Beauty

These are photos from the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park down in Sandy Eggo (what it sounds like to me).  I was inspired in the creation of this layout by the Barbie challenge at Child's Play -- I used Pink! (not used much here, since my most frequent subject are the guys) and the little umbrella reminds me of all the Barbie furniture and stuff we used to scavenge to play Barbies with.  :-)

I was also inspired by the "Name that Tune" challenge that I'm hosting over at S-P:  the song "Kodachrome" is the inspiration song -- my journaling strips have lyrics "You give us the nice, bright colors, You give us the greens of summer, You make us think all the world's a sunny day, oh yeah, I love to take photographs..."

I used the front and back of the paper -- I loved both.  Absolutely adore the tea set.  I couldn't find a lantern svg, so printed off, colored and fussy cut the clip art.  The title, is of course, the Japanese character and English translation "Beauty".  This was such a lovely, peaceful spot.

The One Where David Took the Photo of Us in Front of the Lighthouse...

and pretty much cut off the lighthouse.  I love my husband.  Really.  For over 30 years  I have.  Usually I take the pictures.  When I said, "You guys go stand by the lighthouse so I can take your picture," he said, "No, I'll take your picture -- you go stand with the boys."

So I did.

We got the requisite "warm up"photo with them being silly.  Then we got "the real one".

That building behind really is a lighthouse in the Bellagio garden.  It is beautiful there.  This story is on the back, where my DH won't see it.  :-)

I'm submitting this to the Child's Play "Pete's Dragon" challenge.

moments

This layout was based on a CK sketch.  I thought the challenge went til the end of the month, but, ooops, it ended the 13th.  Instead of photos, I used postcards  I picked up at the national park -- I collect them and don't like to glue them down, so usually use photo corners.  I made these myself -- was easier than I thought.
I also chose papers that would fit the color challenge over at S-P:  blue, green and yellow.  The die cut title is one I got in a swap quite a while back.  I love being part of the online scrappy community.

Also included is the "passport stamp" from the Ranger Station.  I didn't buy a passport, but use some scrap papers to get the stamp when we go to a Park.  I love the old poster and stamp postcards.

Boothill

These photos aren't really from Boothill, but from El Campo Santos Cemetery in San Diego's Old Town.  It just looks like a Boothill.  I used  a sketch that Carolyn shared at Scrappin-Peeps for a weekly challenge.  My photo of the layout is horrible and has such awful reflection from the overhead light on my table, but if I wait, I may never get it done :-)

Reading about this cemetery, there are reported sightings of ghosts.  One "working girl" who died in the old west days and wasn't allowed to be buried in the cemetery itself -- she's been seen hanging around outside the gate.  When the paved street went in, they paved over several graves.  To appease the spirits who were not happy with it, there were markers and a memorial placed on the grounds commemorating those under the street.  Apparently paranormal activity was so high, that several of the local shopkeepers pooled their money and had an exorcism or similar ceremony performed.  Since then, reports of activity have been down.
I was really surprised when we visited this old graveyard, that some of the graves had recent memorials (the toys and stuffed animals).  Don't know if it's family members still in the area or if it's just that children's graves strike a chord with many of us.

Here's my layout:

Awesome, awesome, awesome.

My two sons went to Van's Warp Tour in San Diego this last summer.  David and I went down with, we spent a couple nights in a motel, David and I wandered Balboa Park, Old Town, etc. while they were at the concert.  We went to pick them up -- and this is who came out with Scott.  Yes, the Aquabats played.

Here's the sketch I used from 2 Broke Girls:

  

Mollie's Nipple

This is in Utah, outside Hurricane, where David went to High School.  One of the shots is from up closer to Cedar, the other is down closer to St. George.  I thought it was Molly's Nipple, but found out that the USGS frowns on apostrophes in place names, so officially it's "Mollies Nipple".  But locals (and others) still throw the apostrophe in (probably all those grammar teachers) so it is alternately known as Mollies Nipple, Mollie's Nipple or Molly's Nipple.  I couldn't leave the apostrophe out.

I used a sketch from 2 Broke Girls :

Yes, there's reflection in it, because it's dark out and I'm taking the picture on my kitchen floor with the overhead light on.  LOL

Three New Layouts from last summer -- Vegas and San Diego

We made a stop in Vegas on our way home.  Here's my layout of the iconic sign.  I'll probably add some handwritten journaling to the bottom right.

This was from a sketch from Paper Secrets:  Their twist is to use dots and stripes.  The stripes are obvious, I'm hoping they'll see the dots in the photo around the Vegas sign or consider the turquoise horizontal piece as blobby dots.  

I loved the sketch -- it looks so Halloweeny, but I like how it came worked for my summer "night lights" photos also.  I put together three pps from 2 manufacturers and 3 stacks  -- the striped is Colorbok, the labels and horizontal piece are K & Co.  Wasn't sure about mixing them (I have such a hard time mixing patterns -- especially the labels and stripes together was hard for me), but I like how it looks all together.  The cs pieces are just scraps. I tried coloring in the lettering on the title to look like neon more -- but it got muddy and you couldn't read it.  There's a lot of white space -- more than I'm used to and it's Really white!  But I think it's effective.   

The next is a 2-page spread about Ben's Dancing in the Luxor lobby.  

We were standing around, trying to decide what to do, and he just started dancing all over the open area.  As I say in my journaling, not the be-bop in place, but the arms and legs flailing, high-energy, all over the place dancing.  We were laughing.  Nobody else seemed to notice -- guess it's Vegas.  Then he threw a shoe and stopped.  I ran across a quote from Nietsche about dancing:  "Those that were seen dancing were thought insane by those who could not hear the music."  Which led me to two more Nietsche quotes:  " We should consider lost any day in which we have not danced at least once." and "You must have chaos within you to give birth to a dancing star."  Beyond the quotes, I was inspired by Devra's challenge at Scrappin-Peeps to use a different palette than we usually use.  I love color -- and tend to use the deeper colors more often.  I started to use pastels on this, but it just wasn't working.  So I went with neutrals -- I use them even less than I use pastels.  Black, white, grey, brown.  The only color in this layout comes from the dancing.  Symbolic, eh?  I thought it was clever LOL.  And -- there was this cool sketch at Bird is the Word with the word -- Dance: 

I used it as inspiration for the left side.

Last, is a layout I did about the guy who stacks rocks down in Seaport Village in San Diego.  It is incredible to see.  Such a fun trip.  I used a sketch from Let's Scrap, but didn't get it done in time for the challenge.  I'm so slow these days.

Thanks for dropping by -- love to see your comments.