July 4th

This is based on a sketch by Patti Hutchinson.  I knew pretty much when I saw this sketch what I wanted to do with it.  I love it when an idea comes together! 

I took some pictures with the fireworks setting on my camera this year, and I think those photos came out great.  I used Picasa and cropped 6 of the best pictures into squares, and then selected those and created a 4x6 photo collage to print.  I then used my Coluzzle to cut them into circles. 

I bought the Vintage Nation pad by Paper Studios a few weeks ago when I fell in love with a layout on the magazine at Hobby Lobby, and new it would be perfect.  I used Tim Holtz' Rosette die with different papers to mat the fireworks photos. 


This was my first time using washi tape.  I picked some up at Micheal's last week when it was on sale.

I also inked the edges of the red papers with Aged Mahogany, and the blue papers with Chipped Sapphire.  

Flybaby friends

This was created based on a sketch from The Sketchy Thursday Archives.

So the final page in my Scotland Scrapbook is about my friend Sharon and how we met and have been friends for 10 years.  I've been so thankful for how Flylady has changed my life, and how through her system and groups on the internet I have made some very special friends.  I put the 15 on the clock because Sharon and I clean our houses together for 15 minutes at a time between chatting.  The hearts are because FLYing stands for "Finally Loving Yourself" and the butterflies are for our fluttering wings.  A few years ago, I bought a few pins from the FLY shop, and I took the back off of one to put in the middle  of the flower. 

The journaling reads:

The person who really made this trip as wonderful as it was is Sharon.  If it weren’t for her, we would have been on someone else’s schedule, we would not have seen everything that we did, and would have to see and do things that we weren’t interested in. Sharon did a lot of the itinerary planning and found things for us to see; she rented the car and drove the whole time so if we wanted to stay somewhere longer we did; and if we were too cold then we didn’t have to stay anywhere waiting on anyone.  And if I wanted to stop and take a picture, we were able to pull over and stop!  And when we needed batteries, we found a store. She also bought a bag full of toiletries for each of us to use while we were there so that we were able to put everything we took into carry-on luggage, then charged us just a couple of pounds because she said she knew she’d be taking most of it home at the end of the week.  She also found an old suitcase a friend of hers was tossing out so that we could bring things home in a checked baggage.  And so everything would fit in the compact car, she filled it with the snacks and drinks she had purchased for us to use during week.  Sharon and I met on an MSN group, flybabies. We had both signed up for Flylady in 2002 and due to our schedules were often cleaning our houses together for years.  We got to know each other well and are there to listen in good times and bad. 

Haggis

The design from this came from Let's Capture These Sketches

When you think of a food from Scotland, most likely you think of Haggis and cringe.   It is made from sheep's pluck (heart, liver and lungs); minced with onion, oatmeal, suet, spices, and salt, mixed with stock.  But I've always been adventurous when it comes to food. 

I finally used up some Prima flourishes that have been living in my house for a few years.  I used the celtic stamp again at the top of the focal panel and used black bling to tie it into the flourishes, and to cover up where the stamp overlapped.  The shape for the title spot was cut with my silhouette.

The journaling reads:

I had to try Haggis while in Scotland.  At Beinn Edra, Rachel cooked me a Haggis that Sharon said was a very nice brand. I liked it very much, but I didn’t like the brand they used at Cairngorm guest house as well.  I also had Haggis with ‘neeps and tatties’ a.k.a. Turnips and potatoes while at Urquhart Castle.  I didn’t like the turnips and picked those out.  The haggis I liked the most wasn’t even my dish.  Sharon ordered Chicken and Haggis in Ft. Augustus and gave me a taste; it was very flavorful.

Q Inn

The sketch I used for this one came from Pagemaps.  I tried to create a visual triangles with the gold dazels, the bling, and also the splotches of red which is also found on the curb of the hotel.

The journaling reads:

The only place we stayed more than one night was this Quality Inn in Edinburgh, so close to the airport that we could see the hotel from the window when the plane was taking off. Fortunately, we were not kept awake by the airplanes. The beds were squishy, and easily moved.  The bad thing about it was that we were unable to connect to the internet here, which was very irritating.

The Wheels on the Bus Go Round & Round

The layout I lifted for this layout can be found in Creative Keepsakes Volume 16 Issue 4 page 89.

Part of the experience in Edinburgh was how we got around, and the hiccups that occurred.  Donna actually asked me the first night why I was taking a picture of us waiting on the bus; because she certainly didn't want to remember that! I told her it was all part of the experience! You have to take the bad with the good! It was the only bad experience we had on this wonderful trip.

The journaling reads:

The public bus transportation was the least expensive, but it was a fiasco from the start.  (Edinburgh is putting in a subway to go to the city, so this shouldn’t be an issue for future visitors.) Sharon had called and e-mailed the company Just the week before we arrived and discussed schedules, terminals, prices, etc.  The Customer service people seemed very helpful, but neglected to tell her that the terminal where we were to start is closed! So we couldn’t use their toilet as planned, and we had to wait outside in the cold wind waiting for the bus which was very late arriving. The bus stopped every 2 minutes on the way into Edinburgh. It seemed to take forever to get there!  We took a taxi to the castle in order to save time and energy since it took us so long to get into Edinburgh.  We said later that it was the wisest decision we made of the day! In the evening we went to the bus stop before the scheduled pick-up time, but we had to wait and wait and wait.  I think we waited an hour and a half or 2 hours for the bus.  While we waited we probably saw 20 Airlink buses pass by on their way to the airport near our hotel. The next day, we went to the airport and rode the Airlink bus into Edinburgh, and when we were ready to go back to the hotel, there was less than a 5 minute wait at their bus stop!  They did stop a few times, but nothing compared to the public bus.  The second day we rode the City Sightseeing bus.  In the picture on the far left, we’re on a bridge! Imagine the engineering feat of hundreds of years ago making a bridge big enough for buildings!

National Museum of Scotland

I've liked the look of a collage of photos a lot the last few months, and since I've discovered Picasa, I love being able to print more than one photo on a 4x6.

The journaling here reads:

There was so much to see at the National Museum of Scotland, we could have spent all day there if we had the time.  The only section we toured was the Scottish section.  We started with a pictish tour., and then went to the beginning where Mary Rose watched videos about how the seas parted the land and glaciers melted, leaving lochs of salt water, etc. 

I was more interested in the historical items upstairs.  There was a replica of Mary, Queen of Scots’ casket, and the actual crib used for James the VII of Scotland, a.k.a. James the I of England.  There was a Viking grave, a hall devoted to coins, how they were made, and counterfeited, weapons, horns, jewelry worn by Mary, queen of Scots, and jewelry discovered by a man with a metal detector.. According to the tour guide, the slashes On the side of one if the standing stones are letters.  The fish-head looking items are war horns that only a few people can play; Sharon said that she has actually heard someone play a tune on one before.  It was very cool to see a loom where a tartan was being made.  It looks very complicated.  There were a couple of pieces of tartan on display that were worn by Bonnie Prince Charlie at the Battle of Culloden which we visited the day before.  The mannequin dressed in tartan from head to toe looked very funny; it looked like an adult wearing a diaper.  The Kilt is much sexier.