Dinner @ Mahana'i

For the entire 4 nights stay in Moorea, Tommy ate at the resort for dinner, other than the dinner & show on our first night. Mahana'i is the main restaurant at the Moorea Pearl. I had scraped quite a bit of food pages in my Tahiti scrapbook. I probably had scraped at least 3 different layouts of my dining experience at Mahana'i. We dined there for 2 nights.

Tommy and I love to try a bit of everything, when possible. We made sure for all our dinners, we would not order the same thing on the menu so we could try different plates. We also made sure that we would not order the same thing as the other night we dined there.

This page was quite special to me because Tommy helped out in creating this double layout with me. He was recovering a minor surgery at his home. I wanted to spend more time with him and wanted to help him put his mind off the pain, so I decided to work on a layout together - from brainstorming how we wanted the page to look to the color coordination.

Although this is probably not the best page out of the entire Tahiti scrapbook, it's nice that Tommy was involved in it to help me out. After this page, I am pretty sure he won't be helping me much.

We decided to do a double page layout. One side consisted of the order that Tommy ordered, and the other side consisted of the order I ordered. We also wrote a little journal about our dining experience.


We decided to choose brown cardstock as our background of our double layout. The reason why we wanted to use the brown cardstock was because we wanted to resemble the background as the color of the table that we sat at.

We chose a silver metallic cardstock because there was a place mat on the table where we dined. The place mat was shimmery, metallic. The design of the place mat had a checkered design with 2 different colors -- brown/gold with green/silvery tone.

I used my silhouette cutter to cut out the letters. We decided to use black as the font on the left side of the layout.

To keep it a bit more interesting, Tommy wanted to use a yellow star epoxy sticker to replace the dot on the letter "i."

We arranged the pictures from top to bottom (appetizer- dinner- dessert). We also resized all 6 pictures .


With the way how we arranged the pictures on one side, it gave us enough space in the middle to write a small journal. I tripled layered the journal. I started with a black cardstock, which I used the round corner punch to punch out the 2 corners. Then, I layered a greenish metallic cardstock over the black cardstock.

I had Tommy wrote his experience on a small cardstock. After he was done, I layered his journal on top of the green metallic cardstock. I used a gold color brad as decoration.

The second side of the layout was basically the same as the one on the left. I put the pictures the same way like the other side, expect "mirrored."

I used a green metallic cardstock to cut out the font from my digital cutter.

The "@" sign, I actually it 2 times with the 2 different cardstock. Originally, I wanted to cut the "@" sign down the middle and adhere right at the edge of the page with 2 colors.

Tommy talked me out of it and decided that it would look better if we use the black font instead and adhere it completely onto one side of the page. Again, he decided to use epoxy sticker at the end.

Just like the other side, I wrote my dining experience. I tried to keep the two pages identical in design. It looked like a mirror reflection.

Le Matiehani

With a little extra money to pay on top of the meal plan, Tommy and I decided to make a reservation at Le Matiehani, resort's fancy restaurant. We both enjoyed the dinner. The restaurant had about 4-5 tables in the main dining area, and a couple tables outside. We were actually the only couple sitting inside the dining area. It felt like we were in Chinese Soap Opera, where the rich guy reserved the entire restaurant to take his date out for nice dinner, and perhaps even had a rock in his pocket. It was a picture perfect scenario! That didn't happen to us! We just happened to be the only one in the main dining room dining. Either Tommy nor I are rich enough to reserve the entire restaurant just to cater to us. Lastly, hunnie got no rock in his pocket to seal the picture perfect moment! :(

I decided to do a double layout. I made a fancier looking page on one side, and on the other side, I decided make a page of the food we ordered. I used 2 black cardstock papers as the background and used a glitter orange cardstock to layer on top of the black background.

While I was shopping at one of my local scrapbook stores, I noticed they hung a layout on the wall that I couldn't keep my eyes off it. I was inspired by it, and decided to shop in the store for the necessary materials to make my page.

