on the road again

You know when I mentioned being really excited for a roadtrip in the previous post? Well, I think the word excited may have been slightly overrated - 9 hours of sitting isn't as fun as I remember it being and I've never been so grateful to be out of a car as I was yesterday afternoon. Holy-moly that was one long drive!

I wasn't able to take alot of photos, I ended up taking over driving through the middle of our trip but at least I was able to take a few and one of Chase stretching at our very last stop before arriving at Great Grandmas house.

If I can talk my mom into driving back I'll be hanging out the passenger side window clicking away on the camera. :)

I have a whole bunch of ocean photos to post tomorrow - the kids and I had a blast at our favorite beach today!

the first couple of days,

of vacation in California. Grandma and Grandpa took us all to 6 Flags/Marine World on the 4th and the park is just too big to fit everything into one day so I think I may attempt to take my kids back sometime after we get back from Oregon. Speaking of which, we leave in the morning for an 8 hour road trip through Northern California and on into Oregon first thing tomorrow morning. The last time I made the actual road-trip trek to Florence was 9-11, so I don't really remember much of the trip - we were glued to the radio news the entire time. I had flown into San Fransico the night before to pick up one of my sisters before heading up to the OR coast. So this time, I plan on taking advantage of the goofy tourist role and stopping now and then for photos. I love roadtrips! Getting to see anything other than the rough desert terrain we call home is a welcomed change!

See you in a couple days!

vacation mode

yep. in a few hours. that will be me.

but for right now, it's packing for vacation mode. An unexpected virus settled into my throat last week and it totally tossed a wrench into my plans for the week. Now I'm running very behind on everything it seems and a vacation is starting to look like alot of extra work when really all I would like is a nap.

I'm at that point in packing, where you just toss stuff into the suitcase and I figure, if I need something, I'll just have to make due without it. Tomorrow should be a very busy day with traveling, family and getting the kids settled but I am really looking forward to nicer weather! California, here we come.  

and we have a few winners!

congrats to the following ladies: 

 brooke. said...

LOVE!
I just moved so this summer will basically be spent getting settled into my new city. :

 Viv said...

Ahhhh gorgeous kits, love them by pieces! No travel plans this year...we are having a baby on the way :) But last year we went on honeymoon to Italy....so beautiful!
Thanks for the chance!

23.6.12

 

 Janna Werner said...

Hellooo Tara,
I adore your projects and love stalking you :-)
I am not sure whether we will be going on vacation this year. If not, I would love to scrap away with this giveaway. If we do, then I would love to scrap away our holiday pictures with this giveaway :-) See, there is no reason to not use any of those supplies ;-)
Hugs and thanks
Janna

Please send along your contact info. to me at rosas07@msn.com so I can get some scrappy packages off into the mail! 

and because you can't have a post without a photo! 

travel pages

 

Hi! Just popping in today to say hi and to post the photos of my travel book! It's only a 6x6 mini, so these pages are small and layered with lots of paper! I have a couple more ideas of things to add to it but will have to wait until I return home. I may end up adding some white paint to a couple of the pages, some of them don't look completely finished to me. :) 

So, here they are. I only photographed 16 of the pages but I promise to rephotograph the entire book once it's completed and filled with vacation photos! 

There are lots of inserts throughout this book, transparencies, envelopes, bingo cards, flash cards and I plan to add 4x6 photos as well as a few post cards!

I'll be back tomorrow to choose a winner from the giveaway below! 

On my Desk - Giveaway

Hello and happy Friday! Chase and I have been out running errands  all morning and we came back to the house just to get this post up! I was sorting through some supplies last week to make myself a little to-go scrapbook kit for the road and thought it would be fun to giveaway a few extras! 

 Each kit includes random bits n bobs of this and that - some handmade and some vintage. My personal favorites are the messy fabric/string embellishments, handmade paper stickers and the text book pages! You can't go wrong with vintage fabric, trims and flashcards either, you can incorporate any of these pieces into your mini scrapbooks or even on a layout.  

I have 3 travel kits to give away, just leave a comment below and I'll be back on Tuesday to post 3 lucky winners! **Feel free to tell me about your summer travel plans! I'll be talking alot about mine in the coming week! :)**

 Have a wonderful weekend!! xo ~ Tara

petals

Give me odorous at sunrise a garden of beautiful flowers where I can walk undisturbed. 

- Walt Whitman 

I got a little sidetracked this week! I started cleaning in my craft room and once I finished sorting through my junk box I just decided to keep clearing out stuff and organizing what was left over. It's amazing how much stuff can accumulate if you don't sort through it every so often! I've also set a goal for this week and next to go through all of the rooms and find things that can be given away. I want to be able to come home to a clean and organized home next month. I'll be sorting through my closet today and maybe even the bookcase later on but first I need to photograph some mini scrapbook pages!  

and speaking of giving things away! - I'll be doing a little giveaway here on my blog this Friday! 

on my desk

I'm currently working on a travel journal for our trip next month. I haven't yet decided how I'm going to finish it. I'm sort of on the fence about using this album because I have a few Hambly transparencies that would be lost if I go the post bound route. Decisions, decisions. I've managed to make 24 pages in about 2 afternoons, they are only 6x6 pages but I love how quickly mini's can come together! 

 I went with a very neutral collage theme for each page. Lots of small papers layered and sewn together to make a base for our photos. I used mostly repurposed paper scraps with just a little actual scrapbook paper mixed in. My goal was to keep all of the pages as flat as possible which meant only paper could be used. If you're familiar with my style of scrapbooking, you could probably guess that it was a tad bit challenging for me... I love using embellishments! 

I'll share the photos of each page later on... I think I'll photograph it before I add photos to each of the pages and then re-photograph it after our vacation. :) It's probably one of my more favorite minis that I've made! So that's what I'm working on right now - what's on your desk?

keys

Without music life would be a mistake.

- Friedrich Wilhelm Nietzsche

(I'm going to try something new for Wednesdays, just a simple photo and a found quote to accompany it. Hopefully I'll be able to keep it going! Oh, and I purchased a vintage piano last week, it's beyond lovely!) 

all wrapped

I realize it's a bit late being that we're almost 2 weeks into June but better late than not 

at all! Almost as much fun as my color challenge posts for Crate Paper, my gift-wrap posts are becoming an anticipated favorite of mine. I have one more post for June and then we take off the month of July for CHA and I get to spend the month in California! 

Speaking of which, I took Chase with me today to run a few errands and I wanted to pop into a Goodwill to look for a few books to take along with me on the trip. (2 hour plane ride, each way and an 8 hr. car trip up to the Oregon house.) I didn't find any new books but Chase on the other hand found all sorts of perfectly random treasures. 

Goodwill: the only store you can go into looking for something specific (books) and walk out with a pink miniature plastic grocery cart and green maracas. 

Oh well, we had fun though and Chase is currently running through the house happily pushing along his little pink shopping cart. :) I'm going to start organizing some stuff for our trip, making lists, and starting to plan out our vacation. I'm so excited, July can't come fast enough!   

to the zoo.

'As we go walking through the zoo

This is what we'll see,

Elephants and hippos

And Monkeys in a tree

Tigers roaring loudly,

Giraffes who stand so high,

Dolphins swimming freely,

and parrots in the sky

So let's all go walking, 

Having fun the whole day through, 

As we go on our field trip, 

To the friendly city zoo.'

author - Beverly Qualheim

and the 2 cutest zoo kids! They had been begging us to take them to the zoo and we lucked out and had one weekend where it wasn't blazing hot. So, off to the zoo we went! They had a great time too. We came home with 2 new zebra hats and enough cotton candy to feed the neighborhood. :)