Archives for July 2012

Happy for You Card @ Scrapbook News and Review

July 30, 2012 By JulieK

I’m so happy to have my premier project over on the blog at Scrapbook News and Review!! I was thrilled when I got the email inviting me to be a part of their Front Page and Blog staff, and this is one of the first projects I made. The feature is the Friday Color Palette and Sketches, I hope you’ll go over to the blog and see all the wonderful projects that are posted everyday!!

Check out my card based on the July 27th Color Palette!

When I saw the color palette, I immediately thought of a Creative Memories paper pack that I had, I pulled it out and cut 1 inch strips and placed them on the diagonal. Then I pulled out my {favorite} The Stamps of Life stamps and found one that would fit perfectly!! The Twinery twine added the perfect final touch. Come over to Scrapbook News and Review and check out all the fabulous projects posted!

Personalized Back to School Notebooks

July 23, 2012 By JulieK

I’m so excited to have another tutorial posted over at Chic n Savvy Reviews!! The full tutorial can be found HERE, but here’s a peek at the project and the information… I can’t believe that it’s almost Back to School time! Seems like summer just started. Here’s a fun way to ease back into things… I got a couple of the plain black composition notebooks (scored by a friend at Target last year after back to school on clearance, for $0.10, that’s right, 10 cents each!!)

How cute is this?

Materials list:

Composition Notebook
Large envelope
2 pieces of school themed patterned paper 9 3/4 inches by 6 inches (measure the height of your book)
2 pieces of school themed patterned paper 9 3/4 inches by 1 inch )measure the height of your book)
Scraps of school themed patterned paper
Letter stickers (if you want to personalize)

I used some BoBunny Patterned papers that I’ve been hoarding for a long time, I loved them, and thought this would be the perfect way to use them!
That’s all you need! Check out the tutorial to see all the details, but this one is easy and super cute! Don’t forget, if you like the project, you can share it via Pinterest using the little “Pin it” button under the image!

Here are some other beautiful BoBunny papers and embellishments (affiliate links included).

Almanac 12X12 Country Garden Paper (Bo Bunny )	Alora 12X12 Alora Paper (Bo Bunny )	Alora 12X12 Combo Sticker Sheet (Bo Bunny )
Alora Brads (Bo Bunny )	Alora Collection Pack (Bo Bunny )	Alora Layered Chipboard (Bo Bunny )

Book Review: This Scarlet Cord

July 20, 2012 By JulieK

Oh, I love historical fiction, and historical fiction that makes a biblical story come to life is among my favorites. This story is the story of Rahab, a Canaanite woman whose life takes many turns and eventually leads to Joshua and the fall of Jericho. From the book description “Hidden within the battle of Jericho is the story of Rahab, a beautiful and brave young Canaanite woman who aided the Israelites by hanging a piece of scarlet cord from a window. This act of faith changed her life by placing her in the genealogy of Christ.” The book doesn’t disappoint, it brings you very quickly straight into the story.

I knew the story of Joshua and the battle at Jericho, but this fictional story brought the bigger battle, the battle for the One True God to life. Set in a land far away, and very different from where I live, the text brought the setting straight to the reader. This was a very quick, and very entertaining read. Although I knew the story, and how it would eventually end, I was sad when I arrived at the final page, this was one of those books that I didn’t want to end.

Disclosure of Material Connection: I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255: “Guides Concerning the Use of Endorsements and Testimonials in Advertising.”

Amazing Vacation part 2 Mount St. Helens

July 17, 2012 By JulieK

So, part two of our amazing (not train) adventure was to take the (horrible) train from East Glacier, MT to Portland OR. The plan was to arrive at 10:30 or so in the morning, go to the hotel, change and then head out to Mount St. Helens so we could be there in the early afternoon… Well, the train was (surprise!) very late… So, we arrived in Portland just after 3:00, and stopped to check in at the hotel and headed out… Arriving at Mount St. Helens around 6:30, which meant that the observatory was closed. But, that’s OK… It was still amazing… Being (ahem) 43 years old, I remember when Mount St. Helens erupted. We anxiously watched the news coverage, and I’ve seen the documentaries since… A fascination with a natural disaster that happened in our lifetime that we can remember. It was breathtaking!

Here’s some photos, which don’t do it justice… Our first inkling that we weren’t visiting just any mountain, were the trees, whole stands of them that were all the same size and type… A section of douglas firs that had a sign in front of them that listed them as all planted in 1986… There were many other signs, other types of trees, all planted together in the same year. Preceeded by this sign… (remember you can click on the pictures to see a bigger view).

Then there’s the mountain. You come up to it, and see the side of the mountian, but the crater comes later. Here’s the first view.

from the parking lot of the observatory, this is what you see, stumps

then you climb up to the observatory and the mountain and crater come into view

30+ years later and it still looks like a moonscape (with snow and a glacier)

a close up view of the crater

the opposite hillside

the fallen trees on the opposite mountain, look at the soil, how any of the plants grow in what looks like pumice is amazing

travelling back down the mountain we came across this lake

The difference in the water between here and Glacier was amazing. In Glacier, all the water in the rivers, the waterfalls, the lakes, was glacial water that looked like magic, the pictures didn’t do it justice, it was a beautiful turquoise blue green… I know Mike laughed at me every time I said it, but it really looked like magic water. They should have looked for the fountain of youth in Montana, had Ponce De Leon seen the water there, they would have been sure that the fountain of youth had been discovered. The water here at Mount St. Helens was gray. Crazy, just gray, didn’t look like magic at all… in the river it looked almost like milk. The ash, it made it completely gray, so different than Glacier. Beautiful in its own way. I didn’t get a great photo, but it was getting dark, and we wanted to be off the mountain before it got too late because we had to drive back to Portland…

One more vacation post is coming, the last one will be about our journey along the Columbia River and Oregon Trail to Mount Hood.

