Wildlife on our Road Trip Layout

 Drving the Alaska Highway is an amazing experience for all the wild life you will see, especially in British Columbia.  This is just a small sample of all the animals we saw.

I used circle frames to highlight my photos.  They are just inked with Distress Ink.  In the center I made a tag enumerating the animals we saw over a 2 day period.  If you are wondering how I get the wording on the tag, I print onto transparency paper and then glue to the paper.

At the top, I used the Pinecone border that is also inked with Distress Ink.

I used two different word sets for the title.  Both are heat embossed with embossing powder.  

Supplies from Creative Embellishments

Road Trip - Words

Circle Doodle Frames

Summertime - Titles, Quotes & Sayings

Pinecone Border

Other Supplies

Stamperia Forest Paper Collection

Donna Salazar Truffle Embossing Powder

Emerald Creek Baked Texture Embossing Powder - Dirty Sand

Distress Ink - Walnut Stain

HOW TO ENTER THE CHALLENGE

Be sure to check out the monthly challenge on the Creative Embellishments Blog because you could win a great gift certificate to the store! To find the monthly challenges just click on the pink search icon on the upper right side of the page and enter “challenge” in the search box and the challenges will pop up.

 Here are the rules:

• Create a NEW project layout, mini album, tag, card, canvas, etc….as of  June 1st, 2021.

• It is required that you mention in your blog post that you are playing along at Creative Embellishments together with a link back to our blog page. Please make sure to reference our challenge. Please, no old projects. (meaning projects from previous months that may fit the challenge) Please share only new projects.
• Please add your entry to the inlinkz tool below to be eligible for the prize. You have until the last day of each month 11:55 pm eastern time to enter.
• Simply add a link to your FB photo (if you do not have a blog) featuring your challenge entry. Let us know how you were inspired by the photo.

• Combining with other challenges is permitted.

• We would love to see you USE AT LEAST 1 OF CE products on your projects but it isn’t required to play along.

• WINNERS will have 2 weeks to claim their prize. The winner will be announced on this post the day after the challenge ends. Keep an eye out to see if you are a winner.

xoxo Maggi

Red Fox - Sketches Creatively Yours

Here's another great sketch from Sketches: Creatively Yours.  chose to flip the sketch on its side and it really works well with that orientation.  Charlotte, aka Suepup, is the guest designer at S: CY this month and her sketches are a treat.   Please check them out!

Here's my take on the sketch. I flipped the sketch to the side.  I took these pictures last summer in Alaska at Denali National Park.

I recently bought some molding paste and have been playing around with it.  On this layout I took a piece of screening and adhered to my layout using just a little hot glue.  Then I smeared on some molding paste and used a popsickle stick to smooth it out over the screen.  Then I stamped my brick wall stamp into the molding pasted creating a brick pattern.  After it dried I sprayed with Moonshadow mist in Bucket O'Blood Red..  You can speed up the drying process with your heat gun but be aware that the top drys but underneath it will still be pliable.

Next, I prepared the 2 piece Dusty Attic Scroll #1.  I used Distress Stain in Peeled Paint to cover the chippy and then heavily inked the edges with Distress Walnut Stain.  The top piece I painted with acrylic antique white paint.  After that dried I randomly brushed some bronze ink along the edges and top to give it an aged appearance and then coated with Crackle accents.  After that was dried, I rubbed distress ink into the cracks .

While the chippies were drying, I started assembling my LO.  I cut one 5" circle and two 3.75" circles from the BasicGrey Curio collection, General Store, and adhered them to my base pp, which is also BasicGrey Curio, Needle Lace.

I cut my letters from cork paper and inked the edges with Distress walnut stain.  Next I adhered the bottom Dusty Attic piece, that is the one stained green. Then I attached the two smaller photos.   Next I added the white Dusty Attic chippie placing part of it over top the center photo, and part underneath the center photo.   Next to the top photo  I placed a piece of Dusty Attic chicken wire.  I mean, afterall, you have to have chicken wire when you've got a fox on the loose! 

I made the gingham ribbon loops by cutting a 6" length of ribbon and folding then and adhering each fold with a sticky dot.  I love ribbon loops, they just add a sweet feminine touch.  It was a female fox, I'm betting she was out hunting to feed her kits.  Then the branches are felt which I brushed with a little bronze ink and the flowers are some layered Primas.  Finally I added a small journal tag and that's all there is to it!

