Simon Says..........Travel/Vacation

Happy Wednesday - welcome to our challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday Challenge Blog!

Our theme this week is Travel/Vacation, and we're playing with Lawn Fawn goodies!  Like so many others, my idea of getting away is a beach.  So I chose these Lawn Fawn Palm Trees dies and built a little scene around them.

supplies: white, Desert Storm, Green Leaf, yellow, red, and kraft cardstock, Doodlebug red/white striped dp, Lawn Fawn Palm Trees dies, Simon's Sailboat and sun (from retired Hello Sunshine Frames) dies, MFT Snow Drifts die, sentiment from Sea You Soon, distress oxide inks tumbled glass, broken china, mermaid lagoon, and salty ocean, adhesive strips to pop up trees

My blue panel is a sponging of 4 distress oxides to simulate water and sky.  Our chosen beach is along the Gulf Coast of southwest Florida - the colors of the water and sky there are what dreams are made of!

Now it's your turn!  I'm looking forward to your entries this week!  We have a $50.00 gift certificate 

to the amazing Simon Says Stamp store for 1 lucky random winner of this week's challenge!  I can't wait to see what you all make!

Honey, I'm home!

Hi bloggers - did you miss me?  My husband and I have just returned from a trip to Maine.  We started at the southern end along the coast and worked our way slowly up the coast to Bar Harbor, visiting some of our favorite places along the way.  Thought I'd share a few pictures today of our adventures.

Lighthouses - other than lobster, that may be Maine's other claim to fame.  Here are a few we visited this time around.

Nubble Light, in Cape Neddick, near York

Marshall Point Light, in Port Clyde, on the St. George Peninsula

Pumpkin Island Light, now privately owned, off Deer Isle

and the often-photographed Bass Harbor Light, in Acadia on Mt. Desert Island.   In order to get this photograph, you have to walk down many stairs and across lots of rocks!  No, that's not me in the corner.....

Of course, we ate lots of lobster, and scallops, too, and we stayed in some lovely inns at each stop, one of them Pilgrim's Inn, built in 1793!

And all along our drive we saw some beautiful scenery.

These little boats get the lobstermen out to their boats to check their traps.

A typical seaside scene with more lobster boats

This was taken in Acadia National Park, near an area called Otter Cliff, one of my favorite places in the world.

We had glorious, sunny, cool weather, as we always do in September.  And just before we arrived, they actually saw the Northern Lights in Acadia!  And there were patches of beautiful fall color starting to appear here and there, especially as we got further north.

Needless to say, we are refreshed and ready to get back to normal.  Now to get my mojo in gear again........see you soon!

Simon Says..........Vacation/Travel

Good morning!  Here we are in the middle of the week, which means it's time for a new challenge at the Simon Says Stamp Wednesday challenge blog!

This week we've chosen Vacation or Travel as our theme, and the design team are all using Studio Calico products.  They make a great variety of products: stencils, paper, embellishments!  If you have any of their products, we'd love to see you using them, too!  

Many of our vacation and travel plans revolve around visiting our grandkids who live in Texas, and so I made a card to reflect that:

Almost all of the supplies I used are Studio Calico products: papers from their Thataway paper pad, geotags, and a wood veneer airplane.  My sentiment was stamped using an old Hero Arts alphabet set, and I thought it was appropriate for the theme this week!  I am NOT a good traveller, and I've been known to voice this sentiment myself on these long trips!

Now it's your turn!  Heidi has generously provided another $50.00 gift voucher

to her fabulous Simon Says Stamp store!

*Studio Calico THATAWAY 6 x 6 Paper Pack 331528

*Studio Calico YELLOW & ORANGE GEOTAGS Essentials Chipboard Shapes 332082

*Studio Calico TRANSPORTATION Wood Veneer Shapes 331034

InLinkz.com

A day out in Sarasota

I thought I'd change things up a bit and share with you some pictures of our trip today to the Marie Selby Botanical Gardens in Sarasota.  The grounds are along  Sarasota Bay, with a beautiful view of the city:

They cover 14 acres of the former estate of Marie Selby, and were born in 1975, after she left them to the city.  The gardens specialize in plants called Epiphytes, which are plants that live on other plants but are non-parasitic.  They are commonly called "air plants" and attach to their host plant for support and as a means to reach more sunlight.  They can be found among orchids, bromeliads, ferns, heath and mosses.  The most common one is Spanish Moss!

Here's a collage of some of the beautiful and interesting plants in the greenhouse there:

Doesn't that plant on the bottom right look like a bunch of baby birds that are waiting for Mama to bring them some worms?  Outside, there is a small bonsai exhibit:

And there are also some banyan trees, which are actually in the fig family and are epiphytes that have started by depositing seeds in the cracks of a host tree.  These trees are not uncommon in Florida - not far from where we are living here, there is a charming town called Boca Grande, which  has many of them also.  This is ONE tree:

The former home of Marie Selby and her husband has been turned into a coffee and tea house, and there is a wonderful Rainforest quilt!  I wish I could do it justice in my photo:

Here's a collage of some of the 3D elements that the maker, Ms. Raynor Pope added to it.  See the snake and the lizard, as well as some beautiful orchids and other flowers.

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We spent a few hours at this beautiful place, and then headed over to St. Armand's Circle in Sarasota for a wonderful lunch at the Columbia Restaurant, billed as Florida's oldest and most honored Spanish restaurant.  We had coconut crusted mahi-mahi with a mango and tropical fruit salsa and yellow rice, along with Sangria.  Perfection!