Life'z a beach

Life is pretty beachy when you are a 6 or 4 yr old.... caught a few moments on digital film from our last trip to Rio Del Mar. So stoked to have my brother only blocks from the Santa Cruz beach front.


the spelling is improvised from left over chipboard letters from Maya road.... the pattered paper, ribbon, buttons and metal brads are from Great Escape by making memories.... .the road sign template is from an issue of creating keepsakes magazine (several months back....)




this card is from made from "scraps" how cute huh?

Have a beachin' day!

xo,
amt

African Expedition

Over at my e-hangout, Christian Paper Artist (CPA), I hosted an ATC swap of the African influence. I am actually hosting a reoccurring swap called "World Tour", we traveled thus far to Paris, Far East Asia and Africa.
This time for my hostess "gift" I decided to make a passport of all the places we have traveled. I will post those pics soon (still working on it). Anyhow, I am sharing my atc with you... I really wanted to use a variety of papers that might reflect the exotic feel of an african safari. The image is a vintage french image of "north africa". I liked the mosque like shaped peephole with camels and building in the background. I used some hambly screen-prints of cheetah and zebra prints. For the ATC background, I used a faux snake-skin paper.

My dear friend Nathalie, knew I was hosting this swap and out of sheer genius on her part altered this VINTAGE African Postcard.
I received it a few months ago (or at least it feels like a few months) and I read it... and I chuckled.... I recently looked at it again and I think I finally "got it" This postcard is soooooooo cleaver constructed. Click on it and read her story of Lion's visit to Africa. :)

Nathalie - you are a total GENIUS and an amazing artist. Thank you for amazing inspiration via your blog and art work, which I am lucky to have some of!! I am so blessed to have you as my friend.

Hope your blog-hopping takes you somewhere exotic today!
xo,
Anna

it's the little things.....

A few times on my bloggity blog .... I have rambled on a bit about the "tiny attacher"......
it's a fun little tool that I have recently become buddies with..... it's endorsed by none other than Tim Holtz, a paper and mixed
media genius (he does not claim himself to be so... but I so crown him... king of mixed media tools!) It's a teeny, tiny, little stapler..... not to be confused with the mini stapler... it's smaller than that! and soooo much fun to use on my littlest crafts.
I could bare not to throw away the packaging. SO, what's a crafty lady to do? scrap it!


It's a simple layout, consisting only of cardstock, ribbon, staples, metal grommet and circle frame.
voila!
xo,
anna

up, up and away......

one thing, I do not do very well is a two page layout (lo).... I am challenged, with the what seems to me, a massive amount of space, 12" x 24". One of my goals in my crafting is to try things "out of my comfort zone". This is one for sure (2 pg. lo). I think easier, more naturally, on a mini scale...... So I knew if I was going to attempt the 2 page lo.... I would need to have several pictures.... and at least one bigger than 4 x 6. These pictures for sure fit the bill... I took them on our trip back to Gilroy a few weeks back. I was experimenting with my camera on manual mode. I LOVE how they turned out..... I can not tell you what aperture I had the camera set at.....but I LOVE the effect. (movement in the background but the foreground in focus). .... click on the picture to see the detail...


We were at the Gilroy Gardens..... on the hot air balloon ride. The boys were by themselves and I was in a balloon by myself. I shot over 60 pictures on this ride alone..... I deleted a lot too.... I LOVE digital photography!!! I love my camera, too!

my metal accent of choice..... Tim Holtz tokens..... - I felt they were perfect for this "lo" as we were at an amusement park! (please note: how those cute tokens are attached!!! Tim's "tiny attacher" !!! OHHHHH, it is so fun to use!! Behind the tokens are "paper whimsies" by sassafras..... all paper is by sassafras, as well.

To be honest..... I think this layout is so-so...... for me, it's the pictures that make the layout (lo). It's too little simple, I would have loved to add more details but I just didn't know what to do..... (again.... scared off all that overwhelming space to fill!)
Hope you have a joyful weekend,
xo, anna

oh baby, the places you have gone.....

well - it's been an interesting ride for the month of july..... and it's already half way gone!! First day of July, I woke up a little bit closer to the big "40".....(yikes) On July 2 we headed off to our "fammathon" trip to Mammoth..... aka Mammathon (which was a fabulous time) then of course, we had a bittersweet home coming with the unexpected and sudden death of our first born dog, Enzo..... There was some goodness to be found in all of it.... which I have not yet share with you.... I was asked to be a guest designer (for July) over at Your Scrapbook Stash. I am super nervous about it..... because if you go over to their gallery.... there are some really amazing works of art there! So I made my first project for them... and I thought I would share it with you!