Thanks for stopping by!  I hope you're having a great holiday weekend.

Canis Lupus

I used the Get Picky sketch #8 for this layout.  Get Picky has two challenges each month, an inspiration challenge and a sketch challenge.  Check it out, lots of great work going on there!

Wolves fascinate me and my top priority while we were at Denali was to observe this creature in his home.  I had high hopes, so many of our campers were going out during the day and coming back with wonderful stories of their wolf sightings.   I don't know how many times I got on that bus in Denali to ride through the park to see wolves but it was mostly a bust for us, everytime!

The photo at the bottom is the only one I took from the bus.  That was fun, we were actually observing a lone bear and off in the distance we see this wolf.  Well the bear had been lazing in the grass until he spied to wolf.  Then the bear gets up like he's  going to chase the wolf; the wolf sees the bear and starts running while looking back over his shoulder.  It really was quite comical. The bus driver said that the bear was probably bored and just wanted to play with the wolf.  I don't know about that!

The top right wolf pictures I took from the car through the front window of the car and the other two I shot from the motorhome on the day we were driving out of Denali to go home. 

I used the BasicGrey Curio papers for this, they seem to work well with my nature photos.  On the right behind the photos I've used a piece of Core'dinations black magic that I embossed using a Cuttlebug Victoria folder.

I love the Dusty Attic ferns and Tribal Design that I sprayed with Olive Vine Glimmer Mist. 

I see I need 1 more follower to make 100, yipee.  Only 50 more to go to give away my blog candy.  Check out my blog candy at the top of my sidebar. If you're not a follower, please become one.  If you are, please tell your friends!  I appreciate it!! Thanks for stopping by!

Fall at Denali National Park

Well I really loved the Swirlydoo's April kit that showcased Bo Bunny's Gabrielle but I think I love this May kit with Glitz Laced with Grace at least as much!!  The oranges and olives so perfectly offset each other and the colors are so vibrant, I really love it!!

This is a picture I took in 1997 of a grizzly bear fattening up on berries for the coming winter.  I took these pictures in September on a beautiful fall day.  In September, winter is just around the corner and it can snow anyday.  In fact, I have been at Denali in September when there was snow on the ground.

I really had fun making the flowers and leaves on this layout as I tried out my new Moonshadow mists on the leaves.  It really does give them a beautiful patina look.  AND something new I have discovered, I bought a set of 16 pearl watercolors at Michael's for a whopping $5 and used it to paint my flowers.  Really gives an effect similar to Glimmer mist but it's easier and a lot cheaper!!  I used the paints on the orange flowers.  The green flowers were sprayed with olive glimmer mist.  The Dusty Attic vine is painted with acrylics and then glazed with Diamond Glaze.  I like Diamond Glaze better than Glossy Accents, its a little thinner and therefore brushes on nicer.  It seems to have the same glue qualities as Glossy Accents too.

I used the May sketch at Dusty Attic for this layout and I'm entering it in their sketch challenge.  Also made the layout for Glitz Challenge #2.

Thanks for stopping by my blog!  I appreciate the time it takes and I'd love you to leave a comment so I'll know that you were here!

The continuing saga of Escape Kitty and Chena

Got another photo from Chena the other day.  Seems the girls are having a lot fun in Alaska playing with bear cubs.  Jrabs at Scrapbook.com posted a great LO of EK and Chena frolicing in the water with a bear cub.  Seems they had caught a BIG salmon.  I'm betting that the cub caught the bear.  Chena does not know how to fish and that fish was way bigger than EK!!

So now EK and Chena are playing with a pair of inland cubs at Denali National Park. Look at our FEARLESS kitty standing inbetween those cubs.
I am thinking that poodle coat is getting pretty long by now and a BIG matted mess. Oh dear, I'll have to shave her down when she gets home, IF she ever gets home. Chena, your Dad and I would really like our motorhome back, July 15th at the latest so you and EK need to turn that rig around and head for home. Ha-ha, I think they are having way too much fun!!

Here's a closeup of the birdcage:

Thanks to jrabs for letting me share in her Escape Kitty story and for the pictures of Escape Kitty. Do check out jrabs gallery for more stories of this crazy cat and dog!

