Jackson - Hearts of the West Blog Hop

Welcome to the Hearts of the West team blog hop!

If this is your first time joining us you will love it. It features Close To My Hearts Consultants from all over Canada showing you their projects. The Hearts of the West team was founded by Nancy Klein.

This months challenge is Jackson paper pack, brought to you by the new Seasonal Expressions 2, hand picked from Nancy Klein.

If you came from Donna's blog then you're in the right place, this is a go around blog hop so you can start anywhere! Just in case, the full list will be at the bottom. So, as always, grab your coffee, tea, water, relax, and hop around the team with us.

I really love this paper pack and am sad to see it being retired after the month of August.  I took the paper and looked at how I could create some new fun cards with it.

 I tried to keep them simple as I decided to make these a card kit that will be for sale on my blog and on my facebook page.  I second generation the diamonds with Barn Red ink on the one card and did second generation and regular stamping with Glacier ink on the other.  To add just a bit more fun, I added the ribbon!  I popped up the "Friends Forever" image with 3D Foam to give a little dimension.

Products used:
C1533 Fabulous You
Z2104 Barn Red Ink
Z2641 Glacier Ink
X7195B Jackson Paper Pack
Colonial White Cards/Envelops

This card kit can be purchase for $12.  Everything will come pre-cut and pre-stamped for you.  This kit has 10 cards, five of each design.  Please email me at hollyctmh@gmail.com if you are interested in purchasing one of these kits.

Your next stop is Kim's blog.

Thanks for joining us this month and come back next month to see what creative projects we can bring to you! Thank you for stopping by and please feel free to leave a comment.

Nancy Klein - http://nancyklein.blogspot.ca/2015/07/hearts-of-west-blog-hop-jackson.html

Donna Digby - http://datsmystyledj.blogspot.ca/2015/07/hearts-of-west-16th-blog-hop-jackson.html

Holly Young-Bowers - http://heartfeltmemories2.blogspot.ca/2015/07/jackson.html

Kim Loewen - http://scrappinwithheart.blogspot.ca/2015/05/august-hearts-of-west-blog-hop.html

Anna Miller - http://annasscraps.blogspot.ca/2015/07/aug-jackson-hwbh.html

Heather Myers - http://hlmyers.blogspot.ca/2015/07/hotw-august-blog-hop.html

CTMH 2015 Convention and Disneyland

Well it has come and it has gone for another year!  I arrived home yesterday from a whirlwind 6 days and 5 nights in sunny California, Anaheim or Disneyland Resort to be exact!  Just like a little kid waiting for Christmas morning, I anxiously awaited my second trip to Disneyland.  I could barely sleep the night before I left, which made for a VERY long traveling and park day!

My flight was at 8:35 AM on Tuesday July 7th.  We arrived at LAX at 11:10, hopped aboard the Disneyland Resort shuttle, settled in to watching Chicken Run on the way and watching out the window at all the things zooming by as we were whisked away to the Disneyland Hotel.

Check in was a breeze this year for me, I had no horrible repeat of the year before, but unfortunately my one roommate had that experience and spent the morning sitting in the lobby from 7 AM until we got there.  Poor poor girl :(

I got to get my picture taken with some fun characters during check in!

Goofy and Chip!  At least I think it's Chip ... LOL

After check in we waited in our room for our 4th roomie and then we hit the parks!  Wow is all I can say!  That day was so jam packed, we rode Splash Mountain, Finding Nemo, Matterhorn Bobsleds, Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, It's a Small World, and Pirates of the Caribbean.  We walked around Toon Town checking out all the things in there and I believe that is all! It is all such a blur I tell you.  Then we watched Fantasmic that night.  I saw so many sights it was awesome!

Peter Pan fighting Captain Hook

The next morning we headed back in to the parks minus one roommate.  I'm jealous because she got to attend leadership, but I loved the parks don't get me wrong!!  On this day we saw so many characters dressed up in their Diamond Celebration garb!  We didn't wait in the lineups though because they were so long already at this point, but in the first part we saw Cinderella, Mickey, Minnie, Donald, Chip and Dale, Goofy and Pluto.

I love their Diamond Celebration outfits!  And seeing them all together right as we walked in was great!

We saw Alice and the Mad Hatter.  We saw Maleficent and Mary Poppins.  And we got our pictures with Jasmine and Genie!

Jasmine and Genie

 I got to eat a Dole Whip finally!  It truly was a great day and even the sunburn I got didn't dampen my spirits.  Later that night after our team meeting, we went back in to the park and hit up California Adventure.  We didn't get to do too much though because we got in there late.  It gets so dark so early down in California, I'm used to daylight until about 10:30ish, but to have it so dark that they set off fireworks at before 11 is weird to see!

