Blog Archives
2015: Mythbusters
My son and I love watching Mythbusters, and when we heard that they were coming to our area I knew I had to buy tickets right away. We started the evening eating at Mesh on Mass, a high end restaurant with very innovative food. The meal was amazing and the desserts were scrumptious. You can see our decant delicacies on the left hand page. I also attached the business card to the page to remind me down the road of the restaurant.
The right hand page starts the adventure to see the Mythbusters with pictures outside of the venue, and the “curtain” that was on the stage before the show. If you look carefully at the background pages of these two spreads you will notice that it is the same pattern, but in different colors. This was how I was able to bring these two seemingly disparate events and color schemes together on one spread. I chose brown for the restaurant to match the table top, and purple for the Mythbusters to complement the color scheme of the show, and the color of my son’s shirt.
This second spread shares our signed photograph of Adam and Jamie and some pictures I took during the show. The guys did an amazing job of being entertaining, fun, and educational all at the same time – but what else would you expect from these two!? For the background of this paper I chose an industrial themed blue background which complements the background of the autographed pictures, as well as the backdrop to the stage show.
I don’t know if the guys are going to continue to have tours – but if they do – it is an amazing experience for kids of all ages (and their parents too!).
And for your young ones that like building their own experiments and projects I would love to share Kiwi Crate! They send you a new project every month for your child to work on.
Europe Vacation 2015: Hamburg – Blockbräu
After our ride on the Ferris wheel we went to the Hamburg Harbor, and enjoyed an amazing meal at the Blockbräu. We sat on the roof an enjoyed some good German live music while we ate. The food was amazing, especially the soft pretzels which were served as an appetizer before the meal.
The color theme of this spread is based off of the Blockbräu coasters that I picked up at the restaurant – Green and brown. I used two sheets of each background paper – one for the background on one page, and the second to serve as the border for the pictures on the other. This is a good way to add visual interest to the spread, without it becoming too busy, or too boring.
The pictures on the left hand side are of us at the restaurant and standing in front of a boat in the harbor. My favorite picture is the top left hand picture, where Levi is looking with jealousy at the beer that Henry was drinking, which he was not allowed to – my rules, not the restaurant.
On the right hand side of the page are pictures of our amazing food, the front of the restaurant, and a ship in the harbor. I used the drink coasters as ephemera in the center of each grouping of pictures.
Europe Vacation 2015: Rhygucker and Rhein Boat Trip
At the end of the factory tour the Fleishmann’s invited us to join them at the family restaurant down by the Rhein, so the men in the family decided to walk through the fields and down to the restaurant. It was so peaceful and calming – I still think that I might need to move here one day! It was so surreal to be walking through a field and down a hill, seeing the Rhein with Switzerland on the other side, and seeing cows and goats grazing.
The name of the tiny restaurant was Rhygucker, which basically translates as the “Rhein Watcher” which is exactly what it is – a garden restaurant next to the Rhein, and we had a good time with the families. I remembered just enough Afrikaans from growing up in South Africa that I could kind of understand most of the conversation. After we ate the Fleishmann’s let us borrow their boat for a quick run up and down the Rhein.
For this spread I found two background pages that had similar patterns, but were of different colors. The left hand page emulates the green of the fields, and the right hand page the blue of the water, and my sons shirt. For the borders for the pictures I used the same green antique map paper to help tie the two pages together.
Europe Vacation 2015: Stockholm and Stortorgskallaren
After visiting the Royal Palace we walked to the Restaurant Stortorgskallaren. This spread celebrates the walk to the restaurant and the amazing meal that we had.
The spread has a black background with gold accents. On the left hand page are pictures of Stockholm, including the top left hand picture which is of the official resident of the President of Sweden. In the center of the pictures is a gold Fleur-du-lis brad (which I know is not Swedish, but I thought that it looked good.) The pictures are bordered with a gold and black Fleur-du-lis pattern paper.
The right hand page has a strip of this same paper accented with some silverware washi tape placed behind a high quality napkin collected from the restaurant. To the right of the napkins are pictures of three of our meals – a hamburger, fish, and a wonderful steak! The food was delicious and the environment was noble and historic.
Europe Vacation 2015: Anton’s Birthday
While we were visiting Jonathan in Sweden, his brother, Anton, turned 18, and we were fortunate enough to enjoy this special day with him and his family. In the early morning Anton’s mother made a traditional Swedish birthday cake covered in fresh strawberries and with quite an exciting candle on top! In the evening we joined Anton’s family and friends for a traditional Swedish meal – oh wait – that’s not true – we went to a restaurant called Texas Longhorn and had traditional American food!