Pioneer Park

Pioneer Park, in Fairbanks, AK, is a municipal park that is frequented by locals and tourists alike.  The locals take their kids on a nice sunny day and enjoy the playgrounds with their children.  The tourists enjoy visiting the old log homesteads that have been moved to the park and offer a glimpse of life in the far north during the very early 1900's.  There's a great air museum that Dick and I always enjoy.

The day these pictures were taken turned out to be a rare warm sunny day for the summer.  When we arrived in Fairbanks a couple of days earlier, it was cold and raining.  We were delighted when the sun greeted us on this day!  I am calling home to let everyone know we arrived safely in the photo below.

Below is the sketch I used for this DT project for  Sketches: Creatively Yours .  It's sketch 04-11, all I did was flip it from left to right.   There are other examples of this great sketch on the S:CY blog and I hope you'll visit, try the sketch and link it so we can see your work!

Patterned paper: BasicGrey Curio Camelia, Upholstery,
Letter stickers: Curio collection
Stickers: Curio Collection
Flowers: pink flower is layered stickers from Curio, white flower is cut out from the Camelia pp and layered
Ink: ColorBox black, distress black soot
Other: beige lace from Lace Heaven, velvet pleated ribbon Recollections

Sketches: Creatively Yours - Frost Heaves

Happy April's Fools Day!  Ah, there's nothing foolish going on in my world today, but there are several exciting things to see!  Sketches:  Creatively Yours  is back online with a new design team after a 6 month hiatus.  Be sure to check out the sketch and maybe try your hand at it!   All of the DT's sketch interpretations are posted and they are great!  Below is my take on the sketch.

Journal:   Frost heaves, they are a part of traveling in Alaska and can do some awful damage to your vehicle if you're not paying attention!  When we drove to Alaska in 1995, we encountered a lot of road construction along the way. At times, we would have to wait for 30 minutes or more for the “Follow Me” truck to lead us through the maze of construction equipment. There were a couple of construction zones where we were driving on roadbed consisting of baseball size rocks. Mom and Dad also came through this kind of construction when they visited us in 1996; they cracked the windshield, headlights and incurred much paint chipping from the flying gravel on their just about new Honda Accord. For this trip, we decided we would be prepared, both having been scouts and all that! Dick built a substantial shield to protect our Jeep from the flying rocks. We encountered almost no road construction the entire trip and what little we did encounter consisted of nicely graded gravel roadbed that was actually better than the paved roads. But, oh my, let me tell you about frost heaves.

Frost heaves occur when a road is built over permafrost, which is permanently frozen ground. When the surface is paved, it causes the earth beneath the roadbed to heat up, thus melting the permafrost and turning into a Jell-O like consistency. The melting causes the road bed to “heave” creating a highway that is much like a roller coaster with dips that can be as much as a foot. It heaves from side to side as well as front to back. Imagine cruising along at 55 mph and hitting this, you will be AIRBORNE! We just heard about several people who broke their tow bars between their motorhomes and tow vehicle because they were unaware of the seriousness of frost heaves. We thought the frost heaves were much worse on this trip than before and that is because the road is older now. Frost heaves are a way of life up here and engineers are still trying to devise a road construction method that will preserve the permafrost. We drove over several different experimental sections of highway illustrating the engineers’ dedication to this problem.

Supplies:

BasicGrey Curio Collection:

Base pp –Heirloom
Yellow – Textile
Print – Upholstery
Letters, diecut green print trim strip
Arrow – Paper Studio
Distress black soot ink
Bazzill – Orange CS mats
Ribbon – Cosmo Cricket “the Boyfriend”
Buttons,- unknown
Martha Stewart punch around the page punch

And another exciting thing today is the debut of the Words and Perspective series at the Just Perspective blogspot.  Check out my post below for more information.

Yikes, here it is mid-March already!! Caribou layout

I'm not sure where the month has gone and I can't believe that I haven't posted anything here in almost two weeks!  I have been doing some things but I can't show any of them as they are for projects to be released next month.  And one is a gift so can't show that.  I've done three more arches for a swap, I think they turned out really great, but can's show those either!

