Monthly Archives: December 2014
2014: Swim Team
2014: Swim Team
Luca, our exchange student, joined the swim team after he was done with football. These pages highlight his time on the team. Unfortunately I had very few pictures of him swimming that turned out – most of them are blurry, and you can’t really tell who is who when their face is in the water anyway.
I used a swimming pool background paper, which is pretty busy, so I decided to just place the photographs directly onto the pages without much other embellishment.
2014: Winter Athletic Awards Program
This second spread is from the Winter Athletic Awards Ceremony after swim was over. I used blue and gold paper to create the background for this spread as those are the school colors. I also bordered the program and the pictures with a gold frame. The white program was affixed to the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that it could be opened for viewing.
The large athletic program on the left hand page is not affixed to the page, but rather just slipped inside the plastic protector sheet so that it can be removed for reading.
2014: Trapped in San Diego
2014: Trapped in San Diego
At first glance this page may not look like we are trapped! But – we were. We left Los Angeles to travel back to San Diego to catch our plane back to Indianapolis. 
After having lunch with some friends I realized that a winter storm was hitting the Midwest, and called the airline to try and get moved to an earlier flight which was not full to beat the storm home. The airline refused to move me to the earlier flight, and our flight was cancelled and we could not get a flight home for an additional 5 days! So – we got to spend an additional 5 days in San Diego.
The airline paid for one night so we had to figure out what we were going to do the rest of the time. Fortunately our good friend offered for us to stay with her which we did for several days, but our exchange student Luca wanted to pay for a night in a hotel – so we spent a day at the Hilton San Diego Resort and Spa. It seemed like there were only about 5 other people at the whole hotel and we learned that post new years at hotels in San Diego is very quiet. It was nice to have the whole swimming pool to ourselves.
These pages showcase the things that we did while we were trapped in San Diego – visiting Coronado Island, hanging out in the pool, and eating at Wahoo’s – our favorite fish taco restaurant.
There were quite a few pieces of ephemera that I wanted to include on this page – including the resort map and entertainment guide and newspaper clippings with maps of the awful weather that the rest of the country was experiencing. I created a pocket using my Crop-A-Dile big Bite Punch to affix the green rivets on the right hand page. I then put the pictures on the front of the pocket, and slipped all of the large pieces of ephemera in the pocket.
When we finally made it home I was glad that we were stuck in San Diego for the whole time – if we had been home we would have been stuck inside our house the whole time – so being in San Diego was a much better place to be trapped!
2014: New Years Rose Parade
2014: New Years Rose Parade
This day was the day that I was most excited about during our vacation in California. I bought tickets to the 2014 New Years Day Rose Parade in Pasadena, California. I spent over $100 a ticket so that we could be right in the thick of the excitement. However I got violently sick right before the event started, went and threw up in a porta-potty and then spent the entire parade in my car in the parking lot. It was very disappointing. The two boys however got to see the parade and they had a great time. I had my DVR record the whole event so I got to see it on TV when we got back home.
The background paper on the left is a picture of roses, and on the right a textured pink paper. I used pictures that the boys took of the parade, and also included a flyer that was handed out at the event. As you can expect of me by now, the ticket is on the page to show the details of the event. My son, Levi, knows that I like to have ephemera for the scrapbooks, and he collected the colored confetti strips that you see on the right hand side of the spread, as well as cotton that fell off of one of the floats that you can see at the top of the left hand page.
My parents, who did not go to the parade with us, instead went to see the City of Downey Float, that we had helped to decorate earlier in the week (See scrapbook page of that experience), and my mother was able to collect some rose petals from the float and pressed them and sent them to me for the scrapbooks. They are mounted on the top of the left hand page. I was intending to use my Zyron Sticker Maker to laminate the petals to help preserve them, but I accidentally sent them through the machine with the sticker maker tape in instead of the laminating tape. The rose petals were not strong enough for the sticker paper to come off without damaging them, so I had to mount them to the page with the white backing on. While this was not ideal, the white backing does help for the petals to stand off of the page. If I had realized this earlier I would have used a straight cut line to cut around the petals so that it looked cleaner.
2013: Santa Monica and Venice Beach
2013: Santa Monica and Venice Beach
While in California we had to spend a day at the Beach. The water was cold but we got in it for a little bit. It was the end of December after all!
We went to Venice Beach and then walked all the way to the Santa Monica Pier where we enjoyed a seafood meal at Mariasol – a restaurant at the end of the pier.
The Santa Monica Pier is the official Western end of Route 66 – later in 2014 we visited the eastern most edge in Chicago.
I chose Hawaiian beach print for the background pages and then placed the photographs in a simple square pattern. I had two fish push pins that I place in the center of the photographs, and I had to include the business card from Mariasol.
2013: California Science Center – Endeavour Space Shuttle
2013: California Science Center – Endeavour Space Shuttle
Our next adventure on our California Christmas trip was a visit to the California Science Center which is home to the Space Shuttle Endeavour.
This was a page that was fun to create. I chose vintage mechanical background paper to match the colors from the logo on the left hand side of the spread. This logo came from the paper bag from the gift shop. Then, to add to the interest on the page I used recycled printed paper to create borders for the pictures and the ephemera.
Luca wanted to ride the high ride bicycle at the museum and stood in line for an hour to get a turn so I wanted to make sure that I showcased those photographs. Levi and I were too tall to ride :(.
Speaking of standing in line – we purchased tickets online to see the Endeavour ( a good idea because they sell out very quickly onsite) – and still had to wait in a very long line before we could get in to see it. But, this is a must do if you are going to the Science Center.
The Los Angeles Coliseum, home of the 1984 Olympics, is right next to the Science Center so I made sure I included a photograph of the boys in front of the entrance as well.
