Love Doesn't Need Special Events

Love is a gift that we can give and receive every minute of every day.  It's the most precious gift God gave us.

Congratulations to Dana and Nicole - by this time next year they'll need a new family photo to highlight the new addition to their growing family.

A Shout Out for Dad's Day

We saw Dad this past weekend so he got to celebrate both Mother's and Father's Day this year.  He let us crash and fed us breakfast as we made our way down to Miami for the weekend, my dad rocks!

Here are some recent layouts I've created of him from our Disney Cruise last month.  Kay Eflin's new kit Dad Knows Best was perfect for them.  Good times!

Dad
I took these pictures of my Dad on a recent vacation; we were at the Atlantis Hotel on a tour of their replica of the Lost City of Atlantis in Nassau, Bahamas.

Dad and Me 2010
Here we are on the guided tour of the aquarium at the Atlantis Hotel in Nassau, Bahamas.

Dad and I always have a lot of fun together.  Our next planned outing is for the American Idols concert in August, our yearly tradition.  Can't wait!

It's Nice to Know That Someone Is Waiting

Being away from home for any length of time always makes me extra-sentimental.  I was away for 4 days and I really missed my husband - I'm so glad to be back home with him even though I had a fun trip.

Still the One
Here is my dearest husband all dressed up during our recent vacation.  Kay Eflin's new kit Still the One and the lyrics from Sara Evans song "Some Things Never Change" said exactly what I wanted to say.

Lyrics:
In a world that keeps turnin’ and movin’ so fast,
When you can’t hold on to nothin’ and nothin’ seems to last,
It’s good to know that love still remains,
I’m so glad that some things never change.
 
Remember to say I Love You, even when you think someone already knows you do.
Have a Blessed Day!

Something Silly, Something Sweet

Here's my something silly today - my niece and I trying on silly hats on New Year's Eve:

I used The Busy Elf Designs' kit Maternal Jem on this layout, I thought the multi-colored background went well with all the colors in this picture.  We were definitely not coordinating here, lol.
 
Here's my something sweet - our niece picking blueberries last year.  She was very protective over her prize berries.
 

I used Werinka's kit Hyacinth for the colors and gemstones included in it.
That's it for today, I'm scavenging from last week's work because I'm out of scrappy commission for a few days while I'm on business travel.  Hope everyone else has time to get creative!

Next Stop on the Summer So Fine Blog Train

Hi, I'm Tania Ruiz, Creative Team member for E-Scape and Scrap.  Welcome to the E-scape and Scrap Summer So Fine Blog Train. This is stop #11 on the blog train. Download my quickpage, created from papers and elements included in the fun new Designer Collab Kit named Summer So Fine, by clicking on the image below. After downloading this quickpage your next blog train stop will be at designer Rose Thorn's blog where you will download a beautiful set of brads/buttons. The blog train downloads will be available through the end of June 2010. Thank you for visiting my blog.

Click this image to download the quickpage:

Don't forget the Summer So Fine Collab Kit is available for free for a limited time with a $10 purchase at The Nifty Boutique. Details on this deal are available in the product description in the boutique.

Click here to go to your next stop on the blog train: Blog of Designer Rose Thorn

Click here to go to the E-Scape and Scrap Blog if you've missed any stops on the blog train: The Nifty Boutique Blog

Thank you for stopping by, have fun on the Summer So Fine Blog Train!

I Hear the Whistle Blowing

There's a blog train comin'!  Join the E-Scape and Scrap Designers and Creative Team on Saturday as we host a blog train - plenty of fun freebies coming your way!  All of the items offered will coordinate with the new Summer So Fine Collaboration Kit now on sale at E-Scape and Scrap.  Even better - spend $10 in the shop and you get the collab kit for free! 

I'll have my piece hosted right here on my blog on Saturday, so make sure you come back and check it out.  Choo Choo!

Another Reveal - Amethysts and Sapphires and Peridots, Oh My!

I always love a good reveal, especially when I'm part of it. This week our Creative Team did a reveal on using gemstones in layouts that is now posted on the E-Scape and Scrap blog. Make sure to check it out, the other ladies turned in some priceless layouts using a variety of gemstones in different ways.

Finding the Joy in Motherhood

On my first layout I chose to use the Maternal Jem kit that The Busy Elf Designs recently released in the E-Scape and Scrap Boutique.  This kit is filled with jewels and jewel inspired papers.  I used it to create this layout about my sister and her son on a recent weekend getaway.