Oh well, I did do this layout last week for a color challenge at Scrapbook.com.  I took the photo at Denali National Park.  One thing visitors always try to do is get photos of the big 4, moose, bear, caribou and dall sheep.  So this is my caribou photo.  It was as if he was poseing for us, don't you love the way he has his head turned?  The papers I used for this layout range from old to really really old, like from 2005!  I love it when I did that deep into my stash and get rid of something!  And that burlap is from a roll I bought when we lived in Denver and the flowers are Prima; I altered the one at the top.   I was planting water lilies - you wrap the dirt in burlap to keep it from totaling trashing your pond.  I did use a new mask from Prima for the floral mask, its an 8x8 mask, really nice. 

Aside from the usual, I have been busy with tax work, well that's a good thing, I need some income to support my SB habit!!  I hope to have some creative time tomorrow!  Cross your fingers for me!

Chena and Escape Kitty

Have you been following the adventures of Escape Kitty (EK) on Scrapbook.com?  My good friend, Jennifer (jrabs) has a cat that is trying desperately to escape the confines of her house.  Poor sweet EK longs to be outdoors but alas, Wiley Coyote, has been spotted so EK is destined to be an indoor kitty.  Jennifer posted a challenge to do an Escape LO of whatever is your escape and I thought it would be fun to do a LO of Chena and EK.  EK has her bags packed and is waiting patiently by the door for Chena to pick her up in her mobile doghouse and they are off to Alaska.  HA-ha, they don't know that it is still really cold in Alaska and the ground is covered with snow.  They are in for a BIG suprise.  And geez, Chena has never driven in the snow before.  I sure hope they make the jouney safely.  I told Chena to be sure not to let EK eat any birds but I think the birds will be safe as there are only 6 species that spend the winter in Alaska so the hunting will be sparse for EK!  LOL, Chena put lots of cat food in the doghouse for EK!

Journal says:  EK, come travel with me in my mobile doghouse.   I've been from coast to coast, Florida to Nova Scotia, and all the way to Alaska.

Supplies

Base paper – MME Lost & Found Union Square Perfect Damask Print

Other papers – 6x6 BAsicGrey pad, Capella
Bingo Boards and Calling Cards – Tattered Angels
Vine – Reflections
Flowers – Prima & handmade
Escape letters – BasicGrey Max & Wiskers
Fence – layered Sizzix diecut painted with white crackle paint and Crackle Accents, inked with Antique linen distress paint
Suitcase pile – Tattered Angels glimmer chips
Burlap fabric
Key & Bookplate - MM Vintage Findings
Prima flower ribbon



Homeward Bound

I haven't done a layout like this is a long  time and I really enjoyed doing it!  I love to journal and here I tell part of the story of our trip home from Alaska.  Did this for a challenge at Sisterhood of Scrap and its a Pagemaps sketch.

The Cassiar Highway has two claims to fame. It is said to be one of the worst routes to Alaska and you are advised to take spare tires and drive SLOW. Second, it is heralded as being of unsurpassed beauty. For me, the thought of a drive full of scenic wonder caught my attention and for Dick, well who doesn’t love a challenge! So when we moved back to the lower 48 in 2000, we decided we would take the Cassiar route to Denver. About 10 miles into that trip, we had had enough. To be fair, we were driving a ¾-ton pickup with a Bigfoot camper on it, pulling a loaded trailer full of Dick’s tools and his ’22 Ford, and we weighed in at 22,000 lbs. We were just too heavy to deal with the potholes and extreme grades of the Cassiar so we reluctantly turned that rig around and headed down the Alaska Highway.


Fast-forward to 2010, the year of our return to Alaska, and we were determined to drive the Cassiar and decided to take that route on our way home in August. Can you just imagine how we felt when we heard that the Cassiar was closed because of forest fires? We got to the turnoff for the Cassiar, and sure enough, the road was closed. But, there was a long lime up of cars, RVs and a few motorcycles. There’s a gas station there at the corner and we learned that the road was going to open in about 30 minutes and we would be escorted through the forest fire in a convoy. Ah, talk about timing!

Our drive through the fire was uneventful; we didn’t see much in the way of flames, just the devastation left behind from a fast moving fire through the stands of black spruce. There are always many fires burning in the summer throughout the wildernesses of the northwest and many are left to nature’s whim as long as the fires are not a threat to population centers. The Cassiar runs through complete wilderness – we had no cell phone service the entire 450 mile route. There are only a few small settlements along the way. We camped in the parking lot of a store selling jade the first night. The 2nd night we spent in Stewart, BC which is a 38-mile jaunt off the Cassiar. Hyder, AK is just another mile or so from Stewart and we went there for some excellent bear viewing at Fish Creek.

