cool banner is from Pixels and Co.  I added the shadows underneath by using punches, adding a drop shadow, filling the punch with patterned paper.   Once that was done, I double clicked on the punch and then slid the paper off the punch so that only the shadow is left.  You can crop the punch too.  The flag punch in MDS2 is very long, so I cropped it so that it fit perfectly under each banner flag.  All of the stamps are from Stampin Up! and so are the splatters.  I started off with a page template from the Downtown Grunge kit and then changed up the layout and added to it.  The ricrack and the red scallop are digital elements from Pixels and Co which I recoloured to fit the challenge colours.

Thanks for stopping by!

I hope you have a fabulous Tuesday!

 

 

 

 

Stampin' Royalty Challenge #165

 

I took this cool sketch and tried to make a scrapbook layout with it.

Well, I tried...

 

yeah.

 

I'm not very impressed with this page.

I was trying for a chalkboard effect.

 

But the kids are cute right????

 

Colour Q Challenge #178

 

Couldn't you just get lost in those eyes???

I know, I'm a bit biased, but I just love her eyes.

The photo's a bit blurry thanks to my phone, and instagram.

I walked right up to her, trying to be silly and the camera (phone) was almost touching her face.

We got a good laugh about it.

 

 

Most of the embellishments come from Pixels and Co.

I just recoloured the elements to match the challenge colours.

Check it out.

 

 

I added this post to the Mommy linky party over at Six Sisters

 

 

Let's Get Sketchy February Sketch 2

 

So I've been playing with My Digital Studio 2.

And I really liked this sketch from Let's Get Sketchy.

So I pulled out some photos from last summer and got to work.

 

 

Above I layered some punches and elements from the Anne with an E set from Pixels and Co.

Scroll for more info about that.

 

I layered some more punches, applied the 'rip paper' tool and found some cool fonts.

 

I filled some Stampin' Up! punches with the paper in the kit.

 

And here's the final page.  I played with Instagram to make the photos look a bit vintage.

And the colours in this kit are very vintage too.

 

Let's Get Sketchy for February



 

 

So I've been having a lot of fun with My Digital Studio this week.  I decided to try out the newest challenge over at Let's Get Sketchy.  I used a ton of free downloads from Pixel and Co. to make this page.

 

Here's a quick look at my page, you can scroll down for a larger image.

 

I layered these cute flags and recoloured them in My Digital Studio. 

They were orignially a craft paper beige.

(I think the sayings are cute too)

 

 

 

The chevrons are a stamp from Stampin' Up!  I recoloured it with MDS2 (My Digital Studio) and then uploaded the final jpeg into GIMP and refined the colours.

 

 

 

These buttons are from Pixels and Co. 

I added the drop shadows by using a circle punch, adding the shadow, filling the punch with paper and then sliding the paper out of the screen so that only the shadow remained.  Then I put one under each button.

 

 

This is truly one of my favourite photos of my daughter.

I played around with it in Instagram, which added the cute border.

 

 

 

 

This little tag is from Pixels and Co.  I layered the white text over it and added the drop shadow in the same way I added the shadows to the buttons above.

 

 

 

This overlay is part of this set from Pixels & Co.

 

Here's a closeup of my final page.

 

 

Look for these kits at Pixels and Co. to recreate my page.

 

 



Stampin' Royalty Challenge #164

 

This week we have a photo inspiration challenge for you.

Hop on over and check out the fabulous samples at the Design Team.

I  decided to make a hybrid card using My Digital Sudio.

 

 

Here's a photo of my digital image.

I printed it out and turned it into a card.

I printed the green medallion twice so that I could punch it out and layer it for more dimension.

The photo doesn't do it justice - sorry.

I popped up the punched out circle on dimensionals and I sponged the edges with black so that it would really pop.  In the middle I flattened a pop bottle lit and added a little dahlia in the middle.

Colour Q Challenge #177

Yup, it's Tuesday, so another great combo over at the Colour Q.

I really struggled with this combo, but hop on over and see the fabulous work done by the Design Team.

 

The background paper and overlay stamp are from Stampin' Up! 

The rest were freebies from Arielle's new online group Pixels and Co.

I recoloured the "SNAP" and the "CLICK".

Anyway, hop on over, like I said before, and be inspired!

 

Sympathetic Banner

My SIL's grandmother passed away this week, so I whipped up this little card for her to let her know we are thinking of her right now.

 

It's so simple to create these little banners with the Hearts Aflutter framelits and some patterned paper.

 

I cut the butterflies out of the paper by hand as they were in the pattern. 

Here's the finished card.

 

Thanks for stopping by today! 

Happy Valentine's Day!

 

Last week, while I was making a card for the Muse challenge, I made this card at the same time.  Click here to see my other card. 

 

 

I like this little lace ribbon.  I didn't want it to be too big and take over the card,

but at the same time, I wanted it to stand up and be noticed.

 

The hearts are cut out with the Hearts Aflutter framelits and matching stamp set.

The paper and the "love you" sentiment are from Crate Paper

 

Here's the finished card.  I think this might be the perfect one for hubby this year.