These page are fairly simple. I used a cupcake background paper for the background of the left hand page and made sure to stick a Swedish flag on the page as well. For the right hand page I found a complimentary color background page, and for all of the pictures bordered them in a strawberry paper to pay homage to the strawberry cake that was had earlier in the day!
2013:Zest and Triple D
2013:Zest and Triple D
One of our family traditions is to try and visit as many Triple D locations as possible. Triple D is a Food Network Show in which Guy Fieri showcases fun restaurants from around the country. There is a list of all the ones he has reviewed at FlavortownUSA.com and we have been to quite a few of them.
This spread showcases our meal at Zest in Indianapolis, IN. I tried all of the menu items that Guy reviewed on the show, and I must admit that they tasted great!
The color scheme for this page was taken from the logo of the restaurant which is orange, purple and pink. I used a solid orange background page and then used torn scraps from other projects to add energy and life to the page.
The right hand page contains the menu, a business card, and a carefully hand-cut photograph of the logo in the window of the restaurant.
The left hand side contains pictures of the boys, our appetizer, my yummy meal, and the Guy Fieri “tag” that he leaves in every restaurant that he reviews. For the “Tag” photo, the orange color of the wall in the picture did blend well with the background page, so I used a different orange colored border to create a space between the two oranges which helped for the colors to work better together.
2013: Triple D and Zest 2
The picture to the left is of the exact same pages but placed in the opposite order. There are many times when I make pages like this that can be placed in either order.
I usually create an album full of pages before I actually insert them into the album all at once. This way i can balance pages out across albums and I also have more time to decide how I want to place the pages like this one.
2013: Famous Dave’s
2013: Famous Dave’s
I know that most of you probably don’t create scrapbook pages for restaurants that you go to eat out at. but – this was our first time at Famous Dave’s and I felt like I had to celebrate the occasion – and besides – this was our exchange student’s first BBQ experience – at least with us!
Unfortunately the picture that the server took of us didn’t turn out too well because of the light shining in the window – but I did manage to get some pictures of signs and BBQ bottles within the restaurant which helped to finish out the page.
The left hand page is actually covered with our to-go bag! And I used a red background page on the right hand side to compliment the color of the bag – and the feel of our tongues! We felt obligated to try the Wilbur’s revenge XXX hot sauce – and it was hot!
I could not fit all of the pictures on the page, so I tilted the BBQ sauce bottle to look like it was pouring and affixed it to the page – I then used my paper cutter to cut it in alignment with the top of the page.
I placed the menu from the restaurant on the outside of the plastic protector sheet so that it could be opened by the viewer, and we could get tempted to go back for more!
2012: Airport Arrival of Exchange Student – Jonathan
2012: Airport Arrival of Exchange Student – Jonathan
The day that we went to pick up Jonathan from the airport was quite an adventure. He was supposed to arrive around 9am in the morning. He was flying from New York to Detroit to Fort Wayne, IN. However as we were driving to the airport I saw on my flight tracker that his original flight was delayed and that he was going to miss his connecting flight in Detroit. At this point he did not have a cell phone and I had no idea how to make contact with him to find out what was occurring.
When we arrived at the airport the help desks could not give me any information since I was not his parent and we were kind of stuck. I finally used my phone to send him a facebook message and fortunately he had wireless access at the airport and was able to tell us what the new plan was. In the end he arrived about 3:30pm.
As you can see from the top two picture we had Swedish flag shirts on, and a sign that I had made using my Cricut machine. The top one is us anxiously awaiting his arrival and the middle one is when he arrived. My son was embarrassed that we were doing this, but all of the other host families though that it was a brilliant idea 🙂 When one of the cute girls from another host family said this, he all of a sudden thought it was cool :).
For these pages I used the Swedish colors of blue and yellow. The letters saying “Welcome Jonathan” were cut out in a smaller size on my Cricut machine, but using the same font as I used for the welcome sign.
2012: Exchange Student Fortune Cookie
As we were traveling to our home we stopped at our favorite Chinese restaurant because we were all very hungry. Jonathan, our exchange student got the best fortune ever, and so I had to make sure that it made it into the album. If you can’t read it, you can click on the picture to make it full size.
Hosting a Foreign Exchange Student
I just want to put a little plug here for serving as a host family for a Foreign Exchange student. We had a wonderful time doing it – this was our first year – so much so, that we are going to do it again next year. My son loved having a brother and learning about new places, and it makes our home a little more active 🙂
We used International Student Exchange for our agency and we had a great experience. I encourage you to go to their website (http://www.iseusa.com/) and consider serving in this way.
Related articles
- Should I be an international exchange student? (chellywood.com)
- Kisses from Korea (joannealoba.wordpress.com)