Just as a postscript, the Cassiar has been greatly improved since our attempt in 2000. It is a gorgeous drive and the road is very accessible to all RV’s.

And this page accompanies the above.   My inspiration was a sketch by my good friend, Ali.   Journal:

We started our drive home on August 4, 2010. We made a quick stop in Anchorage to provision before hitting the wilderness of the Cassiar Highway where there are very few services. We stopped at the Commissary to buy groceries for the two-week trip home and the PX to buy Christmas presents and souvenirs! These two pictures were taken along the Glenn Highway and that is Mt. Drum in the distance at the top and at the bottom is the ever-present fireweed, so named because it is the first plant to return after a forest fire.

Stewart, BC is a Canadian border town at the end of the Portland Canal, a narrow saltwater fjiord about 90 miles long. The fijord is a natural boundry between Alaska and Canada. The town is surrounded by high peaks and glaciers freely flow down the slopes. These pictures are of the Salmon Glacier, the 5th largest glacier in the world. It is unfortunate that the weather was so poor when we were there, however, we did get the occasional break in the clouds that allowed us to see the glacier.

I used MME So Sophie papers for both of these layouts.  The little flowers are forever old and they are Fancy Pants.  The diecut is from Bo Bunny Flutterbutter and is cut in half.    The letters are cut with the Alterations Vintage Market sizzlet.

TFL!



Living in Color

I was just playing around with this photo in PSE and added ink outlines from the filter gallery. I think it looks kind of neat.  But anyway, these pps are fromTim Holtz's Lost and Found collection and they are so colorful.  Then I reflected on my friend Linda, in the photo, and thought about what a colorful life she lives.  She's an adventurer after my own heart, loves to travel and the title, Living in Color just came to me.  I think its appropriate, it matches her personality!  I was also working on a challenge for SOS  to use this picture as inspiration and that's what got  the photo edit started.

Here's what I ended up with, it doesn't really look much like the picture but that was just a take-off point anyway!

The title circle is from the BasicGrey Curio line, the background is Bazzill french vanilla sprayed with turquoise glimmer mist.  I used my Kreaxions circle cutter to cut the blue circle.  I really love that cutter, its so simple and easy to use AND it doesn't take up much space!!  You can get one here,  It will cut up to a 10" circle.  After cutting the circle, I punched it with a Martha Stewart corner punch.  All the punches I used on this page are Martha Steward punch around the page punches.

TFL!!

Are we there yet?

I love to tease Dick and usually start asking him if we're there yet about an half hour down the road!  It is a looong way to Alaska from NC, well from most anywhere for that matter!  Dawson Creek, Canada is the beginning of the Alaska Highway, built during WWII to get troops and supplies to Alaska to defend the US from the advancing Japanese.  The Japanese did occupy part of the Aleutian chain during WWII.  Well this is not a history lesson, LOL.  Google it if you want to know more!!  At this point in our trip we had been on the road about 10 days and still had 4 more to go.  Of course we did make some stops along the way.  We did drive from VA to Alaska in 7 days in 1995, but that's another story.

 I used BasicGrey's Curio collection for these LOs plus a sheet of DCWV Bon Voyage Travel.  The stamps on the circle were done with Tattered Angels Time Traveler stamps.  I hand colored some vanilla paper with Fired Brick and Wild Honey distress ink,  and misted with water, to make my flowers that were cut from an Alterations die.  The title is a Dusty Attic chipboard piece (they must have made it just for me :-) colored with glimmer mist and smooch.  I cut the leaves out of Core'dinations CS with a Marvy punch that embosses and punches at the same time.  That's one of my favorite punches at the moment.

Same papers on this one, Kaisercraft chipboard letters, Dusty Attic chippie at the bottom overtop a Martha Stewart punch.   I used a corner punch to punch around the circles, love that technique, thank you Lisa G at Swirlydoos for that.  I really like the nostalgic look of these LOs, there is lots of nostalgia along the Alaska Highway, lots of relics left from building the road, I thought this portrayal was appropriate.

