New Winter layout

As many of you know, we are normally in Canada skiing at this time of the year. Well, of course, we are a bit further south (and a whole lot warmer) enjoying the sunshine. I'm still trying to get caught up on all my scrapbook pages (no, I don't think I'll be caught up by the time we leave here :-( but I'll be closer).

I love this photo that Matt took and when I went shopping today for some of Kara's new stuff, I found the perfect compliment to it. I found a whole bunch of stuff and just had to show it off. I just love how the clouds are hanging in the valley far below us and I thought turning it into a black & white photo with a touch of sepia tinting made the layout blend so well together.





Credits for Mistaya:
Template #2 by Kara Jones
Hip 2 B Square paper pack by Kara Jones

Icy Glitter frame ups by Kara Jones

Pearls by Me to match paper colors
Special thanks to atomiccupcake.com for use of glitter action for title
Fonts: Icicle Country 2 & Pupcat
Snowflake custom shapes & amg-glitter style
Photo by Matt (Recolored by Angela)

New snorkeling photos!!

I wanted to share a couple of new layouts that I did using Gina's Fishy Tales Mini kit. I had so much fun with the water theme on this kit and matching our snorkeling pictures with it. We have been so happy with our little underwater camera and we take it everywhere down here. Its a great thing to have to capture little snapshots.

Credits for Snorkeling with Banana Fish:
Based on a template by Chris Greiser
FISHY TALES kit by Gina Arzaga at NDISB
Photos by Angela
Font: DymoFontInvers (special thanks to AtomicCupcake.com for Frosted Glass Action used in making title)

Credits for Sosua Snorkel:
Based on a Template by Patti Hutchinson
FISHY TALES MINI KIT by Gina Arzaga
Special thanks to AtomicCupcake.com for use of her actions in creating stiches, Scribbled outline & Stencil title
Fonts: Earwig Factory, Action is & Castellar
Photos by Matt & Angela

Kite Video!!

We had strong winds today so Matt took his 10 meter kite out for several rides today. I took our little pentax camera that does video to see how it would do. I caught several good rides and wave attacks.

Here is a link to one of the videos (Did I mention that we are trying to get our our website {http://www.shetzers.com/} ready to launch?) This is of Matt playing in the surf today and a great jump (& crash) at the end of the video.

Here is a picture of me on Christmas Day just as I stalled my kite yesterday (see how slack the lines look) just before the big YANK!!


Enjoy!!!

Hope you had a fantastic holiday!!

We hope everyone had a great Christmas. We had a very quiet couple of days (well as quiet as you can get with Dominican music blaring all around).

On Christmas Eve, we started out with a fantastic couple of hour walk down the beach from Cabarete to Encuentro. Then we headed over to our friend's home in the evening. As many of you know we don't have a car down here so we had to decide how to get to our friends home on the other side of town. We had wine, champagne, mashed potatoes, stuffing, ice cream, chocolate & a large toy golf club set to take with us so we needed two backpacks to carry it all in.

Well we decided to take a moto concho. For those of you not familiar with a moto concho, it consists of a Dominican on a motorcycle (who may or may not have an actual license) and you just hop on the back and off you go (and I do mean OFF you go). As soon as we approach the entrance to our apartments, we are constantly whistled at and harrassed by the moto conchos. We shook our heads yes and they arrived in seconds. Well, I climbed on first and then Matt climbed on behind me (keep in mind with two backpacks and a plastic set of golf clubs for Luna) on a one person moto.

The little town that we live in has had its roads completely torn up as they have laid sewer pipe so it was quite a bumpy ride through town and to make it worse, we could not see the bumps coming. So after hearing Matt say Owww many times (did I mention he was sitting on the luggage rack), we finally arrived at our friends community. We were very glad to make it to their house without having a backpack full of garlic mashed potatoes.

Well, Christmas day was a bit quieter with no wild moto rides just a wild kite ride. The wind was decent so we hauled our kites (yep, even mine) down to the beach to kite for a bit. Matt helped me launch my kite and I flew it on the beach for a bit. The wind was really gusty so my kite kept stalling (yep, gotta figure out how to make it stop that). Basically, it would be flying just fine, then get hit by a gust of wind to be followed by a huge gap of wind. Well, that means it falls out of the sky - NOT A GOOD THING... Well, one time, I didn't recover well at all and Matt and I both went flying. He was holding onto the back of my harnass and digging in his feet while I bounced multiple times before we both ended up in a pile on the sand. No injuries, but I learned my lesson and got much better at recovering the kite when it stalled. One wild ride was enough!!