I attached the visitor map to the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that the viewer can open it up to see the inside contents of the map.
2013: Universal Studios
2013: Universal Studios
Another adventure that we had while in California for our Christmas break was a trip to Universal Studios. We gave Luca, our exchange student, the choice of which amusement park he wanted to visit while in LA, and this is the place that he chose.
As usual we arrived early so that we could get into the park first to get on popular rides before the lines became too long, and we were glad that we did. You can see from the top left picture that we were taking pictures at the park when the sun was still rising! We had pretty much done everything before 1pm, so we ate lunch in the park, and then left around 2pm. The lines for some of the rides when we left were over 3 hours long.
I purchased lanyards and ticket holders for our tickets – they are a little expensive – but I have learned that I like to have them for the scrapbooks once the event is over. I also purchased the ability to have electronic versions of the ride pictures so that I could print them myself for the scrapbooks. Since I was creating a scrapbook for each of my boys I knew I would need multiple copies and it was cheaper to order the pictures this way.
The ephemera on this page includes the park map, a gold logo which I cut out from the bag from the gift shop, and a pair of 3D glasses which was mistakenly brought home. I carefully used an exacto knife to cut off the ear pieces so that it could lay flat on the page. I also affixed the park map to the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that the viewer could open it.
View pages from our other Universal Studios trips:
- https://mascrapping.com/2013/10/14/2013-florida-spring-break-trip-2013-universal-studios/
- https://mascrapping.com/2013/06/01/2007-universal-studios/
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2013: Rose Parade Float Building and Golf n’ Stuff
2013: Rose Parade Float Building and Golf n’ Stuff
After Christmas Day we wanted to see some of the local sites.This spread highlights two completely separate activities. Many times I scrapbook a single activities on a full two page spread, but sometimes there are not enough photographs or ephemera to justify the use of two pages.
To emphasize that these are two different activities I purposely chose background paper that did not go together so that they background pages themselves emphasize the uniqueness of each side. I apologize for the fuzziness of this spread – I took the photographs as I was putting them together for Luca’s Goodbye party and didn’t realize that it was this fuzzy until the books were already back in Germany.
The left hand page highlights our time helping to decorate the City of Downey Rose parade float (see more in a couple of days when I post about our trip to the Rose Parade). Since the background page is very busy, I used red solid paper to border the photographs so that they would stand out against the busy background.
The right hand page details our adventures at Golf N’ Stuff, and miniature golf and entertainment park that was featured in the movie “Karate Kid“.
The page also includes ephemera from the experience, plus a ticket stub from when we went to see “Saving Mr Banks“, which is an excellent movie.
2013: Christmas
2013: Christmas
This page is an example of celebrating a theme rather than an event. I wanted to have a page that showed the Christmas traditions that we celebrated together.
However, since we were traveling to California for Christmas I did not want to pay for extra luggage to go all the way to California and then back again. So we opened gifts from Luca’s parents while we were still at our home, and then actually celebrated Christmas with stockings once we were in California. We did not have a big present opening on Christmas day as our trip was the Christmas gift to each other. We gave each other small gifts in the stockings.
So the pictures on this page on not in chronological order, but rather a theme of gifts and activities.
If you follow my blog, you will know that I enjoy incorporating ephemera on my pages. The Christmas ornament and the reindeer came off of gifts that were for Luca and so I made sure that they made it onto the page.
I used vintage Christmas themed background paper which is pretty busy, so I bordered the photographs in a solid green border paper so that they would stand out on the busy background paper.
2013: Beginning Of Our Christmas Adventure
2013: Beginning Of Our Christmas Adventure
Soon after school was over we started our Christmas adventure to California. The next few days will share pages from our Christmas vacation that turned into a wild ride adventure before we got home.
As I was planning our trip to California I realized that it would be cheaper to fly into San Diego rather than into Los Angeles. Since we wanted to visit people in both locations I decided that we would go to San Diego first. We wanted to be with family in LA for Christmas, and ebcause we were flying into San Diego on the 23rd of December, I decided that we would have a slow start to our trip and stay at Humphrey’s Half Moon Inn and Suites in San Diego, and then make the drive to LA on Christmas Eve.
The left hand page has pictures from Humphrey’s and the airplane tickets for Luca from Indianapolis to San Diego. The right hand page shares the story of our Christmas Eve morning breakfast at a favorite restaurant of ours when we lived in San Diego – Shades – which is on the ocean front in Ocean Beach.
As we were celebrating the Christmas season in sunny California, I thought it was fitting to theme the pages in green and blue to remind us of the wonderful weather that we were having there.
2013: Basketball at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse
2013: Basketball at Banker’s Life Fieldhouse
I am going to start off by saying “Don’t get too excited by the title – we weren’t watching the Pacers.” A couple days after the Circus at the Banker’s Life Fieldhouse – we were back again for a high school basketball series of games. It was a fun experience to sit close to the floor – something I have never done for a Pacer’s game.
For this spread I chose to use an orange theme to compliment the color of a basketball. I also had a little bit of basketball textured paper left over from another project which I used as a centering mat on the right hand page. The pages looked bland just using the orange background paper, so I added a torn piece of paper to the left hand side of the spread to create some additional interest on the page.
I used pictures from before the event to show the location of the vent, pictures from during play, and a great shot of the projection screen while it was showing our exchange student cheering.
As usual the ticket and the program from the event went on to the page as well. I usually affix the program to the outside of the plastic protector sheet, but in this case I did not do that. The program was thick and heavy and would have made the page difficult to turn if it were on the outside of the plastic protector sheet. It also did not have much information inside other than ads that I did not think that the viewer would want to look at in the future.
