Brown-Eyed Girl Photography » travel

Home from The Creative Connection!

Jana — Tue, 21 Sep 2010 21:11:27 +0000

I’ve not even been home 2 days yet but I still wanted to share some thoughts & photos from my weekend in Minneapolis at The Creative Connection! I was asked to come along and help out with the event so I did just that since I’d been very intrigued by the whole idea of integrating crafting & business into one every since I’d first heard about the event. I loved the thought of being able to take a fun class in the morning taught by Jenni Bowlin, Kaari Meng or Wendy Addison and then also attend an afternoon panel discussion about “taking your business to the next level” or “how to use social media as a marketing tool”. What a brilliant concept because so many crafty women also sell their wares either online or in a brick & mortar store! It was also amazing to hear speeches by Amy Butler and Mary Jane Butters and listen to Heather Bailey, Leigh Standley and Tiffany Windsor discuss their businesses intimately within a small panel discussion. As you can tell, I am a fan of the event and really enjoyed being there! It’s always great seeing friends I’ve made over the years through scrapbooking & other crafting events. I always love seeing Rebecca Sower and buying one of her lovely heartfelt pieces of jewelry to add to my ever-expanding collection and I discovered so many new wonderful talented crafters at the Handmade Market. My pocketbook took quite a hit at the market but I found some wonderful treasures to bring home with me and along with Jessi I discovered the world of punch needle embroidery that I can’t wait to begin! (as if I need yet ANOTHER hobby!!) Here are some of my favorite images from my 5 days in Minnesota……..enjoy.

the view from my hotel room, I loved the colors reflecting off the building windows

some pretty images from various booths at the Handmade Market……I LOVED these adorable cupcakes

A view of some of the attendees listening to Amy Buter speak during dinner (note her fabric on the tables!). LOVED hearing her speak.

the decor at the event was beautiful, no detail left unturned…..

I loved these huge wreaths made out of pages of an old book, SO clever…..

I was SO excited to finally meet Jo Packham & hear Ree Drummond, the Pioneer Woman, speak at lunch the first day…….she’s SO funny, inspiration AND a fellow Okie!

You just have to love an event where they serve iced tea & lemoade out of huge mason jars!

These are my peeps……long-time crafty & down-to-earth friends and I loved spending time with them again…..Melene, Heather and Danielle

I love the new fall purse I bought from Cheryl of Tru-Leigh Yours Designs.

and of course a trip isn’t complete without my mandatory Southwest wing shot and with MOUNTAINS too!

Hopefully you enjoyed this little glimpse into my weekend in Minneapolis. Thanks to all of you I worked with at the registration desk and at the event, you all were great and we sure made a good team!

Better late than never!

Jana — Mon, 21 Jun 2010 23:38:33 +0000

Ok, so it’s summertime and you’d think that’d mean MORE time to catch up on things and spend time on the computer but so far this summer seems to mean the opposite for me! However, it IS my goal to get caught up on posting pics from sessions, trips, etc. and I thought a good place to start would be with our family vacation to Mexico that we took in February (yes, February. I know, pathetic that I’m just now posting pics, right?!). The boys had never been on a cruise before and Texas is actually a pretty good place to live if you’re into cruises since we can just drive a few short hours to the coast and hop on board a ship so that’s what we did. We took a short Carnival cruise out of Galveston to Cozumel and although the cruise itself was very nice, it was sad to see the devistation that Cozumel endured at the hands of Hurricane Wilma in 2005. Very little of the island has been rebuilt although if you didn’t leave port then you might not even know that but since we couldn’t do our original water excursion because of high tides, we took a bus tour around the island and saw first-hand what a hurricane can do to a previously gorgeous tropical paradise.

The weather on our trip started out looking like this. NOT good, not good at all.

After a bumpy night at sea, thankfully we awoke to a lovely morning! (I was having a Titanic moment at the front of the ship taking this photo!)

We toured the ship and decided it was time to heard to the pool like everyone else since we were still out at sea….

We staked out our spots around the pool and soaked in some rays since it was still cool & rainy back home…..

…..and this is pretty much where I stayed for most of the day since it was cool & rainy back home.

The next day we headed into Cozumel for bus tour. Plenty to see but few beautiful photo ops unfortunately, I had to see beauty where I could find it. In a lone palm tree….

In the eyes of my oldest son…..

Even found beauty in a case of old Coca Cola bottles in a small village……

Even found beauty in this huge lizard who was sunbathing & quite camouflaged in this small Mexican village model….

And in a small local souvenir stand…….

And all too quickly our day was over and it was time to head back to the ship and back home to reality. *sigh*

Bye Carnival Ecstasy, we’re going to miss you and your 24 hr. pizza buffet!

California Dreamin’ {Brown-Eyed Girl Photography}

Jana — Fri, 21 Aug 2009 00:05:51 +0000

As I’m sitting here in my nice cool house dreading going outside because we’ve hit yet ANOTHER day of 100+ degree temps (think this makes 60+ days of 100+ temps so far this summer) I often find myself daydreaming about being back in California again. The hubby and I took a trip to Napa Valley & San Francisco last month to celebrate our 20th wedding anniversary which is coming up in September and oh my, I just loved it out there. Although it did get quite warm in Napa, generally the temps were still much cooler than what we have to endure here in south Texas and the foliage & landscape there was certainly much prettier & greener than what we have to look at here thanks to the drought. As we drove into San Francisco from Napa, we watched the temps dip down 30 degrees on the car thermometer within the short drive which was pretty freaky I must say! Sure enough, we got out of the car at the top of a hill near the Golden Gate bridge and it was fa-reezing!! Even though the winds were whipping us around and were quite intense I was secretly thinking about how nice it was to be COLD again. We spent 3 days in San Francisco and I don’t think the temperature ever got above 75 degrees but was typically much cooler than that. Ahhhhhhhh!! Along w/the cool temps came the clouds & fog so we never really had a nice clear view of the bay or bridge but the fog did provide a lovely backdrop for the Golden Gate I suppose, VERY San Francisco. Was looking back through some shots from our trip to reminisce and thought I’d share some with you too. Enjoy.