It's a mini album.... a la Anna...... so very surprising...... (i'm a mini album queen)

First of all, I was given a very generous kit to play with..... lots of Making Memories product (great escape).... there was also some maya road goodies and two potential mini album makings. (and just lost of other fun things..... a mini mask, buttons, ribbons, flowers..on and on....) When I first saw the paper - I was trying to think what photos would go best with it..... so I sent off a bunch of pictures to the printer (costco) and I did not use any of them for this project.... (go figure....)
I started off by covering the 8" circle album with patterned paper..... I am sooooo NOT a planner and it's just how I approach things. As I was getting a better feel for the paper... it came to me...... the title..... "Oh baby, the places you have gone!" (Yes, a play on Dr. Suess) and what better person in my world to feature.... my guy... Mr. Matt. He's been to lots of lovely places on this big green earth and I have never made anything that ties it all together for him.

Egypt and Russia appropriately place together for the mosque like buildings... of those two countries.... I was not able to dig deep enough into our photos, so the Moscow pictures are yet to be added.

Mexico and London..... (not sure why I placed those together - but I really felt Mexico need the BIG red background..... the picture is not your ordinary trip to Cozumel or Ensenada.... It's deep in the jungle mountains of Jalisco, Mexico. He took a beautiful photo of some children playing on a cliff. London well - it's the typical Big Ben shot..... tucked neatly in a "clock" tag.

Turks and P.R. (puerto rico) The turks and caycos shot is him scuba diving (at surface level) He was there on "business" checking out all the cool reefs. Puerto Rico was a trip I was actually on...... we needed some time for just us... to decide if we were going to make the BIG move back to california...... The beaches were amazing all ours on the island of Vieques.... it's an old naval base for the U.S. (missile testing area) If I were in the Navy back in the 50"s or 70"s I would have like to be stationed there.

Doha - Qatar. He has been the middle east lots of times..... but I think he really like Doha best. Cool building - went perfectly with my paper.... :)

the page with the glassine envelope is for money.... he always brings home a few dollars in currency of the countries he has been to and I thought that would be a fun place to store some. The other page is Quebec, Quebec. Ironically, while in Quebec we went to the northern most fort in North America...... a few years later in Puerto Rico.... we went to the Southern most fort in North America . Maybe I should do a book on forts?
Fun little book to put together- yet it is far from over... I love that it's not bound together.... I can still add more pages... when I am able to dig deep enough for some of those trips he took in the 90's..... and future trips that he is yet to take.
xo,
anna

This Dog....

This dog could really fly......

He was born into border collie royalty. A descendant of Sage brush Roy of the Wind River Range in Wild Wild Wyoming. He was breed to be a cattle dog. Roaming the range..... rounding up horses, sheep, goats, cows..... When given the opportunity - with no training - he knew exactly what he was breed to do. Yet, somehow he realized his true love at a very young age...... frisbees and tennis balls and an occasional stick of butter.

This dog nearly chewed us out of house and home in his first year of life..... but we loved him anyway. This dog was the reason we bought our first house with a BIG backyard for him to run. This dog was the reason we got our first cat, to keep him company. This dog was the reason we got our second dog.... to keep him company. :) This dog was the reason we got our second house.... with an even bigger backyard for our growing family and entourage of animals. This dog was the reason we traveled hundreds of miles around Texas to compete in flyball tournaments. This dog was the reason I honed in on my mothering skills before we had children. This dog was so wickedly smart, he figured out how to survive a few pounds of chocolate bingeing ... This dog is the reason we spent hundreds of dollars in vet bills, after swallowing stinky socks. This dog is the reason my heart grew two sizes the day we met. This dog will forever be the reason there is an empty spot in my heart that only his memory can fill. He will be sorely missed and never forgotten.

Rest in peace, Enzo. May you always be surrounded by bright yellow "new smell" tennis balls, room temperature sticks of butter and a few stinky socks in heaven.

your family,
maqi

result of Tuesday's tutorial

Always have been a huge fan of Ali E.... and I am a regular follower of her Tuesday Tutorials
The below is a result a tutorial a few weeks back by Jamaica E.... Fabric covered spines.

I have been wanting for a very long time to try make a book from scratch. (yes the kind that you even sew the pages into..... This felt like a step in the right direction. I attempted a spine covered book. It was a lot easier than I thought... I used a bunch of patterned paper, that I bought because it was cool but did not really have a project in mind for it. I also was able to use some old maps that have been collecting dust in the corner.

The cover and inside pages are chipboard. The size is 5 x 7 - so a 4 x 6 pic could fight perfectly in the book. I did not really intend the book to be "scrapbook-y" - just a book to paste your picture on to.

The project from start to finish only took a few hours to make... and what a great way to use up paper that you thought you would use but never got around to!

This is one tuesday tutorial..... I think I am going to get a lot of mileage out of...... thank you ali and thank you jamaica....

xo,
anna

tiny little happening......

what better way to celebrate a non-birthday than with cupcakes!

Yum Yum!

I have decided with this birthday forward...... we can call it a non-birthday..... I'm ok with that :)
xo, amt