Out of our Bubble...

...Hubby surprised me with a little get-away this week.  At first I thought he was joking or just talking but no! He wanted to take me to Sebastopol and to the ocean to get a breath of salt air. It's been a stressful time with deaths in our family & illness for us and others, so it was nice to get out of our bubble. He wouldn't listen to my protests & lists of things to do.  I'm so glad he didn't.
A few years ago we set out for Sebastopol after a get-away stay in Petaluma but taking a different turn (wrong turn) we ended up at Point Reyes Lighthouse & Drake's Bay.  I blogged about that get-away too. Click HERE to see that post & video. I'll share my photos, even though most were taken from our moving vehicle.
On our way to Jenner we made a detour to visit Occidental, home of the The Union Hotel.  My late Mother-in-Law used to go there when she was a little girl. His family used to take the long windy drive from San Francisco just to eat a dinner of duck at this out of the way tiny town on the Bohemian Hwy. It opened in 1879. They no longer serve duck but do still serve family style Italian food. Just click on the picture below to read more about it.

We went into a few beautiful shops, actually there are only a few, because this town is tiny.  I'd like to go back one day to eat at the Union Hotel or Nigri's Italian Family Style Dinners We then headed to the coast to Jenner to get some of that salt air.  The drive & the day were gorgeous. 

*used a zoom

Jenner, CA

And we found a few surprising places...

"Amusements" Park ?

Monte Rio is on the Russian River

When we entered this fork in the road & I read the sign I have to admit that I felt like I entered the Twilight Zone, not a Wonderland, suddenly feeling like a character in a horror movie, potential victim actually. Silly as it seems, I'm glad we are keeping to the right! haha If anyone knows & loves this place forgive me & please tell me it's not creepy.  Certain towns and places in this neck of the woods give off a "Alfred Hitchcockie" kind of vibe to me, a "disturbance in the force".  Then, coincidentally, when we were eating supper, the couple in back of us were talking about the same thing.  I'm not the only person that feels this way! The man was telling the woman that "There are roads you wouldn't want to go down around here."  Not that I was eavesdropping but we were the only people in the cafe at the time (eating a late lunch/early dinner) and the food was so good we weren't talking at our table!  Popping into the  East West Cafe in Sebastopol was a tasty treat. Hubby is still talking about his Lamb Kabobs. 

When checking out of the hotel a local free travel/area magazine caught my eye.  My right brain quickly noticing a man painting on the front.  That man/artist is Thomas Arvid. Inside was a really nice article about him and his art. He paints realistic wine inspired paintings, bottles, corks, etc... Click on his name to view his bio & art. Anyway I grabbed 3 free local info magazines for the Wine Country, Sonoma & Napa Counties. 

Last night I read them all then cut them up so I could throw them away.  (The way I deal with my magazine addiction. haha) I made a collage from what I found in these periodicals.  Using Golden Matte Medium I glued my cutouts to heavy card-stock.  If you plan to do this using the same medium beware that the paper grabs right to the card-stock so there is no moving around once you lay it down.  I laid it out before I glued it down. Now I can print it out or re-cut the pieces out & use mounted on the card-stock. That is what I might do if I make a little memory book from our trip. Speaking of bookmaking, stop by next Thursday for Ta Da Thursday! 

 I scanned it after it was dry and cleaned it up a little. 

You are free to use this page. Print or for inspiration.

So next time you are on a adventure don't overlook those free area guides! 

They are great for inspiration, art projects, mixed media, collage, journal or scrapbook projects!

Just right click on the picture and save to your computer.

If you use it, please don't forget to share your creation with me and I will share whatever I end up creating with this collage page.

God Bless & Thanks for stopping by!

In Piles of Paper...

That's where I've been the last few days. About every 6 months I go through this. I mess up everything I paint so I pull out all my paper, bits & pieces then dive into the big mess. However, yesterday I did paint some scrapbook paper bright colors then stamped it with copper & silver designs. I love paper. I've been busy making journals out of paper bags (that I bought last time I went through this) and out of old legal size envelopes. I made this little scrapbook for my son & put the pictures of him on our trip to South Carolina last April. I thought he was going to think it was cheesy but he loved it. He went to Michael's with me today, took off on his own & found stickers for it. I must say they did make it really cute and he even found them in the sale bin! Here are a few pictures. I won't bore you posting pictures of the whole thing, that might be like making you watch family home movies! I am working on a book with lots of Altered Pages that were shown in my other happy place: Altered Pages Altered Thoughts. I may list that one in my Artfire shop if it turns out, and if I can part with it, as well as some little journals or ACEO books.

A big shout out goes to KittyKent for featuring My Incorrigible Carnie in her wonderfully whimsical Etsy Treasury! See it here. Thanks Kitty Kent!