water color gallery wall

Have you heard of Waterlogue? It's been all over the blog world recently so you probably have, but if not, you really need to check it out! It's an app that turns any picture into a water color, and I'm kind of obsessed with it. For $2.99 plus the cost of printing, you get a personal piece of art!

I used Waterlogue and the Shutterfly app to create this wall in my living room:

These are all pictures I've taken on various trips. Kauai, Cancun, Paris, London, Ireland, and Venice are all represented. I love that I took each of them, and now they're such a cool part of  my living room. This wall is the first thing you see when you walk in the front door, and it makes me so happy every time I see it.

For the past 7 years, that wall has looked like this:

I liked the mirror and sconces, but it was time for a change.

I love the bright white frames and the addition of more color in the room. I'm trying to get away from having a specific color for each room (it was purple in this one, and I'm slowly getting away from every accessory being purple), and this has made a big difference.

I ordered 4x4 prints from Shutterfly for $.15 each, and these frames were $1 each at Michaels!

They're the unfinished ones that you can paint however you want. I spray painted mine white, but you could do any color, or a variety of colors, to coordinate with your home.

I love how the white frames make the colors in the pictures really stand out. This church in Ireland is one of my favorites!

This is my very favorite of all the pictures I've used Waterlogue on though.

It's a beach in Kauai, and I love everything about the way it looks as a water color. So I ordered an 8x10 print of this one, and (for now) it's sitting on the table next to the couch.

If you haven't tried Waterlogue yet, what are you waiting for?! It's so fun to see your pictures transform into water colors, and I love using pictures I've taken in my travels to create amazing and unique decor in my home. It's the only app I've ever paid for, and it's so worth it. I'm so excited about this new wall!

I've made a few other changes in my living room lately as the weather has started to warm up. I'm not sure I love this mantel, but what I do love about it is the addition of the flowers and grass in the vase (from Kauai!):

I've never been a big fan of fake plants before because I always thought they looked too...well, fake. You really can find some that are pretty real looking now though, and I'm loving the feeling of bringing nature and spring inside (I also love Ellen :) ).

This is what that wall looked like last spring:

The mantel decor is more simple now, and in December I added the shelf above the TV. It's a beautiful slab of wood with the bark still on the edges, and I just sealed it with polyurethane to keep the natural look.

Between the mantel, the shelf, and the vase next to the TV, I've added a lot of green plants and it gives the room such a happy, springy feeling. 

I've got one other change in this room coming up soon! It involves the mirror that used to be above the couch...

around the world

I've talked about my travels a little bit on this blog, but always kind of in passing as I mention that I got a bowl in Italy or a shirt I'm wearing in Dublin. I have some travel room updates coming soon (and I'll explain why I call it that), but I wanted to do something a little bit different and put together a round-up of some of my favorite pictures from my world wandering. Some are just pretty to look at and some have a story behind them, but they all represent the incredible experiences I've had and lots of amazing memories.

 I have another blog where I post all the details of each trip and I just love going back through those posts and remembering all the things I've done and the amazing places I've seen. As I was putting this post together, it really hit me how lucky I am to have been to all of these incredible places. This world really is an unbelievable place and I want to see it all! So fasten your seatbelt, put your seat back and tray table in their full upright positions, and enjoy this little trip around the world with me!

My first international trip was to Spain the summer after 8th grade. I went with a group of 15 girls, and we cared more about shopping than actually taking in the sights and culture of Spain. I would love to go back now that I'm older and can appreciate shopping and culture. Unfortunately, that trip was way before digital cameras so I don't have pictures to share here. My 2 semesters in Hawaii during college were also pre-digital, but that is where I really fell in love with other cultures and wanted to see the world and learn everything I could about how other people live. It's so fascinating to me. So we're starting here with my first trip with a digital camera.

Italy

Vatican Museum ~ every inch of every surface was covered with paintings, mosaics, tapestries, and sculptures. Beautiful.

Grand Canal in Venice ~ I didn't know until I went to Venice that it's all canals. There are no streets, no cars, nothing with wheels basically. Just walkways and canals. Pretty impressive.

New York

We were in the audience for a taping of the Late Show and it was such a fun thing to do!

View from the top of the Empire State Building

London

Big Ben ~ I heard they renamed it, but to me it will always be Big Ben


Westminster Abbey (hands down, best abbey I've ever seen)


Windsor Castle - the queen's second home. I loved this day. We took a train out of London a little bit to get here and I loved the little town of Windsor with its cobblestone streets lined with cafes, and this castle was unbelievable. It's so much bigger than what you see in the picture. Our tour took a few hours and we barely saw a little section of it. The life of a queen doesn't seem so bad.

Paris

The Eiffel Tower at night


Standing on top of the Arc de Triomphe with the Eiffel Tower in the background. We climbed a never-ending spiral staircase to get up there and my legs felt like mush by the time we finally made it, but the view from the top was pretty amazing.

Cancun

Funny how a little bit of paint made these guys at Tulum seem a lot less naked

Parasailing in Mexico is pretty ghetto. It this picture I'm sitting on a rolled up towel hooked with rope to a tarp. It was fun though!

Our resort. We stayed in the white building on the left, and just past that you can see the ocean. Take-your-breath-away beautiful. I spent my 30th birthday here and it was the perfect way to turn the page on a new decade.

