Final Peru Page: Plaza de Armas - Cusco

Can you believe it? I'm finished with the Peru scrapbook! This was the last page that I needed to do due to needing to reprint one of the pictures, but I got that done today and now the page is complete too. I started this book back on January 20 (or at least that's when my first blog post was about it) and I guess that means it took me 6 months. The pages are in a black All My Memories scrapbook which I like because it could handle a bigger page count and has a strap for keeping the book together when closed. Not terrible that it was on sale at Archivers long ago too. :)

This book only rivals the two-week European vacation book about DH and I way back in 2006. It is fun to see my style has changed a bit since then. I wasn't aware of scrapbook/card blogs, challenges, sketches and the like. Most of the pages in this Peru book are based on various challenges and I have found that this makes the pages more unique as I tried new techniques and color combinations. So thank you to each challenge that made me step out of the box in my scrapbooking.

This final page fits in with the Creative Prompts 4 You challenge, "Be Green." (No, I didn't plan the green page to fit in too..haha!) For my recyclable I used a bag that we got in Peru from the place we bought some postcards from. Always being one to keep anything in case it might be good for a layout, I stumbled upon this bag when I was making sure I had hit all the high points for this book. I thought it would serve well in creating my own patterned paper. I just simply cut the strips of the Nasca Line drawings apart and put them at an angle, easy!

So with this page I complete the Peru portion of my blogging...haha! I've tagged all of the pages I've posted on this little blog with the label of Peru, so check them all out here if you're interested. Of course not all pages were on my blog, but a good portion of them were. And hopefully if anyone is ever interested in visiting Peru my pages might help you see how much fun it really is.

Thanks for stopping by!

LIM to SFO

With DH off to San Francisco for Apple's WWDC, I find myself with the house to myself for a few days. Of course the cat and my craft desk keep me company too. :) I thought I would take a little break and try to get a few scrapbook layouts finished. My deadline for getting this honeymoon book done is coming quickly (family visits are coming up in July)...and I think I'm ready to move on too. Not that Peru hasn't been fun to scrap!

Towards the end of the book there's always the need for a flying home page. So here's my LIM to SFO layout consisting of pictures of us waiting at the gate for our flight out of Peru. Our time in San Salvador was very brief: get off one plane, go through a bit more security to go to the US, and get right back on another plane, so no pictures there this time. Hubert joined us at Gate 23 in Lima this time though. :)

I found it interesting and worth showing in this layout the tax to get out of Peru ($31.00) seen on the one boarding pass. Every time we were on a flight we had some sort of tax in Peru. I think it was $8 each way for Lima to Cusco. It's an extra step that needs to be done at the airport on top of going through security and getting to the airport with plenty of time helps. And influenced by my DH, I used two sets of my American Crafts Thickers to create the LIM (small airplane) SFO title. DH likes to do that sort of tweet whenever we head out on a plane so I thought it was fitting.

On another note, I got my little photo studio set that I ordered from ThinkGeek. Using a gift card I got for my bday (thanks Mike and Katie!) I decided the sheet and overturned IKEA table was due for an upgrade. I'm already liking the fact that I can do layouts in it too. Hopefully my pictures will only get better from here. Here's my fancy new setup:

Thanks for stopping by!

Scrap Our Stash Sketch Challenge

Be sure to check out the Scrap Our Stash blog today! Yours truly has a layout featured using the first sketch in the Scrap Our Stash Sketch Challenge. The challenge started May 15 and goes until June 15, so still plenty of time to participate.

Fellow design team member Robin provided the sketch:

And here's my take:

This layout is of the food from my travels to Peru. We liked this place so much that we went there twice for the yummy brownie desserts. I tried to incorporate many elements of the sketch with the striped and angled background, title placement, number of focal elements and circles made from ribbon. The ribbon was just something fun to do and I think it turned out pretty neat!


I hope you consider participating in the challenge! :)

Back to Lima

Yet another page that I finished for Peru. This time we're back to Lima. After Cusco we stayed in Lima one more night before our flight back. We caught a few more pictures that we hadn't taken the first time. One of them was this one...the Lima traffic! When in Peru as a pedestrian, know your surroundings! It's not like they will run you over, but they want to get where they are going in a hurry and they aren't really going to stop just cause you are in the crosswalk. Hey, come to think of it, sometimes that just happens here in California too! LOL!

