Live in the Sunshine

Aloha friends...we recently returned from a fabulous 2 week vacation in tropical Hawaii. We spent the 1st week in Oahu in the sleepy little surfer town, Haliewa/Waialua. It was an incredible week filled with lots of sand and surf, hiking Diamond Head, getting lost in a pineapple maze, a luau and more. The 2nd week was spent with friends who live on the Big Island. They have the most gorgeous house on a hill full of coffee trees, overlooking the Pacific. We went star gazing, hiked caves and lava tubes, saw an active volcano and went to the most gorgeous angel soft white sand and black sand beaches.

Why am I telling you this?  Two reasons...the 1st and most important is to ask for your P&PT for our friends who live there. They are prepping for 2 back to back hurricanes to hit the Big Island and at the same time, the earth quaked. We adore them dearly and just want them safe. Second, I created this layout for Beach week on the American Crafts blog.

Supplies: American Crafts #summer collection; American Crafts 'hearts' cutting file.

Staying with locals meant staying away from the tourist filled beaches!  Our friends took us to Kekeha Kai State Park to a beautiful beach there. About halfway through the day, we took a hike over lava rocks . We walked on the lava for a good 20 minutes to Makalawena. My daughter describes this as the "angel soft" beach and she is soo right. Crystal clear water, white, sugary sand, great waves.....sigh. I am so ready to go back.

I LOVE this photo of my oldest boogie boarding. She always has the best time doing this every time we go to the beach. It was such a great photo, I decided to supersize it and use it as my background.

I wanted to create waves over the bottom half of the page so I watercolored a white 12x12 cardstock with 2 shades of blue. Then I cut rows of hearts using the American Crafts "hearts" file and then layered them over each other.

I'm looking forward to visiting Hawaii again. Probably The Big Island again and Maui so please send your P&PT for those impacted by the weather. Thanks for stopping by today.