Happiest Place on Earth

We're going to DISNEYLAND!  We've gone to Disneyland almost every year.  For as long as my daughter loves to go we will take her.  Besides, I love it there too! I think it's the fact that it's for families, the joy in my kids face on how much fun she has fun there or the rides.  It's all that and more.  All though our experience there is a little different now that we have a tween.  So that means no character dining to see all the characters, definitely no picture taking with them...ughhh.  Just enjoying the Magical place and the rides.  We usually do a park hopper where you can go to the main park DISNEYLAND MAGIC KINGDOM and DISNEY CALIFORNIA.  They're right across from one another.  Then there's Downtown Disney which I LOVE.  There are shops and restaurants.  My fave restaurant there is the HOUSE OF BLUES which is a concert music hall and restaurant.  Oh and part of the experience are the lines. Gotta love the lines! ha!  Here are some photos from the HAPPIEST PLACE ON EARTH.

Every night they have fireworks but we didn't stay because well...we were exhausted!!  So we went for a swim at the hotel and watched it from there.  Suffice to say we had a MAGICAL DAY.  Off to Disney California the next day.

It's a SNAP

Last summer CHA Simple Stories released a large collection of a cute easy new way of documenting your everyday, travels or whatever you like.  This is definitely on my MUST HAVE list along with many others.  haha!  Here's a video they created showcasing their SNAP collection.

I love these collections!

Summer is over

It's been about 2 weeks since my daughter went back to school but the weather here has been HOT HOT!  It's ok.  I love it!  I love the sunshine.  The happy people.  The places, things we go to and see.  This year has definitely been another busy summer.  I work every other weekend so I don't have too many weekends to get away but that didn't stop us from doing things.  With the many life changing challenges my family dealt with this year we learned to cherish and make every moment count together.  So the little things that doesn't really matter I try not to let it get to me.  This summer we went to SoCal.  We went to Magic Mountain which was my daughter's first time there.  Then we hit Universal Studios, Disneyland, Disney California and Santa Monica for some beach time.  Along with some family parties,  Birthday celebrations, family visiting from out of town,  beach time and just plain hanging out around town.  I think this year we watched a lot of movies...it was definitely, a Super Hero kinda summer.  I brought my DSLR and have my trusty iPHONE which I LOVE!  Here's a glimpse of our summer. Warning...photo heavy.


On the ROAD.

Here's an INSTAX  picture of my daughter and niece.  More on this printer in another post. These two are best Cousins!  When they're together they're in their own world and just laugh the whole time!  I kid you not.

Magic Mountain.  Now this park is for big kids.  They have BIG Roller coasters!  I mean your tummy will turn upside down!  Wet rides..well you might as well wear a swim suit.  You get that drenched! Haha!

Magic Mountain has a Super Hero theme.  Pretty cool!

OMG!  This ride was Craaazy!  You are faced down with your legs locked in place the whole time!

Here's me and my girl.  She's all grown up.  We get to go to a lot of places now that she's older like ride these big roller coasters!  

This Green Lantern ride looks crazy!  I passed this up.  It was the end of the day and I was roller coaster out!

This was the very last ride before closing and it was their favorite one of all!

Be prepared for HOT weather and LONG LINES!!  About an hour to an hour and a half wait!  

After an exhausting day and fun we headed to Anaheim to our hotel which was probably 45 min away.  Not too far.  If you know SoCal it was better to drive at night.  No traffic!

Next day...to the happiest place on earth!

Summer Lovin'

...had me blast,  summer lovin' happened so fast...  haha!  Anyone remember that movie " GREASE" with John Travolta and Olivia Newton John?  Ok.. I'm dating myself.  Well if you don't that means you're not old enough.  lol!  It's my favorite movie of all time.  Here's the video.






Ok.. back to scrapping.

Summer is our favorite time of the year!  The weather, beach time, movies,vacation time, family time, mother daughter time, tanning, dresses and flip flops.  I created a mini book of a glimpse of our summer this year. I used Heidi Swapp's Color Magic as the base, Instaframes, alphas, trimmings, banner delights, stix, labels, stamps, vellum envelopes, Studio Calico mislables (aren't those cute?), glimmer mist, Hambly transparencies, plain picture frame and generic clear plastic 4x6 inserts that you can find at your office store.

