I love love love to travel…and taking in the public art and architecture is a BIG part of my travel experience. Just taking these new sights in really influences my art and craft design sensibilities. In this 4-minute video, I share with you the highlights of my week in Melbourne, Australia, focusing on old architecture, NEW architecture, public art, and GRAFFITI! Take a peek: So…my broad takeaways of Melbourne: It’s a very “European” city- lots of foreign speakers, travelers […]
Travel Crafting Kit Round-Up & Trip to Oz
If you’ve been here a while, you know I LOVE to travel. It doesn’t really even matter where- in my home state, across the country, North America, Europe.. well, I just love to go and see this beautiful earth of ours! Last October I took my first honest-to-goodness trip to Europe (Italy) to visit our AFS daughter and celebrate her 18th birthday. And then in November we went to Hawaii. But now… I’m heading down under to Australia! This will be my first visit […]
Crafty Field Trip to Hawaii, Part 3 of 3: Quilt Shop!
So since Hawaii is known for their quilts, what trip to the Big Island would be complete without a trip to a local Quilt Shop. (By the way, if you’d like to see my trip to the craft store & scrapbooking store and/or the bead shop, just click those links too.) The aforementioned quilt shop was right next to the bead store (very convenient) and the name- Quilt Passions– very apropos. We were there during the Kona Coffee Festival (hence […]
Crafty Field Trip- Hawaii, Part 2 (BEADS!)
As I mentioned before in Part 1 of the Crafty Field Trip Hawaii series, I often have a junior partner in crafty crime- my nine-year old daughter Bailey. We had scoured the Kona Coffee Festival booths that were loaded with locally-made jewelry, and she really wanted to buy some pieces for her friends. As you can imagine, though, the *good* stuff was out of her price range, and what was left was pretty tacky and touristy. So I promised her […]
Crafty Field Trip: Hawaii (Part 1 of 3)
As some of you know, I LOVE to travel. Seriously love it. And I often am not picky at all about where I go, as long as I get to see the sights and eat the food….and visit a few craft stores or handmade markets along the way! This month our whole family took a trip to Hawaii’s Big Island (also called Hawaii) and we spent 5 days taking it all in. And one of the sights (for me at […]
International Polymer Clay Association Retreat in Columbus Ohio
Sometimes, you just need a “creative jumpstart” to get your mojo flowing, or a road trip, or a combination of both. My best crafty pal Vicki O’Dell and I decided that we’d do just that and headed down to the International Polymer Clay Association retreat last week, which was held in our home state of Ohio! I’m not gonna lie- Vicki and I are like peanut butter and jelly and we have fun anywhere we go. But this was […]
Crafty Field Trip: Medina Ohio
Sometimes you need to recharge your creative batteries with a change of scenery. For me, I like to got to museums, take nature walks, go thrifting, or visit some craft stores. Last Friday, my craft BFF Vicki O’Dell and I met up in the lovely Medina, Ohio to check out a bead shop, eat some lunch, and recharge those batteries together! We met up and headed off to the Potomac Bead Shop– an amazingly renovated two-level storefront just off the […]
Behind the Scenes at Scrapbook Soup TV
This week I visited the brand new KS Productions Studios to be on-set for the filming of the next season of Scrapbook Soup. I visited back in 2011 to share some tips on crafting as you age, but this time I had THREE segments! All of them where “how-to’s”, each using a die-cut element. But this visit was a whole different experience! First I’ll show you the projects. You can see that I use die-cuts for each of my projects. […]
Crafty Field Trip: Piktails of Orlando, Florida
Last week I took a vacation with my family to Florida. Funny, I’ve been there 5 times since December but haven’t had a chance to actually enjoy the sunshine! So of course I soaked up some rays, visited some theme parks, and took a field trip to a scrapbook store, Piktails! (Side note: actually, we tried to visit TWO, but Scrappy Boutique closed it’s doors in January. We found out that it turned into an online-only retail venue the hard […]
Beaded VW Bug- the “Vochol” at the National Museum of the American Indian
Last month my family and I traveled to the Capitol to see the sights over spring break. One of my favorite new museums is the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian. First off, the building is just amazing. Designed to mimic the red rock bluffs of the American southwest, the undulating curves on the outside are just magical. The interior is reminiscent of a sweat lodge- light and airy, with a round skylight in the roof. And the WHOLE […]
CraftTestDummies at Martha Stewart Craft Week- Part 2
(Read Part One of my adventure here, if you’ve missed it!) So Monday, October 3rd was the big day- the day I got to go to the Martha Stewart Show as a “featured audience member!” They invited some of us crafty bloggers to come and blog/facebook/tweet live from the show. Haley- my “plus-one” for this event- was already in line, wearing a hand-made rolled fabric hair clip and this AMAZING necklace designed by Vicki O Dell. (Haley commissioned Vicki to […]
CraftTestDummies at The Martha Stewart Show Craft Week-Part 1
Wow! In a whirl-wind trip from Sunday, October 2 over To Monday, October 3rd to 2011 I was in NYC for the Martha Stewart Show Craft Week. But you KNOW I had to take a few detours, too, to visit some crafty places and see some crafty faces! Since the Martha Stewart Show studios are in the Fashion District I figured I’d stay there. (I’m a Hilton gal. Love me some Hiltons. The beds are the best. But I digress….) […]
California Crafty Field Trips: Two Local Craft/Scrapbooking Stores
One of the things I just LOVE about traveling is the chance to meet other crafters and visit local guilds & shops! Well, last month while I was vacationing in Carlsbad, I took an afternoon to visit a few local stores. First I visited Gee Gee’s Stamps ‘n’ Stuff. Located on 2965 State Street, Carlsbad, this cute little shop is tucked away in a busy “Main Street” type of thoroughfair. But don’t let the small width of the store front […]
UK Week, part 2: The Accidental Crafter
I believe I must have been born under a lucky sign- I stumble, quite literally sometimes, into the most wonderful crafty situations. This happened on three occasions on my London trip- and I’m so tickled to share them with you. The first was happening across a lovely paper shop while out tromping around with my kids. We were heading to Regent’s Park- quite a walk from our hotel- and we passed right by Shepherd’s Falkiner’s store. Formerly Falkiner’s Fine Papers, […]
UK WEEK, part 1: Photo Journal {Craft and Inspiration}
A few weeks ago I had the good fortune to travel with my family to London for 10 days worth of walking, sight-seeing, and of course, searching for art and craft! Just walking around the city you can’t help but be inspired by the architecture. And in our travels, I found some amazing works of art/craft that couldn’t help but take photos of so I could share with you: This was the alter cloth at All Hallow’s Church– reportely the […]