Anyway, this one is another filler page for the book just about the country in general. I thought this photo was an interesting night shot of the busy streets. I used road papers cause I don't usually scrap about cars and I had the paper, so I might as well take advantage of the opportunity. I also again used my little stencil from the Target $1 bin again too for the title. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Writing on the Wall

Finished another page for my Peru book last night. Ever getting closer to finishing! Most of the pages I have left are just ones that I want to do to include a few of the scenery pictures we took while we were there. This page is one of those. DH had fun taking shots out of the bus windows as we went around Peru. He caught a few good ones that tell stories of elections and history past. I picked three that I found interested and included them in this page.

For a page that is almost considered a "filler" page I wanted the pictures to still have center stage. What helped me for this layout though was a pretty neat sketch over at Scrap and Stamp Saturday. I found it interesting to have the main elements at an angle. Stamps used are from Autumn Leaves (both the alphabets for the title and the journaling lines). For the ScrapFIT #19 challenge, the challenge was to Use Your Stash - Nothing New. I'm especially trying to do that for my paper...I have WAY too much. And by using my stamps I'm going through many less alphabet stickers (but I like to hoard those anyway...lol!).

Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (Martha Stewart), Patterned (Stash)
Embellishments - White Gel Pen (Sakura), Nestabilities Labels 1 (Spellbinders), Stamps (Autumn Leaves), Ink (Brillance, Studio G), Corner Rounder Punch (EK Success)

Challenges:
Scrap and Stamp Saturday - Sketch and Stamp
ScrapFIT - Use Your Stash - Workout #19

Guinea Pig

I finally found the perfect way to scrap this page. By combining the prompt over at Creative Prompts 4 U and the summer theme from Scrap and Stamp Saturday, I was able to make the guinea pig page a reality. It's not every day that you have a picture of a guinea pig served up on a plate, so the page has to do the topic justice. I hope you agree!

Thanks for stopping by!

Challenges:
Scrap and Stamp Saturday - Summer Colors
Creative Prompts 4 U - Sketch

DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (DCWV, Martha Stewart), Patterned (K&Co)
Embellishments - Stamps (Heidi Swapp), Ink (Colorbox), Thickers (American Crafts), Border Punch (Fiskers)

Saqsaywaman (aka Sexy Woman)

The layout I'm posting today is about the Saqsaywaman ruins (aka Sexy Woman ruins....cause that's how it sounds). These ruins are a little outside of Cusco. It is the same ones that offered the great vantage point to see all of Cusco that I did in a previous layout. Can you believe how big these rocks are and how far they were brought to create these great structures? Just look at the picture of DH and I standing by one of them and then the picture that shows many in a row. They are the rocks that form the teeth of the puma, the shape this particular ruin makes when viewed from the air.

For this layout I went with a two-pager. I kept the layout and papers fairly simple. It was my goal to make sure to showcase the really blue and beautiful sky in the pictures. The day was just perfect on our tour. I also enjoy using tickets when I have them. A bonus to these was that they had a map of the ruins on the back, so I cut one up and left one intact.

Here's also close-ups of the individual pages:

Thanks for stopping by!

Circuito Magico del Agua

It's almost the end of the day here, but I wanted to get another post up.

This layout is from our last day in Lima (and Peru) and our trip to see the fountain park. It was part of a tour that included seeing the fountains and experiencing a cultural dinner with dancing. It was good to do because it got us out one last time on the town to experience some night life. The fountain park was pretty impressive.

For this layout I used the brochure that we got as part of our tickets to the fountain park. It had little pictures of all of the different fountains and conveniently had all the names of them too. I was able to utilize this in the pictures we took ourselves, but still identify the fountain in the picture. I added white borders to our personal photos to carry on the theme from the little pictures. I don't usually put borders on my photos when I print them out, but sometimes it would be helpful. At least it is pretty easy to add white mats behind the photos to get the same effect.

I used some sticker alphabets that I've had in my stash for a while. I think they go pretty well with the theme of the page. I almost think the little images look like stickers too, but they aren't. :)

So, thanks for stopping by. Hope you enjoyed your visit!

Cusco

Thought I would share another page that I completed over the weekend. (Trying to space these out so that I have something new to post throughout the week.) This one is about our last day in Cusco before we went on the plane back to Lima. We learned from one of the student artists selling his work in the plaza that on Fridays there is sometimes a military parade. It just so happened that there was that next day and we had something to see before leaving. So sometimes it pays to talk with the local people a bit to learn more about the happenings. We would have never known otherwise.