A Glacier National Park, Montana Vacation

July 16, 2012 By JulieK

WOW is the word that immediately comes to mind now that we are home from a quick trip to my new-favorite National Park! This post will most likely be VERY LONG, I took a few more than 600 photos on this trip :) I’m going to break it up and only post Glacier today, and later in the week I’ll post about Mt. St. Helen’s and Mt. Hood… Bear with me :) The kids went with my Mom to the lake, this year they finagled a 10 day visit :) so, once we were sure that the weather would cooperate (actually with 2 days of planning) we were off on what we originally called “The Great Train Adventure.”

So, the plan… Fly to Chicago, take the Empire Builder (Amtrak) train in the sleeper car to East Glacier where we had a rental car, and a hotel we could walk to from the train station… The hotel is a 100-year-old lodge originally built by the Great Northern Railroad. Then, after 4 days in Glacier National Park, hop back on the train again and continue to Portland, Oregon where we could drive to Mount St. Helen’s, and Mount Hood. Sounds exciting, right?

My ONLY complaint at all about the trip, it was mostly fantastic… O.M.Gosh… If I were as bad at my job as Amtrak is at theirs, I would be fired. I certainly would not be getting government subsidies for being THAT bad at my job. First, we left Chicago 4 hours late (and from the conversations around us from people who take the train regularly, it turns out that it’s a normal occurrence). So, we would have had time to connect with Mike’s cousins that live in Chicago, where we thought we only had a short layover… Ok, that made us 5 hours late getting into East Glacier, so instead of arriving at 6:45 pm, we arrived just before midnight (according to the hotel manager, if you manage to get in on the same day you’re scheduled, it’s a good day). Ok, that was a heck of a long time on a train that’s a lot closer to riding the Red line than your image of the Orient Express… But, that’s Ok… Our train leaving East Glacier was supposed to board at 6:45, and at 11:45 it finally arrived. Wow, so we were supposed to arrive in Portland just after 10am, we finally got there a little after 3pm. What a mess, we will never take a long ride on Amtrak again, what should have been the “great train adventure” turned into a wonderful vacation where we had to endure 2 horrible train rides. Amtrak is HORRIBLE, did I mention that already? Just in case you missed it, Amtrak=BAD. As an example, we’re already running over 3 hours late in our trip to Portland, OR. 2 stops before (just after Spokane) the conductor comes on the loud speaker to tell us that because we were so late, the track crew couldn’t wait for us, so they went ahead of us and removed a section of track to work on it, we’ll be pulling over to wait while they fix it… Wait?? What did you just say?? They knew we were coming, and they took out a section of track?? Yup… Enough of that… The REST of our vacation was amazing!!

Ok, back to the fun stuff…

I am a person who LOVES mountains, and mountains with a river (like the Kancamagus Highway in the White Mountains of New Hampshire) are my favorite places to visit. Add in that the water looks MAGIC ’cause it’s glacier water, and I’m in heaven!! We went on various hikes (and man, I’m out of shape!!) to simply amazing scenery. I LOVED it!! The lodge we stayed at is 100 years old, beautiful on the inside and out, but also bare in the rooms… No TV, no internet… This connected girl had a little trouble on the days I couldn’t get in touch with the kids ’cause we had no cell service or internet… But that’s Ok, the scenery more than made up for it!! And, the kids were fine without us :)

Here’s a few of my favorite photos..

Scenery from the side of the road

That is a Rocky Mountain Goat standing on the side of a cliff

One of many waterfalls we hiked to

waterfall…

just look at that!! beautiful!

Did I mention we saw lots of waterfalls?

At Logan Pass climbing the snow field (much easier going up than down!!)

a smaller fall on the way to Virginia Falls

Rocky Mountain Goat on the side of the road

ah, mountians! We were chasing the sunset when we came across this field of flowers with the mountains in the background

On our way to Avalanche Lake, what a climb that was…

Along the way… (Gross!!) Fresh bear poo…

worth the hike! Avalanche Lake, surrounded on 3 sides with mountains and waterfalls… Looked like the setting for How to Train your Dragon :)

a little friend visited while we sat for a minute before we had to hike back

so… this picture doesn’t look like much… BUT it’s our “bear” shot… Which I missed… Driving along a windy road, came around a corner, and crossing the road was a black bear!! We stopped, he stood on his hind legs for a second (and was probably as tall as I was) and then ran for the woods… where I got a pic of the woods… Oh well, I was just glad that we saw him from the safety of the car :)

Many Glacier

Suspension bridge on a guided hike

the destination of the hike! Grinnell Lake

ummm, yeah, there’s lots of Rocky Mountain Goats coming over Logan Pass!

These female Big Horn Sheep crossed my path about 10 feet in front of me…

And, finally, a shot of the hotel we stayed in!

If you made it this far… Thanks!! I had a wonderful time in Glacier, and would go back again in a heartbeat!!! (but not on the train!!)

I’ll post pictures of the rest of vacation in the next couple days :)

This is the main book we used… Pretty true to difficulty levels with only one exception… The Avalanche Lake hike is much more difficult than listed, the rest all seemed true to the descriptions.