Craft Hoarders Anonymous Challenge 21…Have a nice trip!

It's time for the last challenge of 2014 at

Craft Hoarders Anonymous.

Can you believe this is number 22????

How time has flown since the 1st one.

I hope that you have enjoyed playing along with each one as much as I have.

                                        Challenge #22 Have a Nice Trip! 
                         Many of us travel around the holidays, so let's celebrate our adventures!
                       Dig into your hoard and find some items that are vacation or travel themed.
Do you have a hoard of cruise ship ephemera? Do you have a box of transportation stamps? Do you have a stash of camping themed papers? Or piles of Disney embellishments?
                                                                Show them off!
                                    Create a vacation or travel themed project for us!

Here is the layout I created for this challenge.

In 2011 we took the ultimate road trip. 

Traveling across the ocean to Germany to pick up my husbands new car.

I hoard every little teeny tiny scrap of paper and this layout was a perfect place to use them.

By tearing the edges and punching some others I created

little pops of color on my page.

I used white card stock as my base. 

Rubbed some Distress ink through a Crafter's Workshop stencil as well

as misting with some Lindy's Stamp Gang Starburst Spray.

I used stamps from Artistic Outpost and Distress inks to add the maps and title

to the page. 

You can see I don't always clean my stamps well

since there is a bit of color variation on some of the images.

It's ok though, I tend to like the results when it does this.

Supplies:

Cardstock

Paper scraps

Lindy's Stamp Gang mist

Distress ink

Artistic Outpost stamps

This month our challenge is sponsored by

Spellbinders® Paper Arts LLC entered the craft and hobby market in 2003 with the introduction of the Spellbinders Wizard™ Universal Craft Tool and a unique, patented collection of dies unlike any introduced before - or since. Always on the cutting edge in introducing innovative tools to the market, the Spellbinders Artisan X-plorer™ machine is the company's latest offering for paper crafters, jewelry artists, mixed media creators and more . In addition, the Spellbinders Grand Calibur® machine is perfect for large format die cutting and embossing. Known worldwide for its game changing products, the company brings revolutionary technology with its Imperial Gold die templates that cut, emboss, deboss and stencil. Spellbinders product lines include more than 250 patented and patent-pending products, allowing crafters, hobbyists, artists and teachers to create one-of-a-kind; beautiful projects across a different variety of craft genres.

One person who links up their project before the deadline has a chance to win 

this awesome pack of dies.

So head on over to the rest of the design team 

and see what they have created.

Amber Milone
Christy Butters
Debbie Seyer
Donna Idlet
Ginny Nemchak

Glenda Brooks
Gloria Stengel
Jan Marie Ennenga
Karen Zueger

Kathy Clement

Pam Bray
Wendi Robinson

Then head on back to 

Craft Hoarders Anonymous 

and link up your project.

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

On the road again...

Last week we spent traveling up North. Spending most of our time in PA we took some time to visit Longwood Gardens located in Kennett  Square, PA.

This is an absolutely beautiful spot right off of Route . You can spend hours here if you have the time.

Unfortunately for us we only had a little over an hour.

What did we do?

We headed straight for the Conservatory which is a short walk from the main entrance.

The Conservatory was constructed between 1919 and 1921. It covers over 4 acres of beautiful gardens all under glass.

There are over 20 rooms located inside, from a beautiful Children's garden, with lots of hands on activities, to fruit gardens, rose gardens waterlilies and more.

Around every corner is a new site to take in.

One of the first stops is always to the Children's Garden.

There are fountains everywhere in this room begging to be touched and played in, no worries about cold water either, they keep it warm for the little ones.

Fountains from up high...

and down low...

A small maze to walk through filled with color and light.

Extremely detailed.

and just fun to splash.

I love this peacock!

Leaving the Children's Garden you come to one of the larger rooms.

Plenty of chairs to sit in and take the view.

Look at this!!!!

Can you believe it is inside?????

Continuing our walk...

This is a sunken floor room that they actually flood on purpose to help add moisture to the air.

Lots of fruits here too. From nectarines and figs, oranges to grapes.

All grown in small spaces.

More fountains (my DH wants to do this in our backyard)

and on to The Silver Garden.

This was so cool to see. Even without the brightly colored flowers and foliage found elsewhere it still causes you to pause and take it all in.

more

We went from lush tropical to dry desert all in the same building.

My favorite flowers...

And out the front doors to this huge fountain display.

Periodically during the day the fountains will put on shows set to music skyrocketing water into the air.

If you go at night it also includes fireworks with the displays.

If you are ever in the area I highly recommend stopping in for a visit.

Even on a short trip through you still can see so much!

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Revisiting Paris

I've spent the whole day filming and editing video for my new Art Journal class coming next week (check out The Art Studio June 7th) so I don't have anything I can share today.

So...

I decided to go back to how I celebrated my 40th birthday.

My husband took me AND NO KIDS to Paris for 4 days.

We hopped off the plane, dropped off our luggage and immediately headed over to Sacre Couer.

We've been to the city several times but somehow had never made it to the church.

The sky was absolutely brilliant in it's blue without a cloud in the sky.

I made the decision we'd walk up. I'm in good shape but I was seriously sucking wind by the time we got to the top.

Absolutely stunning, the white against the blue.

See, we are actually there. Sometimes I have to remind myself to jump in the pictures as well.

This is a truly Parisian scene at a cafe in Montmatre. It was decidedly chilly outside but nothing was going to stop this couple from enjoying cafe & the sun.

I love the yellow boots.

After we left Sacre Couer we still had time before we could check in to our hotel.

Off we went to my most favorite museum in the world...

The Musee D'Orsay.

No matter how short our visit is we always make time to stop by here.

The museum is in an old train station. Through one of the clock faces we could look out over the city back where we had been earlier in the day.

Just a shot when you walk in the entrance. The light here is amazing.

I could sit in here for hours.

That's it for today...

Maybe soon I'll share what we did on day 2 (hint it involved several champagne houses ).

Thanks for stopping by and have a great day!

Flashback Sunday...to San Gimignano Italy

This time last year we were getting ready to head over to Italy for my oldest daughter's graduation present.

I thought today I'd share some pictures from one of the stops we made as we traveled the country.

Here we are in San Gimignano, found in the province of Siena, Tuscany.

The town was a short bus ride from Florence. Situated on a hilltop is still is home to 14 medieval towers.

You have to walk up a the side of a tall hill to get to the town from the parking area.

As you stop to look over your shoulder this is what you see...

In front of you as you walk are tall stone buildings with the multiple flags hanging.

A shot of 2 of the towers.

They are amazingly well preserved.

                                           
           On top of some of the towers as well as throughout the town were these statutes of men.
               They did cause you to take a second look. From a distance they looked almost real.

Closeup of one of the statues.

Now the other thing we found in the town was this Gelato place. It claimed to be home of the best gelato in the world.

Now I'm not sure if it was the best but it definitely was YUMMY.

And it had the ordinary to the extraordinary in terms of flavor combinations

(me I stuck with coffee)

The girls liked it, they ate it all. The little one even got seconds when her Daddy & Grandmother made it up the hill to get some.

Thanks for taking a quick trip down memory lane.

Have a great day!