California Adventure closes at 10 PM each night, so we got in line for Radiator Racers I believe it was called!  I now know why that line was 90 minutes long, but we should have been smart and rode another ride first before getting in the line!  You can get in line anytime before 10 and they will let you ride, so if you walk in the line at 9:50, you're going to be able to ride :)

Thursday morning marked the start of Convention officially for me.  We anxiously waited to get our hands on the brand new Annual Inspirations.  The skits they created for us were so great!  The theme was Up!  So everything was centered around the movie!  Mr Fredricksen and Russell came out to say hi!

Mr Fredricksen and Russell

During the skits they were giving away product to those of us out in the crowd.  It all depended on the base and bling necklace that we were given in our registration package.  Well my necklace won me a Paper Fundamentals paper pack, a package of Fundamentals Stickers pack and a package of Fundamentals Assortments.  They are so great I can't wait to share with you the projects I will be making with these!

I won!

Friday was more fun with creative sessions and business classes.  Learned some really great stuff and made some really fun projects!  This day I decided to walk to 7/11 ... yes I said 7/11!  It took me off the resort down a really nice tree-lined street!

Palm tree lined street

It was a nice walk and I ended up going to the CVS Pharmacy across the street from 7/11.  When I got back, we got ready for the dinner and awards banquet.

Dinner friends

And after the dinner we went for a Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Tiki Rum drink at Trader Sam's!  I'm not sure why this was a good idea considering that we were getting up at 5 AM the next morning to walk a 5K!  But we woke up and walked through Disneyland and most of California Adventure.  One of our roommates had fallen on Thursday evening while out and about in the parks, so it was a slow adventure.  We made it to about 3.5 or 4 K when her ankle started to give out, so we detoured out and made our way to Starbucks.  We then finished off the day with more Convention fun.  We attended the dance/crop and watched a couple get engaged and listened to Monica's husband sing!  We also created some more fun new projects as well.

Sunday morning came too early and we found ourselves climbing back on the Disneyland Shuttle heading back to LAX and our plane ride home.  It was nice to walk through the doors though at the end of the flight into my husbands arms.  One of these trips he will join me just to see how much fun we have at Convention!

Roommate Gifts for Convention 2015

Yeah!  So here I am at the Disneyland Hotel in Anaheim California and I'm ready to show you what I created for my fantastic room mates!  I asked the girls what their favorite paper packs were and I was told Blossom and Brushed!  These are two that I fell in love with and was so excited to create with.

I started by making the mini albums, right down to the pages and binding.  I don't have pictures of that part but I really do enjoy creating that part because it sets the tone for the entire album.  You're able to choose just how many pages you want in it and how much space you want between the pages to add all the fun memento's and pictures.

This post is going to be very picture intense, so please be patient while they all load!

Here are the covers for two of the albums.  I wanted to keep them basic so that they could add some decorations themselves.  These pictures don't do them justice, but there is a strip of white shimmer trim.

Here I put a waterfall of photo mats and journal spots on the first page.  The second page has a pocket with a tag as well as a top pocket that has a mat to pull out.

Close up for the compliments.

There are nine spaces in which to put photos or journal on the waterfall.

The compliments are secured with foam tape, which allows for another space to place a mat in.

The next page is a repeat with a tag and the top pocket in which to add more photo mats.  The right page has a belly band to hold journal spots or photo mats.  There is also a side pocket here.

Close up of the tag

Photo mat from the belly band and the side pocket mat.

These guys are just so fun!

The next set of pages consist of another belly band and then two individual pockets.  These are such fun interactive pages in which you can add some photos or memento's to.

The back of the individual pocket pages gives more room to journal.  Another belly band on the right side page allows more space to include photos.

Love these compliments!

Now open up that page and here you will find two hidden pockets with a tag and a photo mat.

Flip the page and you have another space for a tag and then another fun pocket to hold more photos.

Surprise, there is a secret page here!

Next we have a small pocket on the left page and then a really fun interactive booklet on the back cover.  This one can hold a great many photos and has lots of space to journal.

Look at all the spaces you have to add photos.

 So that was the Blossom mini album, now to show you the one with the Brushed paper pack!  You will notice that the basic build to the album is exactly the same.  It just takes on a new look with a different pack of paper.  I really like how this one turned out as well!

See you can see the same waterfall section to add the photos and journal

A nice metallic pen will give your journal section really pop!

All the fun colours really make this album stand out.  The base being black really helps give it all a pop.  Here you can see where the tag sits behind the compliments to show where you can add something more.

Fun belly bands really make this album interactive, with photo mats as well as the compliments that are added to each of them.

Fun interactive butterflies!

Here you will find the two individual pockets.

More belly bands to keep things interactive.

What's hiding underneath this page?

Imagine all the fun photos you could add here on this hidden page!