So maybe it wasn't so quiet but it was very good. We missed all our friends and family but managed to talk to our family on Christmas. And I still managed to watch my favorite Christmas movie, Christmas Story, on TBS multiple times.

And let there be light...

You know... There are just some things that we Americans take for granted... Most of you know that we struggle with power here in the DR and that the country regularly practices rolling blackouts because it can not afford to pay its fuel bill to Venezula.

I would bet a lot of money that we'll never see this promise from our power companies in our newspapers...

Edesur: There will be light
The power distribution companies are promising to do their bit for a bright Christmas. Edesur has announced that it will provide its customers with uninterrupted power service during the Christmas holiday. The continuous power service will begin on 24 December at 5pm, lasting until 6am 25 December. Edesur will provide the same service from 31 December through 1 January 2008.
www.dr1.com

Sandy Hook Lighthouse

I wanted to share my latest layout from our trip to New York for Thanksgiving. This layout is of some pictures Matt took of the Sandy Hook lighthouse on the Jersey coast. We could see the lighthouse from Annie's balcony so we wanted to get closer to investigate. It was closed so we didn't get to do a tour, but we enjoyed the beautiful tour around the hook with Annie.

I used Gina's Early Autumn papers for this layout and I made a set of embellishments that you can pick up for free (see post below).




















Credits for Sandy Hook:
Papers from Gina Arzaga's EARLY AUTUMN kit
Coordinating Elements by Me
Font: Accent Dot Writer
Photos by Matt

New Freebie Element Pack

Hop over to the Cre8vGirlz CT Blog for a new freebie today!!

Beach Time

The weather here today was beautiful although our quiet little beach is gone... We are starting to see the influx of tourists (yeah, like we don't fit into that category) for the holidays. The beach is busy and there are lots of new kite-boarding students so its "heads up" on the beach for crashing kites!!

We had a bit of wind so Matt took advantage of it to sail his 14 meter kite first and then he came back in to take his 10 meter out. He demoed a couple of boards today as well (why do I think these are going to be expensive demos????).

I wanted to share a new layout that I did today using another of Gina's kits called Springy Sprinkles!! It is such a cute kit and I love all of the wonderful flowered papers!!




Credits for Beach Time:
Template by Andrea Gold
Papers and elements by Gina Arzaga's SPRINGY SPRINKLES Kit at NDISB



Photos by Matt & Angela
Font: Duality

Thanksgiving 2007

I wanted to share a new layout that I did using one of Gina's fabulous kits!!

These are some pictures that I took during Thanksgiving. Annie did such a wonderful job of decorating, we didn't want to mess it all up (however the smell of the food soon made us change our minds). We did manage to snap a few pictures before the feast began.





Credits for Thanksgiving 2007:
Zoom Template by Tracy Drane
Early Autumn paper pack by Gina Arzaga


DoodleyArt: Watercolored Elements - Autumn I by Gina Arzaga


Fonts: Earwig Factory & Giddyup Std
Photos by Matt & Angela

Downhome Christmas - Free Kit

Happy Holidays to Everyone!!

I think the scrap-booking community has been so blessed by so many designers who give freely not only during this season but all year. This is just a very small way to say thank you to everyone who has designed and freely given their talent to all of us. I think there are lots of us who would not know what digi-scrapping is without the wonderful generosity of our designers. I just wanted to take a moment and say Thank You, Thank You, Thank You!!!

I hope you enjoy my second kit!!

Downhome Christmas consists of 11 themed papers and 22 elements for your Christmas or Victorian scrapping. Scrap your memories with this craft inspired kit with lots of chipboard and paper elements. You will find 3 solid chipboard papers, 3 solid folded textured papers, and 5 printed papers (quilted, stars, stripes, trees & old time print). Elements include a cardboard Alphabet and numbers, an embroidered bell, 3 brads, 3 pearls, 2 frames, 3 printed twill ribbons, 1 holly stamp, 1 tree, 1 Merry Christmas wordart and 6 stars (3 chipboard and 3 sparkily).

Special thanks to AtomicCupcake.com and Photoshopbrushes.com for use of their actions and brushes in the making of this kit. The colors for this kit were inspired by Sherwin Williams online website.

Click on the image to go to download.