Normally we go at Thanksgiving but this year we thought we'd leave the snow to some other tourists and try a little fall and OH MY CAT was it amazing.
Perfect weather, perfect food, perfect stomping around weather, perfect everything. As always.
I went to the world's largest art supply store. It was like heaven! It was the size of a large Best Buy and had everything under the sun.
I bought paper that was made from stone. Tear and water-resistant, you can both write on it without a pencil - just a piece of metal if you want - and get GORGEOUS effects by painting on it with any medium. It stamps and watercolors like a dream, and if you join us for Hope You Can Cling To, you will see what I did with it for Beate's challenge on the first day. I'm in love.
I also got some Pan Pastels and about a billion other things. Good thing we drove. Just sayin'.
I geocached while I was there too - but I have to say - I learned a lot. It's very different from Austin because all the hides near me were urban hides, and in some ways, much harder. More muggles, more items I couldn't find.
My very favorite one here was a puzzle cache - It Started in Ethiopia. It took you to seven different coffee houses in and around downtown and you had to pick up clues at each to get to the final cache. It made for an amazing walking tour and it was cool to see so many different independent coffee houses. As a matter of fact, I didn't go to Starbucks the entire week! That's some kind of record for me!
So now I'm excited to get back to stamping and to work and to Hope You Can Cling To. If you're not familiar with this - it's a month of stamping challenges - a new challenge every day - and each card that's made is sent to the breast cancer patients and their families at the breast cancer treatment unit at MD Anderson.
Last year we sent more than 3000 cards! And while we were making them, we chatted, got to know each other, shared recipes and made friends. I so hope you can play along. So many people we all know are touched by this disease. We can lift their spirits by getting inky - it doesn't get any better than that!
Speaking of getting inky - I wanted to share the card I made for my monthly class with you, wherein I shamelessly stole two ideas from Jan Tink! First, her brilliant idea to make a cloud just by using two different sized circle punches - how smart is that????
Second, I used her snowdrift sponging technique by cutting a swoop out of a post it note and using it as a mask. Then just watercolor your little dude and you've MADE A SCENE! :)