I scroll through my pictures on my iPhone and found the picture that I wanted to use for my layout. From the picture, I chose a color and work along with it to incorporate it with my layout.

The layout above is not 100% exactly the same as the layout I saw at the scrapbook store. It was almost the same concept, but slightly different.

I used a pencil to draw a curve line over the orange cardstock and used a pair of scissor to cut along the line. I kept the top part, and kept the rest of the unused paper in my scrap box for future use. I adhere the picture onto the page and added flowers along the edge where the 2 papers met. I randomly picked different colors and sizes flowers and randomly placed them along the edge. I used runner tapes to adhere the flowers onto the page and added pearls in the center of each flower.

I cut the fonts out from my digital cutter. I decided to size the letters in bigger font to put the title across the page.

On the right side of the layout, I arranged the photos according to appetizer - main course - dessert. I separated our orders. Can you guess which one side was mine?

This page had a lot of pictures and overloaded with information. I kept this page simple. I resized all 6 pictures. I rounded the top right corner of the appetizer picture on the left, the top left corner of the appetizer picture on the right. I also rounded the bottom right corner of the dessert picture on the left as well as the bottom left corner of the dessert picture on the right. I only rounded 4 corners to give a softer edgy look on this layout.




Because I resized the pictures, there was extra space on the bottom of the layout. I found an orange with yellow dots ribbon. The color of the ribbon complimented the layout on the left. I decided to put the ribbon on the bottom of the page on the right.



I purchased a jar of flowers for the layout on the left. Because there were quite a bit of the flowers, I didn't use them all up for the layout. Since there were extra flowers in different color and sizes, I decided to layer the flowers in 3 different sizes to create a giant flower embellishment. I also added a pearl in the middle. I used runner tape to adhere all the flowers together.


We probably spent over 2 hours dining at the restaurant that evening. People in French Polynesia was very relaxed and easy going. We tried to be like them, take things slow and enjoy life. Our dining experience was great, and the food was delicious. With just an additional amount of money to pay for the dinner, it felt like that our meal was a steal! We surely enjoyed our dining experience at Le Matiehani.

Belvedere Lookout

Oh, the mountain that sits in between the 2 bays! They called it as "Belvedere Lookout." The view was amazing! I love this picture.

This was a single layout page. I decided to use a green cardstock as background and use a blue, green pattern paper as a foreground of this layout. I kept the layering very simple. I cut the pattern paper into 11x11. I made mats for the photo and the journal.

I decided to type up my journal instead of writing it by hand. I don't have the best handwriting in the world. I know it gives a personal touch if I were to write it by hand. However, I just wanted to give a clean and neat look on my layout, so I typed it up instead.

The only embellishment that I added to the page was the flower brad. It was a green flower with purple accent in the middle. It drew the attention to the journal when I looked at the layout.

I love this page alot. It was a very simple looking layout. I wouldn't do anything to change the layout of this page. I believed I had trouble lining things up in the middle. If you look closely at the layout, you will see that it panned to the left.

Next time, another single layout, almost similar to this one.

Have a great day! :)

4x4 Safari Tour

The 4x4 Safari Tour was our only guided tour we booked in Moorea. If we had more time, and if the sky was the limit when it came to money, I would totally do Shark & Ray feeding, or Dolphin & Whale tour with Dr. Poole, etc. However, with limited time and money, we chose to do a Safari Tour. I believed I made the right decision when I tried to convince Tommy to do a 4x4 Tour! The island was so beautiful and green! It was breathtaking. (You will just have to stay tune for the layouts to see!)

The colors, blue & green, was based on the picture I used for this layout. I cut out the letters from the Silhouette digital cutter. I cut the letters a bit bigger so I could easily tape down the letters onto my layout.

I kept the layout simple by cutting 2 blue squares from a pattern paper to create a grid for the background. I chose a brighter green pattern paper for the center of the page. It created a focus to the center of the layout.

I used 3-d foams to raise the "4x4" letters.

