What do the pipeline, #8 dredge & a riverboat have in common?

ALASKA!!!

And we saw all three in one day.

Busy Busy

 This is the inside of the pipeline and it has heaters inside to keep

everything from freezing up, and that is why the pipeline runs above

and underground over 800 miles.

 After, we hopped on a train and chugged on down to the #8 dredge

that no longer runs because of a lot of issues but looks

cool all the same.

 Once, seeing the do's and don'ts of panning we actually

got the chance to experience it ourselves.

 We poured out are bags and totally worked it.

It's kinda labor intensive.

You have to swirl and dump and swirl and dump 

until its down to the dust.

 And wa-la gold flakes.

Very satisfying, however, that was a lot of work

for that little bit of flake.

 But combining both our pans Tom ended up with this 

awesomely heavy gold bar.

 Just kidding!

After a surprising great lunch we hopped on the Discovery III

and cruised down the river.

 On the way a sea plane takeoff and land on the river

and listened to a rather stilted conversation between the plane

pilot and the boat commentator. LOL.

It was really cute.

 We passed by Susan Butcher's sled dogs and her kennel

now run by her daughter Tekla.

 Got to see some puppies rolling around, and these dogs

were hooked up to an ATV for some training.

What poetry in motion they are when running.

 We then came upon an Eskimo village from back in the day

and disembarked to take the tour.

It was very informative and realistic.

You had to be tough to make it back then.

 And oh look, reindeer.

Did you know reindeer are tame caribou?

Me either.

 Once of the lodges from back in the day.

The pelts were just beautiful.

 Close up reindeer.

 Beautiful native dressed in a 40 degree below zero

parka that is just beautiful.

It was fun and interesting but Tom and I are finding out

we are not fans of "tours". 

We really do love running on our own schedule.

On a positive note the weather has been unexpectedly

warm at 60 degrees. It'll be a bit nippy on the Tundra Tour

37 degrees. Brrrr!!!

Right now getting ready to go to bed to wake up at 4 a.m.

to head out to the Wildlife Tundra Tour.

Rockin' another birthday boy

Had a lot of fun making this page.

Love the colors.

And what about those bats you might ask.

 Well.

 The birthday boy is Sam, a batman loving boy

and that was the theme of his party.

You may remember his impersonation of batman here in

case you missed my awesome handstitched 

bat mask.

Hence, the bats.

So Sam is the big 5.

It brings on lots of responsibility like

Kindergarten and everything.

Studio Calico, Hero Arts stamp, Quikuts die.

The big 7

Another festive birthday going on in 

the month of April and

that would be Miss Amelia who turns seven.

I am saying that it went by way too fast.

She is turning into such a little miss,

no more baby look for her.

 Another Quikutz number, because I needed that size

and color. I should use my dies more.

The flower, burst and heart are punches impersonating balloons.

I just love the fun wild colors.

Studio Calico, Quikutz.

All geared up

and down the mountain they will go after

a selfie of course.

And the moose. Love the moose.

I need more from my pal Holli - Oh Holliiiiiii!!!

I didn't notice the bent astrick there.

Sigh.

 I finally got to use some enamel dots that

say things like "BRRR", A wool hat, and snowflakes

because that'll happen in Florida LOL

I haven't seen any trick shots on this run 

so I'm guessing everyone was having fun doing their thing.

Studio Calico.

Homemade Traveler's Notebook

It's not fancy - Very basic.

It all started because the TN I already had

had flamingos everywhere.

I live in Florida, I like Flamingoes and usually I don't

have a problem with "makin' do" but I

couldn't get past the Flamingos as a TN for

our trip to Alaska.

Well it was raining, and I was being lazy, so I checked

the TN and decided it can't be that difficult.

Welp....

 I then measured (I know right) anyway I have a ton

of recollections 8.5x11 white cardstock and decided why not.

 I whacked it down to 8.5x8.5  and folded them in half.

My flamingo book had 15 pages so I rolled with that.

But it needed something else - like a cover.
So using black recollections cardstock - I whacked it down
a bit bigger than the pages and glued to the
front and back of the pack.