This page turned out pretty simple, but I feel that it is effective. I was still working with my white gel pen so I just started doodling. The CUSCO is from a stencil that I got at the Target $1 bins. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Happy Birthday To Me

Today marks my 28th birthday...I'm getting old! Looking forward to tonight though when I have dinner with DH and friends. I got away with low key last year since I was traveling but this year DH organized a little fun for me. Isn't he sweet?

I have a fun layout to show today. I finished a few over the weekend as I try and complete our honeymoon book about Peru. Not too many pages left! This one is about our little friend we brought home with us. His name is Hubert (named after one of our trek guides). We had fun photographing Hubert around Peru. :)

For this page I had a little fun with my white gel pen to add a few bits of interest. I outlined the stickers I used in my title and the accent papers. We were going for the look of the Travelocity gnome for these pictures. It was fun to see the sites from a different, if blurry perspective.

DETAILS:

Paper - Patterned (K&Co), Solid (Martha Stewart)

Embellishments - Letter Stickers (Piggy Tales), White Gel Pen (Sakura), Circle Cutter (Fiskers)

Challenges:

Practical Scrappers - Stickers

Peruvian Hairless Dog

Yet another Peru page done! There's still a little pile of pictures on my desk, but it is going down. :)

Thought I would just have some fun with this page. The picture is from our Cusco city tour. We went to an alpaca textile factory as part of the tour. With so much wool around, it was strange to see a dog with no hair. He was one of those Peruvian Hairless dogs. He had his own alpaca sweater even!

To keep with the fun of the picture, I went with bright colors. I thought these Thickers in this fun font worked perfectly too. The sketch is one from Creative Scrappers #97. I had a little fun with my white gel pen too and doodled a bit. :)

Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Patterned (Colorbok), Solids (Martha Stewart, Stash)
Embellishments - Flowers (Prima), Brads (Recollections), Alphabets (American Crafts - Thickers), White Gel Pen (Sakura), Corner Punch (EKSuccess)
Sketch - Creative Scrappers #97

First Sewing Project!

Here's my first attempt at putting stitching in my scrapbook layouts! It was quite fun! I tried my hand at the zig-zag stitch on my new little machine. I did do the cheat where pieces were already glued down and then did the sewing. I'm not that talented to actually adhere it with the stitching.

This page is about one of our tours of Cusco. At one point we had a great vantage point to see a good portion of the city in its valley amongst the mountains. What a view, eh?

This layout also follows the sketch over at Creative Scrappers exclusive for their challenge with Scrapbook Nook. It's been a fun month over at there as they celebrate their birthday month throughout April. Not too many days left to get in the action, so be sure to hop over there for some great scrapbook inspiration!

One element I like about this layout is the chipboard braces. I decided to do the little trick that I had done back on this page with some more chipboard. This time I did the same paper as my background paper for some tone on tone action. This goes along with the altered embellishment challenge over at Creative Prompts.

I think I'll see some more sewing in my future for my scrapbook layouts. :) What a great early birthday present! My DH is the best!

TIP: To get an uppercase letter out of a set of Thickers that are all lowercase, consider using the numbers. Here I used the zero for my capital letter!

Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Patterned (Blue - Pressed Petals, Green - American Crafts A La Carte), Solid (Martha Stewart)
Embellishments - Chipboard (Stash), Border Punch (Fiskers), Distressing, Alphabets (American Crafts - Thickers), Ribbon (Target)
Sketch - Creative Scrappers

Scraplift Challenge @ Scrap Our Stash

This month's challenge over at Scrap Our Stash is to scraplift a page that has been posted on the blog before or use a sketch. For my take on the challenge I looked through many of the wonderful pages that have been done by the Scrap Our Stash Design Team and came across this one by DT member Danielle:





I loved the way that she had used strips of patterned paper to make an interesting background to her main images, all while using a neutral paper as the base. For my patterned papers, I tried to bring out the teal, purple and brown found in my photos. This layout is about the train that goes between Cusco to Aguas Calientes, the town near MachuPicchu. The train ride was a great way to see some of the countryside, mountains, and the river flowing by it. We rode the train to a from MachuPicchu on our trip with our trek group.

There's definitely time to do your own scraplift for the April Challenge! Head over to Scrap Our Stash for all the details. There's a guest DT spot up for grabs!

DETAILS:
Paper - Solid (Martha Stewart), Patterned (Daisy D, K&Co)
Embellishments - Buttons (Stash), Marker Border, Letter Coins (Making Memories)

Cheers!

