Amsterdam

This girl I know is afraid to travel.

Whaaa???!!! was my first reaction

Does. Not. Compute. was my second

I love to travel probably more than anything else in the world! Half of what I scrapbook are travel photos, don't ya know? So you can imagine my shock that there are people out there who are scared of doing the one thing I find exciting above all!

In an effort to alleviate her concerns about an upcoming trip to the Netherlands , I decided to throw a little lunch party for her, her husband and a few friends.

The theme? Operation Get Susie Excited about everything Amsterdam!!

I've been once, MT's been twice and Kim has been once, so between the three of us, we're hoping to get her mind off the uncomfortable part of traveling (the plane, immigration, etc.) and onto the food, the culture, the scenery!

I also figured it was the perfect time to get some overdue pages of Amsterdam done!

So this is kind of epic for me.

It's been years and years and years since I've made a double page 12x12 layout using only 4x6 in photos!

But I figured I could knock out a big chuck of some lovely A-dam photos, using one of this month's sketches from Ella Publishing.

I also pulled out March's Studio Calico Into the Woods + Babbling Brook kit, which went perfectly with the colors in the photos.

I cut out that awesome "C" from the Cosmo Cricket patterned paper, which was perfect for my layout about Amsterdam's canals, and nestled in a longer rambling title (as Noell would say). But it looked a bit sparse, so I pulled up all the stickers and hit it with some Teal Maya Mist to anchor it all a bit.

I added white Basic Grey micro mono (my absolute favorite letter stickers EVER) directly to the photo and printed my journaling onto a transparency. Also cut out the "A" from the same sheet of CC paper.

And then stamped a border of bikes, using Studio Calico's jetsetter stamp set.

This second page is a bit tongue in cheek. I traveled with 4 other girls and Christian, who was teased about his trip with the "skittles" aka the colors of the Rainbow. I have to admit it was a clever nickname. Among the group was an African American, a Jewish American, a Korean American, an all American and me, the Mexican American =)

I found the perfect sketch to go with my skittle themed page, which I hadn't even remembered is what they called us, until I saw this sketch!

It also features the Babbling Brook add on, plus a few extras (i.e. that pleated ribbon border).
I had a lot of journaling to add. This photo inspired so much! So I printed it, inked the edges and tilted it on an angle at the top of my page.

The photo cut off the sign of our hostel (thanks Christian!) and thankfully I had another photo of it that I printed smaller to include on the page.

The rest was just fun details for the kit.

That's 2 more pages to add to my Europe and hopefully a little more convincing for Susie! I'll let you know how it turns out :)

xxbesos