Maui Revisited

Maui is like my second home but where I really want to live.  I am very envious of all my friends that live there.  And unfortunately I only make it out for a visit about every two years.  Last April I had the pleasure of taking a long weekend trip over there with some friends.  We saw and did a lot (of drinking) in the four days we were there. I am finally getting around to scrapping this trip.  My goal is to finish this trip before we leave for our next (20 days and counting!).  Here are some of my favorite pages so far.

Welcome to Maui, Bree was a Maui virgin!

Scott is actually smiling (kind of)

An ocean cool off on the way to Hana

In Danoucha's beautiful garden

Koki Beach-My favorite little beach in Hana

More Chap...and I embossed!

American Crafts Chap, even as all the new winter releases come out I am still obsessed with this line and it's still my favorite.  I think because it's so versatile.  It's billed as a "boys" line but it's boy while not being to child-like.  I am not a huge fan of really kid-themey collections.  I recently ordered some Thickers from Crafty Steals and they went perfectly with Chap. Another thing I did with this layout that I rarely do is emboss.  I never do it and I don't know why.  I have a ton of unused stamps.  The chevron stamp that is part of the Chap collection was just screaming to be used in this layout so I broke out the heat.

Side-note: If you have not discovered the deal of the day scrapbook sites yet then you should! I am a HUGE deal nerd.  My favorites are:
Crafty Steals-The deals don't go away after a day so you have access to their archive at all times.
Scrapbook Steals-They have, in my opinion, the best selection.  2 deals a day, AM and PM.  However stuff goes quick on this site, as soon as they put up Thickers they're gone. Occasionally they'll open up their archives and you can shop through limited quantities of past deals.
Peachy Cheap-Not as good a selection as the others but every once in awhile they have Basic Grey embellishment bundles.

Sweet (red) and Flat (yellow) chipboard Thickers from American Crafts

It's a crappy photo but finally some embossing!

Girls

I love my girls, friends and family alike.  There's nothing like some quality girl time.  These are two of my very favorite photos from 2011.  I believe they might have been taken on the same night too, what are the chances of that?

Myself and my gorgeous & happy niece-Little Yellow Bicycle's Paradise collection

It's true, happy girls ARE the prettiest

Clouds and birds

My "niece," sister & myself-American Crafts Garden Cafe

American Crafts Nightfall

Since I'm one of those control freak type people I feel the need to scrap in order of occurance.  I'm finally getting to this past fall so I can finally use the American Crafts Nightfall collection that I've had stashed away for these layouts. I bought a ton of it on clearance so I will be using in next year too. My fave embellishments are definitely the wool ones.

For the Apples layout I tried my hand at making the flower on the top right using this tutorial here. 

Apples!

A closeup of the flower

Pumpkin Patch

Palm Springs!

Oh Palm Springs how I love you!  You're close enough for a quick weekend getaway and you're weather is pretty much always awesome. Plus you're an excuse to drink too much. My go to spot has turned into the Riviera, thanks to attending a bachelorette party here last year. It has great decor that makes for fun photos.  These pages are from a little girls trip a friend and I took in September.

Pool at the Riviera

 

For some reason every time I go here I drink too much and end up doing a photo shoot in the lobby

I love washi tape!

Meeting Dean Wilson

I love when there is a story behind a layout and it's not just a photo I love.  This particular layout is one of those.  My husband and his brother were born in Scotland and came to the states at a young age.  They grew up in California riding motocross and have always been big fans of the sport. This past fall, at the outdoor championships at Pala, they got to meet Dean Wilson, the only professional motocross rider that is Scottish.  A good day for the Coutts brothers. My husband jokes that we should post this on his fan page, is that going overboard?

I used the American Crafts chap line for this one, still my current favorite.  I love the alternate stitching around the outside, I got that idea from a layout on a Basic Grey blog post.

The coordinating embellishments make it so easy!

Alternating colors stitching

Unemployed

Today is that day where everybody went back to work after the holidays.  Everybody except me that is.  It feels really weird and I kind of don't know what to do with myself.  I love the feeling of freedom but I'm also scared.  I want to enjoy some time off but not more than a month because then paying our mortgage becomes a problem.  I was notified of our layoff 2 months ago and the unfortunate thing about this layoff is both my husband and I work for the same company in the same division; and they cut our entire division. He has one more month of work but I was done as of December 31.  And the thought of us both being unemployed at the same time is absolutely terrifying.  However I'm a positive thinker (or I'm in complete denial) so we will cross that bridge when we come to it.  Until then I have decided to make my January to do list and get some stuff done that I have been procrastinating on forever:

1. Go to yoga twice a week and try to embrace that yoga-zen thing that doesn't work so well for me.
2. Fully convert our guest bedroom into a craft room (yippee!)
3. Make thank you cards.
4. Paint that wall in our hallway/bathroom with all the test paint strips on it...finally
5. Clean out my damn closet
6. Get cracking on my craft to-do list which includes taking a photo a day for weekly pages, making a bunch of bracelets that I have tutorials for.

These are NOT New Years Resolutions, I don't believe in those because they never actually get done.   This is just my to-do list.

And finally, some of my recent pages:

Fall Sunset-Fancy Pants Summer's End

The Whole Fam-American Crafts Margarita

I love this My Minds Eye line! (Happy Days)

American Crafts Chap

My favorite line of the moment is American Crafts Chap.  It's versatile, got great colors and loads of embellishments to round out the cool papers.  My only problem is that the only place I can find that carries it is Two Peas in a Bucket and they sell out pretty quickly. Thankfully they just re-stocked and I stocked up on multi-sheets of paper. This is my first layout with it, my nephew, filthy after 3 days of camping.

In love with Amy Tan's Line

I think I'm one of millions out there that is in love with Amy Tangerine's line for American Crafts. It's bright, it's fun and there's so much to it. I feel like this layout might be a bit chaotic and chaos isn't something I do well with.  So this is an attempt to go outside my normal comfort zone.

Chaos?

Love the washi tape