More Vacation Photos

While in St. Martin, I took a tour of both the Dutch and French sides of the island with a stop at a quaint little butterfly farm on the French side. I love butterflies and was so thrilled to have the opportunity to photograph so many different species of butterflies at one time.





One lucky little girl had a butterfly land on her finger and head.




I think this one is at the top of my favorites list!



I found the blue morpho butterfly to be the most difficult to capture




I love butterflies this much! OK, so it's not a real tattoo, just an airbrushed version...I guess you can say I'm test driving it and thinking of getting a smaller, more permanent version.


I'm also thinking of maybe, possibly going to The Butterfly Farm's website and ordering some butterfly plants for my yard. Ha! Who am I fooling, I'll probably kill it 'cause I do not have a green thumb at all...it was a nice thought, though!


Thanks for stopping by today! Have a great day!!

My Carnival Cruise (Photo Heavy)

I'm baaaaaaaaaaack!!!!

To say I had a great time on my vacation (a birthday present to myself) is indeed an understatement. I spent 8 glorious days aboard Carnival Victory with a few friends (we were actually a group of 6 within a group of 77). It was something that I desperately needed. It's amazing how rejuvenated I felt at the end of my trip. I think everyone needs a little getaway every now and again.

I missed my boys like crazy while I was gone as this was the longest I've ever been away from them; but I can't lie, not having to cook, change diapers, or here my name called 50 million times a day for 8 days was a nice break.

I laughed like crazy, awakened early, went to bed late, watched movies under the stars, zoomed down a giant water slide, danced in one too many line dances, including a really, really long conga line, and ate and drank a lot...and I loved every single second of it. This was my 5th cruise, my 3rd with Carnival. I've always had pretty good experiences with cruises, but there's just something about Carnival's party/dancing good time atmosphere that keeps me coming back! The service on board is unparalleled!!

Our group flew to Puerto Rico to board the ship. We visited: St. Thomas, Dominica, Barbados, St. Lucia, St. Kitts, and St. Martin/St. Maarten. I'm happy to say that I actually came back home with money in my pockets. I saw a T-shirt in one of the shops that read "same shit, different island" which got a little chuckle out of me because it pretty much summed up the shopping atmosphere. I did purchase some beverages that you have to be over 21 to drink, LOL, a couple of dresses for myself and some things for the boys, which they loved. I took just over 500 pictures, but by the time I deleted some, I'm down to about 395. I'm sharing a few here in this post.

St. Kitts


A sunset I captured after sailing away from St. Kitts


Leaving St. Maarten-- I toured both the French and Dutch sides of the island and visited a butterfly farm. I'll share butterfly pictures in another post.


Donna, Cherre, Champagne, and me in St. Lucia


I saw this beautiful rooster on my walk to the flea market in Castries, St. Lucia


A fisherie in Castrie, St. Lucia


One foggy morning on the way to St. Kitts

Fun Ship Freddy joined us for one of the deck parties

St. Kitts from the balcony of my cabin


Captain's Night

One of the many delicious meals that I ate


After 7 years, I decided to say the heck with the flaws, I'm wearing a 2 piece damn it!!

Dominica


Dominica from the Lido deck


A steel drum player-- his smile is infectious and he sort of looks like Steve Harvey


Our cruise ship taken from the tour we went on in St. Thomas


me in St. Thomas

Sunrise on the way to St. Thomas


As you can see, I had a wonderful time!! There was one incident that occurred on my way back home...I was going through security at the airport in PR and I realized that the main diamond from my engagement ring was gone. I was so upset because I had worn that ring just about everyday for nearly 11 years, but there was really nothing that I could do about it. It was a big deal, but not enough to put a damper on my trip. I can only hope that one day Troy takes it to the jeweler for repair.

Thanks so much for stopping by my blog today. I hope you've had as much fun looking at the pictures as I had taking them. I have more from the butterfly farm to share this weekend.

New Creative Imaginations Projects

I have a few fun projects to share with you in this post.

First up is a layout about how Sir Donovan chose to celebrate his 6th birthday (sidebar: is my baby really 6...already?) He knows how to celebrate, I'll tell you that! His birthday fell on a Friday, so it was cupcakes and goodie bags at school and cake at home with us, Chuck E. Cheese's and more cake on Saturday (his aunt and cousins joined us, too) and dinner at his favorite restaurant, Applebee's with us and his grandparents--all orchestrated by him no less!

I used CI's Melange 123 Celebrate Me line and lots of smooch spritz to create this bright and fun birthday layout. I placed a large circle in the center of the cardstock and then spritzed to create the negative space so that the colorful party hats didn't compete with the color spray.

This next layout was created using CI's Melange Trip and Travel line. I love how perfectly the colors coordinated with my landscape pictures from Bermuda. The gem embedded epoxy star stickers added just a touch of bling (and you know I LOVE my blingage...right). The pre-made embellishments helped this layout come together quickly and easily!



Guess what coming up very soon....EASTER! Can you believe it? I created this fun wall hanging using CI's Ohh La La line. It's not a traditional Easter line, but the colors certainly worked.

I punched circled from patterned paper and attached them to the back of the wall hanging to create the border. I downloaded the bunny from holidayartsandcrafts.net and then added pattern papers to make him a little more festive.

I created a fun little border at the bottom with "grass" and petaloo flowers. The entire background was spritzed with Luminarte Red Pearl.

Hope you've enjoyed the projects! Have a scrappy day!

Setting Sail To Bermuda

This is a quick video of my mom and I on our cruise to Bermuda (her first vacation ever!)--we're so silly! LOL!


...and boy did we eat! When you go on a cruise, be sure to check your diet at the door...err...gangway that is!

Thanks for taking a peek! I'll have pictures up some time soon.

I Have Returned...

It's been a little over a week since I last blogged, but for good reason...I just returned from the Croptopia Getaways Bermuda cruise that I won from Scrapbooking and Beyond Magazine. I took my mom along with me (her first vacation ever) and we had a ball scrapping and touring Bermuda. Croptopia Getaways spoiled us so much that my mom has decided to become a scrapper with all of the goodies and lessons she's acquired!

I took a couple of awesome classes and learned a lot in the mini album classes taught by Cheryl Mezzetti (always wanted to take one of her classes) and learned some Cricut tips and created a couple of awesome projects taught by Cara Miller (aka the Cricut Queen). There were quite a few make n takes, too! I can't wait to share the pictures here!

If you know me, then you know I took a few hundred photos and will definitely share by way of photos posts and layouts! Bermuda is such a beautiful island and so was the ship we sailed on, Royal Caribbean Explorer of the Seas.

I'll definitely tell you all about my trip over the course of the next week or so, but right now I'd like to share the layout I created for Dreamgirls latest challenge and Shimmerz!

Prompt: Using the negative paper left over from a punch - get creative and incorporate it into your layout - You can stencil through it, mask it, or make an embellishment out of it .
Technique: Stitching, faux or real
Product: Use a scallop circle journal spot.

Click here to see what the rest of the Dreamgirls created!

I took this photo on Mommy and Donnie day; not an official holiday, but a fun day for my li'l man and me! How gorgeous are these Webster's Pages papers? OMG...love them!

close-up of the top right corner and the scallop that I hand stitched around the corner of the photo

I used the negative space from a die cut heart to add a little interest to my journaling spot

I loaded up on the shimmering spritz; I sprayed the flowers and the bird that I cut from patterned paper. I also dipped a paint brush into my spritz and used it to paint the cherries.

Thanks for taking a peek!