At the spine I cut two slits and inserted the two stix to decorate the spine.

I adhered the vellum envelope with flap side down first then cascaded the clear plastics.  Here you can

add more ephemera, journaling and pictures.

This is a plain frame in which I cut a slit in the back of the mini so it'll stand on it's own but didn't take a picture because it didn't turn out as pretty as I wanted it. ha!

Hope you were inspired to create your Summer Lovin' mini this year!

Happy Scrappin'

Maridette

For the love of minis

Anyone who knows my style (whatever that is) they know that I'm a mini book kinda gal.  Oh how I love minis!!  I love to add bulk, embellish it, make it messy, add a lot of pictures of an event or subject.  Here's a couple mini books that I created using Heidi Swapp Sugar Chic collection, Color Magic, Instaframes, Banners, Stix, Washi tapes, Trimmings and labels.  I also used Studio Calico wood veneers, FindingNana insta badges,American Crafts alphas, glimmer mists, Hambly Transparencies, stamps and my trusty silhouette.

We all know about the Instagram craze.  Are you addicted?  I am.  I have an iPhone and LOVE IT!!  Along with all the apps that's involved and how easily accessible it is.  Another great thing is I can get snapshots through my daughter's perspective from her iPhone.  How easy is it to capture our everyday.  It's so wonderful!  At the same time it means more pix to scrap!  My mini instagram book that I created over a month ago showcases our everyday snapshots through instagram and my iPhone.

Here's another reason why I love my phone!  My BFF created this collage out of all the inspirations at CHA winter in Anaheim.  There are apps where you can create collages with your photos ON YOUR PHONE.  AWESOME!  There are two collage apps that I use.  Photo shake and Frame Artist which I use Frame Artist the most and LOVE IT!  So I printed them out and using Heidi's wash tape I created a cascade.

 Thanks for stopping by.  Hope this inspires you to create mini books.

CHA SUMMER 2012 HEIDI SWAPP Vintage CHic

Heidi's new release VINTAGE CHIC is just to die for! Love, love it!  I love the patterns, colors and the  map prints is so gorgeous!  She released of course Memory files but she also released mini memory file.  Ummm cute!!  Along with chipboard Memory file regular and mini so you can create sturdy memory file projects.  Another fave is the mini memory file page protectors called photo sleeve mini with different size inserts and her new Foto stacks that includes page protectors which was a fast sell out on her debut at Winter CHA.  <3.  Here's a closer look at a video of Heidi showing you her Memory Files by Scrapbook.com.  You'll also see her new mini instaframes.  So need this!

CHA SUMMER 2012

Well,  CHA summer has come and gone.  I love all the excitement and people posting all the new products from the show.  Also, videos of manufacturers booths.  I have such a long list of WANTS.  Yikes.

Trends that I noticed that is releasing this time... are of course Chevrons, mini binder books with different size page protectors that have paper collections that go along with it, of course what would the show be without Washi tapes.  Lots of season theme collections too like Christmas and Halloween.  Don't know where to look for all the new products that's coming out.  Well...there's a few places you can check out.  

SCRAPBOOK UPDATE

SCRAPBOOK.COM

TWO PEAS IN A BUCKET

SCRAP REVIEW

One of my favorites of all time is HEIDI SWAPP.  If you know me...there's no surprise there.  haha!

She released her new line of mists called COLOR SHINE.  There's 12 different colors and you can customize Heidi's Color Magic collections.  There's new memory file folders, tags and alphas!  I think I need them all.  Here's a video of Heidi demonstrating her new collection COLOR SHINE from Scrap Time.

CHA Summer 2012 – Heidi Swapp Color Shine


Here's another video where Trisha L.  talks about her COLOR SHINE collection.




Here's another one from Scrapbook.com of Heidi from CHA.




I'll be sharing more of my must haves.