 

To get the look for the main picture, I created a copy of the envelope and erased the top portion to layer it over my main picture in order to make the picture look as if it were coming out of the envelope.  The heart gem seemed like the perfect element to enhance the theme of a mother's love.

Treasure These Moments

My second layout was inspired by the new Birthstone Charms put out by Lady Bug Designs. This element pack includes girl and boy charms for every month and the files are labeled with both the month and gemstone name to help those of us who aren't experts on birthstones.  I pinned the appropriate birthstone charm to each of us in the picture (I'm all the way to the right; this is a picture of me with both of my sisters and my nephew - it was his first spring break, lol). 

To compliment the charm elements I used papers and elements from Werinka Designs' Hyacinth kit.  Since we're all wearing different (and nonmatching) colors in this picture, I layered 4 different papers from the kit and used the eraser tool to get just the right mixture of colors and patterns in my background to pull the images together.  This wonderful photo mask is also by Werinka Designs.

Thank you for looking!  Have a blessed day.

A Jungle Out There, A Zoo In Here

This week I had the privilege of playing with Ingeborg's new Sketch A Zoo Papers and Elements. It's filled with so many fun zoo animal images and a great selection of papers. My favorite place to observe wild animals such as lions and tigers (but not bears! oh my!) is Disney's Animal Kingdom so I used some of those pictures to work with this kit.

Jungle Explorers
Here we have my sister and her darling son hanging out with Safari Goofy and Safari Pluto.


Welcome to Animal Kingdom
Next up - it's me! This is the entrance to the park.


The Giraffe
The giraffe is my second-favorite zoo animal. This creature possesses a silent beauty and moves with surprising grace. Their long neck twists and turns in their quest to find food. The giraffe spots danger as it approaches and escapes with a burst of speed. (journaling from the layout)

I'm Blushing

Or at least my layout is. ;-) Sus Designs just put out a cute new kit and matching alpha called Blushing and it's on sale at E-Scape and Scrap right now. Here's my first layout using Blushing - the kit and alpha.

Taylor Turns 12

Our First Disney Cruise

Warning: It's a Rave. ;-) It would be much quicker to tell you what I didn't love about our first Disney Cruise - that would be nothing, lol. We sailed The Disney Wonder from Port Canaveral to Nassau, Bahamas, to Disney's Castaway Cay, Bahamas, then spent a day at sea before coming home (4 nights on board). It was awesome. I can't say enough about the excellent service, the delicious food, the fantastic shows (live shows and movie showings), the long list of activities on board and off, the beauty (and cleanliness) of the ship, and the wonderful crew and characters that surrounded us and made the trip extra-special. I recommend it to everyone. And if that's not enough, both my husband and my Dad recommend it too - they walked off the ship ready to reboard.

Mere words can not express the amazing adventure that was our trip, but perhaps scrapbook pages can. Here is the first page in our Disney Cruise album.

Our First Disney Cruise


The model ship in the picture sits in the boarding area of the port.

More to come! My goal is to finish this album by mid-July.

Time for a Reveal

The hardest part about a reveal is keeping layouts under wraps! E-scape and Scrap released two new collaboration kits this week - Doodlicious by Julie Mead and Ruth Davis and Summer So Fine from the Nifty Designer Series. They are both jam-packed with papers and elements, with enough variety that you create layouts without searching other kits for missing elements. I had a lot of fun working with both kits, here are the results:

Doodlicious - a fun kit filled with doodle-inspired elements, offered both in color and in black and white. To sweeten the deal there are quite a few matching papers included in the kit.

Layout 1 - Blessings Caught on Camera
Logan's first tooth picture shoot yielded just as many non-tooth related pictures as it did first tooth pictures, lol.


Layout 2 - It's Her First Car
Tabatha picking up her Honda Civic. I think this kit equally screams kids and teens, the doodles are so whimsical and really fit a variety of themes.



Summer So Fine - a collaboration kit created by all the designers at E-scape and Scrap themed around summer and the great outdoors, filled with papers, elements and even word art. There are a number of floral elements included in the kit and I focused my layouts on these.

Layout 1 - Bloomin'
This picture of John and his parents at Epcot's Flower and Garden Festival was one I have been planning to scrap since the moment I took it, and the elements in this kit fit so well with the floral arrangements in the picture.


Layout 2 - Topiaries
I had to do a second Flower and Garden layout, there were so many elements in the kit I wanted to use.