Carrying on with the Peru book I finished another page today. This one features a picture of DH and I with our strawberry daiquiris the other members of our trek group got for us. It was super nice of them to chip in and help us celebrate! Once they learned of our trip also serving as our honeymoon, some wondered if I had lost my mind to want to "work" instead of relax. But I think they also were a bit jealous of having such a cool honeymoon too. Some were touched that we would want to spend it with our misfits of Sexy Llamas (what our guide eventually dubbed our tour group).

Here's the sketch:




Here's my take:

For this page I used the Sketchy Thursdays Second Chance sketch. The challenge has a great sponsor of Lawn Fawn Stamps too. These stamps are so cute! I incorporated some stamps in my page: the circle border is one from JustRite and the martini glasses are Studio G.

DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (Martha Stewart), Patterned (K&Co)
Embellishment - Thickers (American Crafts), Border Stamp (JustRite Stampers), Martini Stamp (Studio G), Border Punch (Fiskers)

Sketch #95 @ Creative Scrappers

I'm being pretty productive today. This is actually my second layout today (the other will be revealed at a later date...oh, the suspense!). Continuing with MachuPicchu layouts, I used the Sketch #95 over at Creative Scrappers for this one.





I really like this photo of DH and I. We were exploring around the ruins on our own and while we had plenty of the scenery and separate pictures of us doing various things, we thought one of us together was needed. We have gotten pretty good at those extend-your-arm-to-take-a-couple-shot photos over the four years of our relationship. It almost becomes a necessity or else we would always have to bug complete strangers all of the time. And being that we know most of our photos go in scrapbooks, we take a few just to make sure we get the shot. So, throughout all of that, we've had lots of practice at this particular shot. I think this one is one of our better ones. The lighting is just great on its own too. :)

I decided to make one of the rectangles in the sketch our tickets from MachuPicchu. The tickets have a lot of character with the paper feed borders and our official stamps to get into the ruins. DH knows to save anything and everything...it has a great chance of being in a scrapbook!

DETAILS:

Paper - Patterned (American Crafts - A La Carte, DCWV - Citrus Stack), Solid (Recollections)

Embellishments - Border Punch (Fiskers), Vacation Fun and Compass (DeJa Views)

Sketch - Sketch #95 at Creative Scrappers

(And remember....blog candy is being given away on this blog! See this post for details!)

MachuPicchu!

I've finally made it to our part of the trip where we visited MachuPicchu. This part came after our three day hike and one evening in Aguas Calientes. I have quite a pile of good pictures from our adventures exploring these famous ruins. The view was terrific! One thing I will recommend to anyone taking such a trip like this to Peru though, definitely do the trek! That was our highlight even over MachuPicchu, if you can believe it. The pictures are the best here, but the place is so touristy! We personally liked the laid back and slowness of the rest of our trip. But, probably just personal preference and you have to say that you've been to MachuPicchu if you're already in Peru.

So here's my first two pages about MachuPichhu. I went with more of the artistic and general viewpoint pictures we took first. I love that llama one! The next pages will have more of our exploring (and Hupert! you don't want to miss Hupert!). I used sketches #93 and #94 over at Creative Scrappers for this two-page spread. I first did the 1-photo layout, but saw that #93 would be a perfect compliment. Do you agree?

I enjoyed working with some papers from My Mind's Eye for these two pages. Just enough glitter and glitz but not to overpower my photos. I'm a very photo-oriented scrapbooker. I feel my photos should stick out more than anything else on the page, so that's why you don't see a ton of embellishments. Not to say that I don't have them, but I am finding that paper (patterned and solid) is more of my go-to for embellishing my layouts more than anything.

Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Patterned (My Mind's Eye - Organics), Solids (Martha Stewart, Wausau, DCWV)
Embellishments - Thickers (American Crafts), Circles (Fiskers Circle Cutter, EKSuccess 1" Punch)
Sketches - 1-photo (Creative Scrappers Sketch #94), 3-photo (Creative Scrappers Sketch #93)

My Favorite Hiking Partner

This page is dedicated to my DH. I'm enjoying sprinkling in a few fun pages within our Peru honeymoon trip book with some of the more random pictures we took. These pictures are all from our second day on the trek through the Andes. We only hiked during the morning and early afternoon before we got to our campsite. This left a bit of time for some exploring around the valley. He definitely is "my favorite hiking partner."

I tried a new technique of adding ruffles to my ribbon for this page for the texture challenge over at Scrap and Stamp Saturday. I thought it seemed simple enough to do...a few stuck fingers with the needle later, I got it done. :) I also made my own patterned paper with some of my flourish stamps. To go along with the American Crafts challenge this week, I included three American Crafts products: the backside of the Elements ribbon, mini mark Purkey rubons, and Rocketeer Thickers.

