A Hashtag Mini Album #thephippstakecharleston

Don't you just love Instagram?
It has become my new favorite form of social media.
It's quick and easy and makes memory keeping fun! 

While on our vacation to Charleston,
our family decided to create our own hash tag for our trip.

#thephippstakecharleston

We did it for fun as well as for memory keeping! 

Almost as soon as we got home, I uploaded all of my Instagram photos 

to Walgreens and had them printed out.  

And here is what I did with them...

 I made a Mini!!

For the front and back cover I used framing mat board.

Most mat boards are acid free and very sturdy so they work great for mini album covers. 

They come in as many colors as you can imagine!

And since I work in a frame shop, I have a million scraps to choose from. 

 This one happens to be a fabric mat board. 

I love the texture and how it works so well with the Kraft and gold foil papers.

For the pages I used this paper pad by DCWV and 

a few Heidi Swapp's project life cards and ephemera.

 I am in love with Gold foil right now, It is just so perfect for this Charleston album.

Instead of my usual "Bind it All" binding, I decided to use binding rings instead. 

I love the fact that the album lays flat when you are looking through 

and I absolutely that they are Gold! 

The scripture I chose for this album is

Psalm 77:11-12

11 I will remember the works of the Lord: surely I will remember thy wonders of old.

12 I will meditate also of all thy work, and talk of thy doings.

A Charleston Campground Review

Wow, it has been a while,
 but never fear, I'm Back! 
and with a Campground review!

Can you believe it?

My  first review  in a very long time.

Partly because I've been busy with life and partly because we
 haven't camped any where new until this last trip!

For our vacation, I really wanted to go and do something different this year.
   My hope and desire was to up head north to New England's Cape Cod,
 but I just couldn't convince the hubby.
He just wasn't willing to pull the camper 13 hours.
With all of his sinus trouble this year, I knew it was a long shot!

Oh well, maybe one day...

So, instead, we decided to pull the camper 6 hours south to Charleston SC.

It was probably one of our very best camping trips to date!

One of the main reasons for that was because of the campground!

KOA Mount Pleasant Charleston SC

This is the view from the back of our camper! 

I mean, Really??  look at this view!

Does it get any better than this?

That's right, we were right on the edge of this beautiful lake! 

The campground is located on the grounds of the Oakland Plantation and 

they give their guests a free tour once a week! 

The plantation is small but beautiful and full of rich history. Also, the hayride is just so fun.

Now to the review...

I have almost all good things to say about this campground!! The location is close to everything! You are 5 minute drive from Isle of Palms beach and 20 minutes from downtown Charleston.  

The campsites are large, very clean and well maintained. 

The staff is extremely helpful and friendly.

I have only one complaint... 

The showers are just too small. 

There are clean and there are plenty of them, but they just are not quite big enough.  

That's it!! That's the only negative I could come up with!! 

This is definitely a big thumbs up!! 

Angel Oak is about 45 minutes away, but well worth visiting!

Kings St in Downtown Charleston is so wonderful if you love to shop!

This Campground definitely gets my "Comfy Camping" stamp of approval.

Scrapbook Pages to Deliver to Scrappin in the City

I can't believe how long it has been since I last posted. Life is just going by so fast. 

I am doing my best to keep up and document all the special moments but instead of just rushing to get it done, I am making a point to live in the moment.  I will scrapbook it all later, when life slows down.  Oh but never fear, I am still snapping those photos!!

This past week I have been working on some pages to send down to

 Scrappin in the City !
I love having a challenge in my scrapbook process.
I just seem to do better with a deadline looming over me. 

 On this first page, I use Heidi Swapp's "Favorite Things" papers, along with some Thickers, and Colorshine.
I really enjoyed splattering color shine for the first time. I love the way the spots glimmer! 

I bought  a few packs of these Jellibean Soup cut outs with the intention of just cutting them down and using them "as is". What I found is that they make great stencils! They probably won't last very long since they are paper, but I love how they turned out on these pages.

Here is a close up of the label. I'm sorry it's blurry. I think it is time to buy a new camera!

On this next page, it's hard to see in the photo, but I actually embossed the letters for the title after I Color-shined them. I just lined them up on the stencil, taped them in place with washi tape (so it was easy to remove). I flipped them over and put them up against a window (I don't own a light box) and began embossing with a round tip tool! Easy and even though it doesn't show very well in these photos, in person, it is so cute and adds dimension!

On this next page, I used a Tim Holtz stencil (a real one, not paper) and stencil around the outside edges. Using the same blue and brown ink pad I colored my Heidi Swapp Numbers and Color Magic alphabet letters.

In the top corner, I used a scrap piece of a Heidi Swapp Memory file and a different style of her color magic alphabet letters. In case you couldn't tell, I am a huge Heidi Swapp fan!

I added a few more stamped sentiments and this was a really quick and simple page to make.

This next one has to be one of my favorite pages just because we had such a good time at this party!
I enjoy the memories this page brings back!
I again used one of the Jellibean paper stencils to make the Happy Happy and then just cut the stencil off and used it for the last Happy! I love how it turned out!!

So there you have it, a few more pages to send off.  I hope it won't be so long in between my posts from now on, but who knows, so I won't make any promises!
Happy Scrappin!

Layouts For Scrappin' in the City

Here are a few layouts I worked on last night to take to Scrappin in the City!

I am still not completely satisfied with my own hand writing in this first layout but I am choosing to embrace my imperfections. I finally realized it doesn't have to be perfect to be beautiful!
Thank you Nester and Stacy Jullian for that!

 I used plain white card stock and craft paper as my base for this page. With a little brown ink, crinkled edges and stitching, the page takes on a whole rugged look.
 The accent papers are from the Teresa Collins "Hello, My Name Is" collection.
 I love the thickness of her papers!

 I sprayed some black color shine on some Heidi Swapp Color Pop ephemera stars
and banners to give it a little more of a  masculine feel. 

My next layout is all about my oldest daughter's first real home that God provided for her family.
I fell in love with this blue polka  dotted paper from the moment I first laid eyes on it.
 Bella Blvd is quickly becoming one of my new favorite lines. 

Sorry for the quality of the photos.
 I used my phone and edited them in Instagram but they will do for a quick post!

 On this page I also used a little gold  Heidi Swapp Color Shine on the tags to give it some pop. 

The letters are again Bella Blvd.  Don't you just love the muted baby blue color! 

I am still working on filling up my latest mini album!

 I will post more photos soon.