 The hardest part was actually stapling the pages together.

I had a small stapler that could be opened (you know what I mean)

so I had a brilliant idea to split the papers in fives and

wa-la semi easy stapling.

I had a ton of Basic Grey stickers that I wanted to use up

and Also some Studio Calico and Inkadinkado stamps that I thought would be cool too.

 And just started decorating the pages randomly.

 I'll be taking photos on this trip of course, but I

won't be printing any, and because CRS (can't remember stuff)

has kicked in, I needed a journal, if you will, to document

our days so I can remember later when I actually scrap the pix.

FULL DISCLAIMER - The black and white striped cover for the journals 

was made by my pal Nat. The cover actually houses our women's devotional study 

and well it totally works for my Alaska stuff.

So now I'm gonna see if she has extras - because 

I need one for my devotionals.

Recollections cardstock, Basic Grey, Studio Calico

The big 10

 That magical double digit number that almost

makes you a kid and not a little kid.

 I picked this paper because the symbols looked

like a Q to me.

I decided to highlight them on the page in case

I was wrong but I could still make them look like a Q.

The orange color was plucked from

Quintin's, the birthday boy's, tee shirt.

Let me know what you think.

It's an 8x8 size for the mom's album.

Love that camera.

I have a package of them and OHMY - no bottlecap.

It wasn't like I didn't try.

LOL.

Studio Calico, Tim Holtz, 8x8

Went to see an impersonator

with our friends Wayne and Dara and had a blast.

 It's a local restaurant called "By the Sea" and 

every now and then they have entertainment while dining.

The food is delicious too.

 The guy was really good and sang all of Johnny Cash's 

famous hits and his wife joined in 

as June Carter, Dolly Parton and Patsy Cline.

She was also really good.

They  were having fun with it

and so was everyone else.

And that is how Dolly ended up on my hubby's lap. LOL.

She landed on every man's lap.

Studio Calico.

The Easter bunny came

Used this really old paper from Studio Calico and

that dictionary transparency.

Don't the transparency make you swoon. It does me and that's

the last of it.

Love that boy/girl stamp from Kenner Road.

Kids are getting older now but that won't stop me

from using a "young" stamp.

 AND A BOTTLECAP.

Told you so.

The colors just happened to work.

 And that bunny.

Ain't he cute.

Annie and Owen with their Easter goodies.

Studio Calico, Tim Holtz, Kenner Road

I can do hard things

Love that its on a card and that it landed

in my box of stuff.

This is my crossfit box and we had a competition

with another box during the CF Open.

Battle of the Boxes!

 It was much more fun than trying to beat the world.

Alas, we only loss by this much <>

 Anyway, it was a lot of fun and they have a Masters 60+

and I realized that I have a lot of work to do.

No breaks for the real adults. 

LOL

This page sat around awhile because I couldn't make up 

my mind. I know this shocks you.

And it changed designs 93471457049572457 times.

No joke.

So underneath everything is flooring boards that

I thought went well.

And then I stamped bricks on it. 

And then I tried to whitewash them.

I found I don't do small painting well. At all.

So I decided to whitewash everything.

And there you have it.

Studio Calico AND that TH Bottlecap.

(told you)

One for the books

I loved books when I was a kid and it

followed me into adulthood so

when I got this from Studio Calico couldn't 

help but use it.

Love switching off to the 6x12 size.

(I wanna try 9x12 but need to find page protectors)

 Of course I cut the big tag into the books and title.

I love the owl peekin' out.

Wise ole owl.

 When I was in HL the other day Tim Holtz had these

bottlecaps. I KNOW! 

I love bottlecaps and you'll be seeing a lot of them.

ALOT.

What does it have to do with books?

It matches LOL.

But of course Sam loves books.

His mom is a librarian.

Studio Calico, Tim Holtz

The wedding service - vows

It's a bit battered and beaten - the beach was windy

and it was in a page protector, and I

decided to save it as is as a reminder of the wind.

It was also sunny and pretty too but that didn't beat up

my papers.

So I took one of my favorite photos of them and

added it to the service, as well as the date, with my date stamp.