Thanks for stopping by!

DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (Martha Stewart)
Embellishments - Ribbon (American Crafts), Thickers - Rocketeer (American Crafts), Rub-on Purkey (American Crafts), Stamps (Autumn Leaves), Ink (Studio G), Heart Stencil (Target)
Techniques - Stamp my own patterned paper, Ribbon scrunching

February 10 Challenge @ Scrap Our Stash and Tutorial

I got another Peru layout finished! This one is a two-pager about our second day of hiking through the Andes Mountains in Peru. If you're interested in seeing more pages about our trip I have finished, click here.

At first I didn't know how I was going to get all these good photos included in the layout. Do you ever have that thought that 12x12 (much less two of them) just isn't enough real estate? Eventually I figured out how to trim enough to make 10 of the photos to fit but yet still tell the story of the hike. As you might notice, we had a variety of weather on the second day: from being hot from the sun to rain and cold (like my yellow poncho?).

This layout is for the February challenge over on Scrap Our Stash, a new challenge blog I found helpful in getting me to do scrapbook layouts.

A Little Tutorial:

If you're interested in knowing how I did the scalloped shapes in this layout, here's a little tutorial.

1. Start with cardboard shape of your choice. I got this one at Michaels in their $1 bin as a little mini album, but I just wanted to use the shapes separately.

2. I cut the shape in half because I was trying out where I wanted it for the layout (but this is optional).

3. On the backside of the paper, trace the shape.

4. Cut out the shape following your traced lines, but cut a little outside the lines.

5. Glue the paper to the shape. It should be overlapping the shape.

6. Use a distresser tool to go around the edges of the shape. This folds and cuts the paper around the shape.

I wish to thank you for stopping by! Hope to see you again....

DETAILS:
Paper - Solid (Martha Stewart), Patterned (K&Co, Colorbok)
Title - Font (Markerfelt), Die-cut (Silhouette)
Embellishments - Buttons (Stash), Cardboard Shape (Michaels)

Peru: The Kids!

I finished another page last night for my Peru Honeymoon book. This page's inspiration was the cute Peruvian kids we saw along our trek across the Andes on day 2. Armed with crackers from the local market, they were always happy to see tourists along the trail. I found it interesting that they would be up there by themselves or just in small groups tending to a big flock of sheep or llamas for their family. And they always had sandals on! And here we had to bundle up in many layers...we were such wimps. (That's probably what they thought of us...haha)

I used the latest Sketchy Thursday sketch for my layout. I added in a colorful circle of Fancy Pants paper to go with the kids' colorful dress but yet went with a neutral main page color to make sure it stood out at the same time. I enjoyed showcasing the photos in this type of a sketch. I did have to add a little bit of button bling in the corner just cause. :)

DETAILS:
Paper - Solids (Stash - colors, Martha Stewart - off white), Patterned (Fancy Pants All Fall "In Line")
Embellishments - Alphabets (American Crafts Thickers), Buttons (Joanns), Alpaca (cut from a handmade card we got in Peru)
Sketch - Sketchy Thursdays 2.11 Sketch

Love Park: Peru

Yet another Peru page complete!

This page features the Love Park of Lima, Peru, that we seemed to be drawn to a lot during our trip. We saw this same park no less than four times from various tours. It was the staple attraction each tour guide made sure that we saw when in Lima. We took each visit in stride and looked for new ways to photograph the elements of the park while we were there. One trip produced these fun photos as we explored the mosaic walls surrounding the main feature, The Kiss statue.

Only fitting to post this page this week, as they hold contests in this park around Valentine's Day in Lima. I bet come Sunday many Peruvian couples will be heading here to see if they can kiss the longest. It's a contest that has been a tradition since the park was dedicated on Valentine's Day in the 1970's.

I was inspired by Scrap & Stamp Saturday's Inspiration Challenge going on this week. The inspiration image had four boxed elements (hence my four pictures). I was also influenced by one of the design team's pages where she had text in the middle of her four photos. My stamp used on this page is one I got recently while being the guest designer for Tuesday Morning Sketches from DRS Designs.

DETAILS:
Paper - Patterned (ColorBok), Solids (DCWV and stash)
Embellishments - Thickers (American Crafts), White Gel Pen (Sakura), Heart Stamp Border (DRS Designs), Embossing Powder (A La Mode)