Merry Christmas!

Merry Christmas to all!!  

I have mentioned my family's tradition of making the craziest Christmas cookies known to human-kind... I thought it was time to share the photos which bear witness to our insanity!  We begin with homemade sugar cookies, several colors of frosting, sprinkles, etc.  This is a fun family event and while quite hysterical, note the serious faces as the cookies are created.

Edwards children hard at work on their masterpieces!  Aaron (far right) and Ian (center) each had a plan.  Bethany was creative on the fly!

Crissie joined us this year and while she enjoyed the decorating, I am sure she was overwhelmed by the creative insanity around her.

 Doug's cookies were fabulous, but he too has on his "game face" for crazy cookie seriousness!

Doug and my cookies together.  I want to be sure you know that I DID NOT make that bikini clad snow-woman!  I did however create the snowman in the alps outfit. 

Aaron sharing his masterpiece - Two Face (Harvey Dent) from Batman!

Ian sharing one of his ZZ-Top characters!  His ZZ Top guys were great!

Bethany working on her gamer-boy.  See the first photo for a cute close up of the headphone wearing gamer cookie.

Ian's cookies included ZZ-Top, an Alice Cooper tree, Darth Vader, a candy CANE, an exploding star, and a wild tree.

Aaron's cookies included Two Face, Venom (from Spiderman), Spiderman, a cane, Batman snowflake, a vampire snow head, and a mean tree.  I love the mean tree! 

One other tradition, whether intentional or not, is that we tend to eat our least favorite cookies first.  Several of the lesser cookies are gone, but the more fun ones live on!

I wish you much happiness and joy today and in the new year - whether that includes crazy cookies, time with family, paper crafting, or quite reflection!

A few more pages of the Disney Scrapbook

Posing with Nemo

I am going to share a few more pages from the Garland's Disney album.  I gave the album to Ruth yesterday and she seemed to really, really like it.  In fact, she said it made her want to go back again - soon!  I shouldn't admit it, but it had the same effect on me!!  :-)

Smooching at Epcot and posing with Pooh and company.

I am not sure if you can see what the Garlands are wearing - they each have on a Disney hockey sweater.  Bill is wearing the Grumpy Miners.... Hence the cute saying in the lower left corner, "I'm Grumpy... What's your excuse?"

The weather was all over the place during our week in Orlando.  The first half of the week was cold and windy, but the last two days were hot.  It was fun, but crazy. 

This is my favorite layout in the book:  Nice Ears!  The last day Bill and Ruth finally bought the required Disney ears, complete with names.  They were very cute!  

Tomorrow we will officially leave the happiest place on earth and head back to seasonal scrapping!

Guess What I finished? Disney for the Garlands

 Title Page

One of my biggest accomplishments over the weekend (when I was away at the lake for a girls scrapping weekend) was I managed to complete the Disney album on which I have been working. Our friends the Garlands went to Disney with our family FOUR YEARS ago and had not done a thing with their photos.  I decided for their birthday gifts to scrap some of their Disney photos.

MGM Studios

Mr. Garland smuggled the Disney DVD to me and I printed photos.  Since then I have been chugging along on Disney.  The final book contains 24 pages, but really it could have been much larger.  But at least they will have a nice overview of their trip.  (Click on any photo to see the image larger).

@MGM for the evening with Mrs. Incredible and the dancing Christmas light show

Since I have already shared some parts of the album with you I will not share all of the pages.  However, I will share a few layouts over the next few days.

Aerosmith Rockin' Roller Coaster

It Was Totally Grand!

This is the first of my Grand Canyon layouts - there will be many more.  No matter how large I print the photos, I just cannot do justice to the Canyon experience.  The photo on the left page was printed as an 8 x 10 and I used it full size.  The top photo on the right was printed as a 5 x 7 and again, I did not trim the photo.  The Grand Canyon was so completely.... GRAND.... and that is difficult to document.

The left page contains only two Cricut cuts, the GRAND CANYON frame from Destinations and a photo mat.  The GC frame is supposed to have a canyon cut in the middle section, but I used Design Studio and resized the frame to hold my 8 x 10 photograph.  This photograph was taken by "My Friend Kathy" as dh and I took in the AWESOME view.

The right page contains only one Cricut cut - I saved the negative cut from the middle of the left page frame and used it as a background mat on the right page.  Recycle, reduce, REUSE!  The cute little Bucket List was a purchased die cut from Scrap Your Trip, but I created one for My Friend Kathy's layout using the Destinations cartridge.  And speaking of MFKathy, she had the BRILLIANT idea to use the large background matting as a pocket to hold the brochures!!  How BRILLIANT is that?  I was VERY impressed and I am convinced that idea sharing is one of the big benefits of group scrapping!  Especially when your friends are as amazing scrappers as my friends!!! 

Are you getting tired of my Vegas trip layouts?  I have more to share but I do not want to bore you.

Vegas From Above

This layout represents one of my favorite evenings while we were in Las Vegas.  We attended the Fab Four Show at the V Theater then we visited the Paris Casino and went up the Eiffel Tower.  I loved the view from the top.  The lights of The Strip looked wonderful.

We viewed the fountains at the Bellagio from above, then from ground level (which was MUCH more spectacular).  And finally we went inside and viewed the Bellagio gardens. The gardens were almost as amazing as the fountains.

I used the hot air balloon, the Arc, and the wine bottle/glass cuts from Summer in Paris on this layout.  I honestly do not remember right this second if the Paris cut came from SIP or from Destinations.  As you can see I saved my Eiffel Tower tickets - I have dh convinced that we must save all tickets, tags, brochures, etc.