Escape from Winter

I haven't been around much this month, can't believe it's almost May!  I took a much needed break and joined my husband while he made client calls on Vancouver Island.  I really needed to get away from this terrible winter weather!  I wasn't sorry to say goodbye to the snow as we flew over the mountains. Hope you don't mind, but I thought I'd show a few photos for those of you who have never been on the island.

It is so nice to know that just a short 1 1/2 hour flight and you are surrounded by green instead of white.

We lived briefly in Campbell River, many years ago, but I always like to visit friends at least once a year.  Our hotel we usually stay in closed, so we decided to stay in a small resort where we have gone for dinner at their restaurant(amazing food).  This is what it looks like when you drive in!  There are little cabins throughout the trees, it's so peaceful and beautiful.  It gets even better!

There was a company that had rented the entire place for the weekend (lucky people!) except for the ocean front cabin which they gave us.  They took us down to our cabin in a golf cart as there was just this path and it was quite steep to take our suitcases.

This was our view from our deck.  The cabin itself had windows all across the front facing the ocean, a hot tub on the deck, a stone fireplace inside.  I think I could have stayed there for a lot longer than three days!  Our first morning we saw a couple of whales, sea lions, sea otters, and bald eagles, all in an hour.

We had a bit of rain and cloud, but on the Sunday it was beautiful.  Our friend's son took us all out fishing in his boat.

Well, the guys just fished and we were supposed to pay attention if the boat needed steering.  We were too busy soaking up the sun and catching up, so there were a few times we seemed to be going in circles!  Oops!
It went by too fast, and as much as I didn't want to leave my cosy cabin, it was time to move on.  Hopefully I'm lucky enough to stay there (Dolphin's Resort) next time we visit.

Making our way south and stopping at a few of our favourite places, our trip ended in Victoria, one of my favourite cities.  We always stay at the Victoria Regent which doesn't look like much from the front of the building, but is right on the water with amazing views and is right downtown.  All the rooms are actually apartments, which some people have purchased and live in.

A few blocks down, is Chinatown.  The streets were all in bloom.

There are some really old narrow alleys or streets that have shops with bright coloured doors. This one is Fan Tan Alley. You never know where you will end up!

And of course there's the beautiful Empress Hotel.  My daughter and I stayed there once when she ran a marathon in Victoria.  It's a beautiful old hotel.  At the bottom of the photo is the inner harbour walk, which is filled with street performers, artists, and food vendors during the summer.

I could never go to the island without visiting my favourite place, Butchart Gardens.  The trees were in bloom, and all the spring flowers and bushes.

There were tulips and daffodils everywhere!

This is the Japanese garden section.  

I don't think I could ever get tired of going here.

Heading back into Victoria, we stopped and walked along this ocean walk.  It's a leash free dog park!  I would love to walk our dog here everyday!

The rest of our trip was filled with eating (the restaurants are amazing), shopping, walking, checking out the antique shops, more eating, and just enjoying the beautiful scenery.

Before we knew it, it was time to head back home.  Thank goodness all the snow that Edmonton received while we were gone, had melted.

This is turning out to be a long post.  I guess I should share a couple of projects for those of you that came for some scrapbook inspiration! 

Here's my Urban Scrapbook Design Team Challenge Layout for April:

This month, our kits included a challenge to use gelatos on our layout.  The papers were from Maggie Holme's Styleboard collection.  For the larger circles, I die-cut different sizes of circles out of a sheet of thin plastic with Sizzix's Circle Framelit dies and used that as a stencil.  I applied my gelatos on the inside and diluted with a water brush.  I also took a small piece from my gelato stick, placed it in an empty mister bottle, added water and mixed into a liquid spray.  The honeycomb die cuts were made from Tim Holtz's new Honeycomb Frameworks die.  The stamp I used(writing) was from the Tim Holtz Nature Walk stamp collection.

And to end my post, here's a tag I did using inspiration from Tim Holtz's 12 Tags of 2014, January tag.  I find, after being away from my scrapbooking for awhile, I need something small to get me back into it and making a tag is just the thing for me:

I used Tim Holtz Stash Motif Resist paper for my base.  This one has the honeycomb resist.  Love this one!  The other products I used were; his Eye Chart Stencil, Botanical Rub-ons, Ephemera pack, Framed Alpha Parts, Monocle, key, CMS 180 Bird Feather stamp, and adhesive foil paper.  Instead of the watch, which was used in Tim's tag, I used Sizzix's Tim Holtz Armor Shield, embossed with his new Woodgrain Texture Fade.  I wanted more of a monocromatic look, so I used Distress Ink, Paints, Stains, Pens, in the Iced Spruce, Weathered Wood and Evergreen Bough shades.  There might be a bit of Pumice Stone and Frayed Burlap in there too!  My bird stamp was coloured with Distress markers and blended with a water pen, then cut out and pop-dotted to my tag.  If you are looking for inspiration, check out Tim's 12 tags of 2014, there are lots of techniques and great ideas.

Thanks for stopping by, and have a great day!

Jan