 I had also decorated the back side so everyone wouldn't see

a plain white back, because we couldn't have that LOL.

I added the photo of the family using the same colors and

materials on both.

I thought this would make a nice addition to my scrapbook

and of course there'll be more wedding pix, and

I'll also add it the mini album I'm going to make for

my neice. 

Studio Calico.

Friday Friday!

Have a wonderful weekend!

Caution should be used when employing the stink eye

I wrote this awhile ago and decided to revive it because well, why not.

The stink eye or evil eye is a facial expression that implies disdain, disbelief, or disapproval. Stink eye is a universal tactic as all givers and receivers know exactly what’s going

down.

I employed such a method the other day on a complete stranger who appeared to be oblivious to my disdain, disbelief and disapproval much to my utter dismay.

As you may know by now, I love to take pictures. My camera is always at hand waiting for images to hop onto my SD card and I take very good care of both camera and lens. My hubby and I decided to explore as well as lunch on Boca Grande. 

Boca Grande is a quaint little community on Gasparilla Island

that is historical and picturesque. Since I have only seen said island from our boat when cruising the gulf, I naturally grabbed my camera and off we went.

A drawbridge allows entrance onto the island and we have often sailed under that bridge ourselves so it was fun to

actually go over the bridge. The houses are absolutely beautiful and huge. Money lives here. Because its

surrounded by water, the beaches are clean, pretty and very accessible.

And then we came to the beach that has the old lighthouse right next to it.

And a parking lot.

We hopped out of the car to check out the beach because we were also scouting day trips to take once we take possession of our RV. Naturally, I snapped off 9487594574 pictures of

the lighthouse in case it got away while I was strolling the beach.

As we exited from the beach, here is where I threw caution to the wind.

Of course I was eyeing the lighthouse again, which was to my right and in my head lining up 84758475298720487

more shots. My hubby was cruising to the left, heading to the car. Right as I lined up a shot, a car pulled in and parked right in front of my shot.

How rude is that.

That is when I employed the stink eye to the rude driver and fell ass-over-teacup on one of those stupid parking

lot ground markers.

Because while employing said stink eye did I stand still? 

Oh no. 

I was looking right and walking left; not a good idea when you’re as graceful as I, and, in a blink of an eye, I was on the

ground before I could lower the landing gear to break my fall.

My camera hit the ground lens first. I quickly leaped to my feet, which surprised me too, and immediately checked out the camera. My poor husband ran over and was like “are

you okay, are you okay” (I do love that man) and I was like my lensssss........

He insisted on knowing if I was alright and I was upset about my camera and lens.

Because it wasn’t working.

I have the tamron 18-270 lens which extends and has automatic focus. It was jammed and nothing moved. I was

now mad, upset and totally ticked because I couldn't believe I broke my lens and/or camera and the rude car was still blocking my shot.

We sat in the car for a moment as I mourned my lens. I decided to remove the tamron lens and put another lens on in order to check out the camera - which worked fine. We decided to head to lunch and as I was pondering which alcoholic beverage would ease my sorrow, we pulled out the lens just to make sure it was really really broken. And all of a sudden, shazam, the lens extended and retracted; it focused and nothing rattled when we shook it.

Suddenly all was right with my world.

It was then I confessed to my sweetie that I had been employing the stink eye on the rude driver that screwed up my shot and not watching where I was going.

He had the nerve to smirk and I had another stink eye moment.

Thankfully I was sitting.

Batman handsewn & but not handdrawn

The owl is about the only claim to any artistic talent

I can brag about LOL.

But when I saw this photo of Sam I knew

I had to do another page with handstitched article

and I was torn between the bat signal

and the bat mask.

 The bat mask was easier to find and I downloaded it

from the internet and actually did much better on the poking

holes and stitching this time.

 Love how fun it turned out to be.

You just can't be serious with a fun, cool photo of

Sam posing. LOL. 

I added the milk bottle cap A. because I love them

and Tim Holtz has an entire package of them and B. because

the colors worked and Batman drank his milk

and C. you're going to see a lot more of them.

Studio Calico on the rest.