The embellishment that I used for this layout was the Jolee's Boutique Safari dimensional stickers.

If I were to work on this layout again, I would make the date of the event smaller. I would also move the picture down, so the top half of the page is not so cramped together.

Mahana'i

Because of the meal plan with the hotel, we didn't get a chance to explore the local eateries in Moorea. When the sun went down, we were not able to go anywhere because it was dark out. We didn't have a car either. So, we spent our evenings at the hotel to relax. This was our first dinner at the hotel.

For this layout, I decided to do a double layout with the pictures of the food we ordered for that evening. The page was simple and I liked the way it turned out.

I decided to use a pattern cardstock paper as the background. I chose a blue metallic cardstock as a photo mat. I cut the flourish with my silhouette cutter and used silver metallic cardstock to give it a slight pop & color to the layout.

I cropped the six food pictures into the same size and arranged it according to appetizer, main course, dessert, and separated what I ordered from Tommy's. With all the cropping of the pictures, I ended up with a big gap of space down in the middle. I decided to use the silver metallic cardstock and cut out the name of the restaurant, Mahana'i to fill the gap in the middle. Again, I used the silhouette cutter.

I debated if I should round the corners at the time when I was putting this layout together, but I decided not to and kept the straight corners instead. If I could work on this page again, I would add flowers and gems to the left side of the page.

Hope you are all enjoying your week!

Ojai, CA

Ojai, a small little town in Ventura County, won my heart. I cannot forget how nice and peaceful the place was. I keep wanting to return for a longer stay on the weekend to spend more time in town. Ojai is known for the "Pink Moment." I tried to capture the moment on camera, but didn't seem to do too well.

I chose to use orange as a background and used pink and green pattern papers to put this single layout together. I kept the layout simple by alternating the pattern papers. This was my first scrapbook page that I used my Silhouette Cutter. I decided to do something simple, and cut letters with it. I also decided to overlap part of the pictures.

I decided to print out a google map to show the hotel we stayed, the restaurant we dined at to add a little extra touch to my layout. This way, I would never forget where I went when I visited Ojai back in 2008.

I liked the color of the page. I totally loved the cutter as I didn't have to spend hours to cut each letter out by hand! If I were to redo this page, I would give this page a new title, other than calling it as, "Ojai, CA."

Looks like this is my last entry for the month of March. Hopefully, I will continue to post just as much in April. I am doing my best to balance my time of posting and scrapbooking.

Napa Valley

My first weekend trip with Tommy, and we decided to take a road trip up to San Francisco and Napa Valley. We took my dad's BMW (which I paid lease on, and besides, his car was way under mileage! Totally took advantage of it.) We drove to San Francisco on Friday night and didn't arrive there until past midnight. We woke up early on Saturday morning to head to Napa Valley for our wine tasting adventure for the day. I am not going to be blogging about my wine tasting adventure in this blog. I will eventually blog about it in my travel blog, if I ever get to it.

We picked out 4 wineries we wanted to visit, but during our adventure, we took some advices from local wineries to visit some "must-visit" places. We ended up with 5 wineries for wine tastings, 1 winery for lunch, 1 winery for picture perfect view (winery closed by the time we got there!) and 1 winery that we couldn't tour because their tour was fully booked. We visited a total of 8 wineries!



I decided to do a double layout to showcase the wineries we went to. I decided to use a orange background because we went to Napa in October. Orange color reminds me of Fall season. I drew dotted lines on the layout to represent how we toured Napa Valley. I used a journal tag to list out the wineries we went to by order. I used Jolee's dimensional stickers as my embellishments for my layout.

What I like about this layout is the color. Everything seemed to match really well. I really like how I position each picture. It gave a playful, uplifting feel to the layout. I tried to do some stamping and embossing, unfortunately, it failed because I didn't have the right tool at that moment to emboss. I eventually gave up on the idea of stamping and embossing on this layout. Nonetheless, this page became one of my favorite.

Have a great weekend! :)