Prague

Karlstejn Castle ~ we had a hilarious guide and loved our tour of this castle, even though it's not heated and it could not have been more than 20° in there.


Still Karlstejn ~ that box on the side of the castle was the king's bathroom and it was just open on the bottom. If you're feeling sorry for the king who had to use an open bathroom in the winter, think about the poor soul whose job it was to go out and clean up the ground every day.

China

Great Wall of China ~ our guide told us anyone who climbs to the top is considered a "true Chinese hero," so you may refer to me as such :)

The Chinese people at the Great Wall acted like they had never seen a white person before and kept asking to take pictures with us. We felt like celebrities!

This was one of the most amazing things I've ever done. We road in this rickshaw pulled by a man on a bike through the hutong (an old part of Beijing where the streets are less than 9 steps across) and ended up at the house below. The woman who lives there cooked a homemade meal for us that was delicious. It was so amazing to talk to her and see how her family lives. An incredible experience.

Yu Garden in Shanghai ~ right in the middle of the bustling city of Shanghai, this garden is quiet, peaceful, and so beautiful.

Ireland

This trip to Ireland started with a day in New York with my friend and travel buddy Rikki. Sadly, she was not able to go to Ireland with me because she was pregnant and had some complications, but her doctor said a day in New York would be okay. We had seen Wicked before in London and were so excited to see it again!

This friendly Irish wolf hound guarded the door to the first castle we stayed in. So perfect.

Our Nissan Micra with everything on the other side. That took some getting used to and I was nervous at first, but it ended up being kind of fun once I got the hang of it.

The second castle we stayed in was haunted. Don't believe me? Look at the picture of our bathroom wall below.

It was seriously a creepy place.

Kissing the Blarney Stone

Kauai

No description required for a picture of a beach sunset

Waimea Falls ~ this picture has been on my desktop since we got back. That's how much I love it.

My brothers and nephews

Something beautiful to see everywhere you look

This is a picture of a picture so it's not the best, but my brothers and I took a ride in that helicopter over the island. I maintain that it was amazing and totally worth it...even though I got to taste my lunch a second time during the ride. Motion and I are not friends.

Costa Rica

La Fortuna Waterfall ~ we hiked down (and then back up) millions of steps to get here and swam in the pool. Cold, but so fun.

We found this little guy at the end of a hike through the rainforest

Click on this one to enlarge it. We were so close to this tree full of howler monkeys. So amazing.

Tabacon ~ an all natural hot springs, and as you can see, absolutely beautiful.

Lake Arenal ~ we did 2 different sets of zip lines and this was the view from one of the platforms.

As you can imagine, I have tons more pictures from all of these places, each with a memory attached. This has been such a fun post for me to write, and I hope you enjoyed a look at a few of my favorites! I'll end with my favorite quote (that you've seen here):

"The world is a book and those who do not travel read only one page"
~St Augustine

Linked to
Keeping It Simple

travel journal

For my upcoming trip to Ireland (in 2 days!) I wanted to make a travel journal. I keep a regular journal but wanted one that was specifically tailored to the things I want to keep track of when I'm on a trip. Inspiration for this project came from this one by Tamara from Etcetorize, this one from an Italian blog, and some ideas of my own.

I started with this $2 notebook from Office Depot.

I knew the cover would be easy to transform, and inside the back cover I found this!

I don't need fractions or a multiplication chart, but metric conversions? Yes! We'll be driving a rental car in a country where speed is measured in kilometers per hour and gas is bought by the liter, so this chart is going to be very helpful!

This is the finished product!

I cut some travel themed paper to fit the front cover, applied a thin layer of Mod Podge, and carefully smoothed out any bubbles.

The back side got covered too

You can also see in these shots that I added a ribbon to use as a bookmark. I just glued it up the spine of the notebook and then cut it long enough to go between the pages and hang down a little bit. I use clear nail polish to bind the ends of the ribbon and keep it from fraying. I've done that several times on different projects and it works great!

I also added some tabs so I could have sections dedicated to the different things I want to keep a record of. I guess I should have taken this picture from the other direction :) The sections are journal, photo log, reviews (I'm starting another blog where I write reviews of airlines, hotels, tours, etc that I use in my travels - stay tuned for more info on that when I get back), budget, and other stuff.

I wanted the tabs to be a little bit more sturdy than just a piece of paper glued to the edge of the notebook paper because I thought they would tear off too easily, so this was my solution. Long tabs attached to the paper using clear packing tape. They're not going anywhere.

Inside the front cover I made a pocket where I can store any little cards or papers I want to keep.

To do that I cut a piece of paper the size I wanted the pocket to be (the one with the Eiffel Tower on it), and then cut a second piece about 1/4 inch larger on 3 sides. I cut out the corners of that piece, scored the 3 sides that are bigger than the front pocket piece, and folded them up. I didn't get good pictures of that, but hopefully it makes sense.

Then I glued the front piece to the folded edges of the back piece, being careful not to let any glue seep through and glue the whole thing together. You want it to be able to open up, like this.

Then I just glued that inside the front cover of the notebook, which I had also covered with paper.

I'm so happy with how my travel journal turned out and I can't wait to use it on my trip!

Linked to

Junk in their Trunk

Uncommon

Ginger Snap Crafts

Not JUST a Housewife

Etcetorize

52 Mantels

Crafty Scrappy Happy

The Shabby Creek Cottage