I played all day (with scrapbook paper)

This past weekend, my sister and I participated in an all day scrapbooking event given by Shelby of Embellish IT! in Charlotte, NC.  The weekend started with a bang as we had to move up our original travel plans to avoid the sleet and freezing rain that were forecast for Friday afternoon.  We didn't exactly miss it, we drove through it early Friday morning.  It was not fun, but we made it to the hotel in Charlotte iwthout incident.  We spent the rest of the afternoon/evening relaxing in the hotel (plus a nice dinner at the Cheesecake Factory with our aunt who also came to the event) and were ready bright and early the next morning for a full day of scrapbooking.  

I had not scrapbooked in several months.  Between the discomfort of standing on broken toes, and just a lack of motivation, I simply haven't felt like creating with paper.  Happily, this weekend really seems to have broken through my loss of scrap mojo.  I finished about 14 pages for our honeymoon album!  I won't share all of them today, just a few.  I used a lot of Basic Grey's "Soleil" line for these pages.  The bright, sunny colors were perfect for a tropical trip.

This first layout will be the beginning of the album.  I won't repeat my story about the leis, which is what the journaling covers:

I loved those pretty flowers.  Personally, I think we should wear leis on a more regular basis.  Next up, a layout showing off two of my favorite photos from Oahu.  The statue in the vertical photo is of Duke Kahanamoku, who considered to be the father of modern surfing.  We hung our leis on his arms on the day that we left Oahu.

Next, we have a two page layout covering our visit to Pearl Harbor.  I used a postcard and our admission tickets as part of the decorations for this page.  

This next layout covers our visit to 'Iolani Palace in downtown Honolulu.  We couldn't take pictures inside the palace, so there's just the one outside photo for the layout.  I did include our tickets, which are reproductions of invitations to a royal ball at the palace.  The main reason that I wanted to visit the palace was to see Queen Liliuokalani's crazy quilt.  She made it while held prisoner in her palace by the United States.  It is a beautiful work of art.  

A closeup of the admission tickets:

Finally, here's a layout that I made using one of our class kits from that weekend.  The colors and layout of photographs was perfect to capture the walk Alton and I took through Honolulu's Chinatown in the afternoon after our visit to the palace.

I have to say that the entire day was very enjoyable and relaxing.  Shelby is a fun instructor, and the fact that we were all sitting in one room for so long, not rushing from class to class, made things feel much calmer than they normally do at a convention.  Shelby has said that she intends to return to Charlotte for another "Play all Day" event in the future.  I really hope she does, because I definitely want to do that again!

I'll share more of the layouts in the near future.  Til then, I hope everyone has a wonderful, creative day!