Denali

Here we are in front of Denali in all its splendor and glory!!  It is really a treat to see Denali as the mountain is often hiding in its own weather system.  I think only about 25% of the visitors to Alaska actually get to see Denali.

This is another of the layouts I made using the January Swirlydoos kit.  Oh this kit has really stretched me as the it is so colorful and I have found it fun, but a bit difficult to work with.  But, it has been a great challenge.  We always have butterfly challenges at Swirlydoos and I love this big butterfly that came on a card from my friend Daphne.  It is so pretty and went perfectly with the January kit. 

The blue papers are GCD Arsty Urbans pps collection  and the yellow is from the Glitz Scarlett collection as is the journal tag.  I made the red flowers at the bottom, the top one is a velvet Petaloo.  MM bling on the butterfly and GCD Artsy Urban border strips.

I have to give a shout out to the Kreaxions circle cutter I am using these days!  It cuts such nice circles and is such a small compact tool.  I love it and suggest you take a look at it if you're looking for a circle cutter.  It basically is a compass with a blade in it. Kreaxions circle cutter link.

Capture the Moment

I did this one for a Steampunk challenge at SB.com and its my first Steampunk.  I love these G45 Steampunk papers!!  The picture was taken in Fairbanks at the very excellent auto museum they have there.  The hat is a vintage hat they had for visitors to play with !  Along with autos, they had quite a bit of vintage clothing on display to keep the ladies interested and I appreciated that!!  In addition to G45 Steampunk, I used alot of Tim Holtz  and 7 Gypsies embellies.

I've got an idea for another perking in my head too!  I love this line of paper, it's so whisical  and the colors are so rich.

More Denali pages!

Breaking out of the mould and trying to get a bit funky with this LO.  I love collages!  Its hard to believe that is was June 28th by the looks of what we are wearing in this picture!  We had alot of cool days while we were at Denali and alot of rain so on most days you would find me bundled up in a polartec with this windbreaker over top!  Dick is a bit hardier than me and wasn't always so bundled up! 

Again, using up my stash and some new pps too from DCWV. ( the background paper and the brown)  There's some old Bo Bunny and Crate Paper, Karen Foster and MAMBI stickers. 

Journal:  Our slice of heaven, here on earth is located 29 miles deep inside Denali National Park at the Teklanika Campground where we had the good fortune to be campground hosts for six weeks. There was no telephone, no cell phone service, no computer hookup and electricity only if we generated it, and even then, generators were allowed only for 2 hours in the morning and 4 hours in the late afternoon into the evening. What’s not to like about that??


Well, I guess it’s not for everyone but Dick and I embraced it 100%. We had so much fun and just enjoyed lots of walks through “our” campground visiting with all of our guest campers and keeping a watchful eye out for wildlife in the campground. Fortunately we did not have any large wildlife like bears or moose visiting, but we did have the occasional lynx and wolf. We never saw the wolf but he left his calling card near our camper, his scat!
Ok, never thought I would find “scat” interesting, but you know if was ‘cause it was full of hair! Could have been rabbit, squirrel or even something larger such as a moose calf. One of our campers showed us a video they had taken from the bus of a wolf strolling down the road with a caribou hindquarter in its mouth. No doubt he was taking it back to the pack to feed the pups. There was a pack of 12 wolves with 7 cubs visible from the road that were spotted quite often during our stay there. We heard from a ranger that two of the pups were gone and assumed they had died. Life is tough in the wilderness even if you are at the top of the food chain as the wolves are. There is no human intervention, nature takes its course.

TFL!

Our Heaven on Earth - Denali National Park

We will never forget the six weeks we spent at Denali National Park  as volunteer campground hosts.  It was such a great experience, we met so many wonderful people from all over the world.   Here are two LO's I did using some old BasicGrey pps  - trying to clean out my stash!

Tags says:  Scenes from the campground that we hosted in Denali National Park.  The river is the Teklanika.  That is the Alaska state flag flying with "Old Glory".

Journal says:  Once a week we went deeper into the park to the Toklat work camp to do laundry; this was another 24 miles deeper into the park. The drive to Toklat was through prime bear viewing territory, and we did see some bears; but what we saw nearly every week was this group of Dall sheep hanging out at Polychrome Pass. In all the years that we lived in Alaska and visited Denali, we only saw the sheep up close and personal once. And here we were seeing them every week.

The sheep were almost always on or near the road. One day they were walking towards us right down the middle of the road. All we could do was shut down the engine and wait for them to amble on by. They stopped right in front of us and peered in our windows. I could have easily touched them. One was no more than two feet out my side window. I guess we spent 15 minutes or more waiting for them to get by us. Meanwhile behind us were some professional photographers that I bet were just so envious of us! Yay, score one for the average Joe, sometimes the professionals can be really rude trying to get their photos.

The Pass is aptly named for the brilliant colors in the surrounding hills and mountains. The pass sits up high and overlooks glaciers and the valleys they left behind. The road through Polychrome Pass is not for the faint of heart! It is a series of sharp curves and steep hills. The entire road through the park is gravel and Polychrome Pass is extremely narrow! There is just enough room in some places for two school buses to pass each other with maybe a foot to spare. As we drove through there, I was chanting, “No bus, no bus, no bus” for my fear was meeting an oncoming bus and having to squeeze by. It was scary when we were on the side of the road with the drop-off like you wouldn’t believe! I closed my eyes a lot!

Here's another LO of those Dall sheeps from Denali. Again using up some old stash, BasicGrey Origins and T Holtz Lost & Found.

Thanks for stopping by!!



View from our Heaven

This was a really quick LO and that is really atypical for me!  I actually put it together in about 10 minutes.  Then I played aroudn with it for 2 hours trying to add something to it and finally just decided its clean and simplistic view was perfect for the photo so on to other things.  Used BasicGrey Curio pps for this and that is an old BG rubon on the left.  The birds are a Timmy stamp.  Love Timmy's  stamps!!

I think I will make a companion page for this LO and call it a two pager!

Bears!!

Oh these were fun LOs that I did for the January  sketch challenge and the Odds challenge at Swirlydoos using their January kit.

The pps are from GCD Designs - Artsy Urban collection and Glitz-Scarlett Collection. The velvet flowers are Petaloo and the others are Prima.  The yellow circle mat I made using a MS circle punch.  I love this technique and thank you Lisa at SD's for showing us this!  It's easy to do, here's a link, give it a try!

These are photos I took this summer in Hyder, Alaska.  Hyder is a little bitty town of about 72 on the coast.  It is completely surrounded by Canada.  There isn't even a US border station there.  It seems sort of like a lost part of the US.  They do have a post office but no law enforcement.  Its a strange place!!

Today...

Well I should be getting ready for Christmas but what the heck, thought I'd sneak a quick layout in!  I am tired of Christmas LOs, tags, etc so I did this page of our 2010 Alaska trip SB.  This is a scraplift of an awesome LO done by Helen at Sisterhood of Scrap.  It is one of my favorite designs ever!

The journal says:  Are we there yet?

We crossed the border into Alaska on June 12th with the biggest smiles on our faces you will ever see! Ever since we left Alaska on July 17, 2000, we have talked about returning in the motorhome. There is something about Alaska that calls to us; we love it there so much. It is such big country, the vistas are incredible and we love the cool weather!    ...................YES!


I love this paper too.  It is MME So Sophie  - Peaceful Plum for the back, the striped is Happy for You and the plum flowered is Circular Bliss.  I made the flowers with T Holtz's rosette die from the same MME pp collection.  Used Ranger distress ink Wild Honey and Brushed Corduroy.  Rubons are some old K & Co "Classic"  Chipboard numbers are KaiserCraft

Guess I'd better get at my chores now!  There are two poodles here in desparate need of a bath, though they don't seem to think so!!  TFL!

My Dad

This is one of my favorite layouts that I've done lately.  I think its because I love the picture so much.   For me, it really the essence of Dad, a big grin and laugh.  I can be seriously silly sometimes and I know I got that trait from him.

Most of the papers I used are from G45, A Proper Gentleman.  The silver paper behind the photo is Coredinations embossed with a Cuttlebug argyle folder and then inked with silver ink.  The heart is an image from Printmaster graphics program that I printed, cutout, and coated with Glossy Accents.

I made the tag using a technique found in the Composite of Compendiums book.  I stamped some ink on my craft sheet, sprayed with water and then dragged the
tag through the ink.  The two circle stamps are Tattered Angels Traveler stamps and the Smiles and Laughter stamp is Stampology.  The Metal clock face is a Tim Holtz piece.

Thanks for visiting!