Day 2 - Lisa's Mish Mash Challenge - Macaroon

Cocola Macaroon

I do have a sweet tooth but I also have a gluten issue so my dessert choices are sometimes limited. Macaroons are one of few fun desserts I can enjoy. I picked these up (you should never shop when your hungry) on a whim. I did force myself to at least eat my lunch first before diving into these babies!
They are on the  super sweet side, which I love. Seriously people who complain about a dessert being too sweet should rethink about what their eating. :) This definitely was a win!

365 day challenge - Day 1 Lisa'a Mish Mash of Happiness - Candy Corn Beaded Card

I've been wanting to do a 365 day challenge but I can't decided what I would want to do everyday for a year. I have a wide variety of hobbies and interests. I love the fashion blogs that show the before and after but I don't sew well enough to get anything to fit me. I'm a full figure gal so turning a t-shirt into a tube dress, isn't going to happen!
 All the big time crafting bloggers have said "do what you love". How do you show the creative process? I decided I would post everyday either something I've created, cooked, baked, sewn, got inspired by, hiked to etc.... It will be a mish mash of things that make me happy. 
Maybe 10+ years ago after seeing some cards with beaded images on them, I decided to give it a try. This week I taught a class on how to make them and it was fun to see the young ones (30 year olds) get excited about learning something new. It was fun to brain storm who they were going to incorporate beading into their artwork. The candy corn is the best one to start with if your just learning.

 A2 Candy Corn Beaded Card

#11 seed beads
28g wire
Glue Dots
Stamp & ink pad
White card stock
Corner Rounder

Paris - Mariage Freres & LeChamp

Going to Paris wasn't high on my bucket list but there were a few things I wanted to do while there. I'm a big fan of Mariage Freres teas, with Marco Polo being a favorite. Being able to have afternoon tea at the original tea shop was a treat. The tea selection reads like a novel, pretty amazing!
The second place was to visit the main LeChamp store. I'm not a big into shopping retail, but I do like this brand of bag. Picked up a few things for family members who wanted some things we can't get in the states. 

Favorite photo from my Europe Trip 2016

Out of the thousands of photos taken, this one is my favorite. The back story to all that had happened up to this point is what makes the trip memorable. 
1) The doll is a figure of Patty's boss Linda. She would pop in random photos.
2)We went rouge after we found out the tour group we signed up for wasn't what we expected. We set off doing our own thing everyday.
3) We squeezed into a bike rickshaw and drove through parts of Paris we would not have seen otherwise, because our driver didn't always stay on the streets. Had to close my eyes a few times.
4) On one wild rickshaw ride, we passed a store that made Janet scream. How she remember where it was after hours of shopping in another area, I will never know. We ended up in this boutique eyeglasses shop of a designer Janet loves. She picked up two pairs. I have a really hard time finding glasses that fit and amazingly there was a neon blue pair that fit from the designer Theo. Even Patty picked up a purple pair. 

What I love about this photo is that is shows 3 smiling and very independent women running around Paris discovering new things and pretty much ignoring all the tourist traps. I never knew where I was in the city and barely understood how to use the metro system. An adventure indeed!

Sights around London 2016

Of course we also did a little sight seeing around London, hitting all the major tourists areas. We also had a tour of the palace while the Queen was on vacation. 

We ended up eating at the same Italian restaurant for several meals since it was right down the street from our hotel. Can't say the food was any good but the waiters were a crack up!

Sights around London 2016

Of course we also did a little sight seeing around London, hitting all the major tourists areas. We also had a tour of the palace while the Queen was on vacation. 

We ended up eating at the same Italian restaurant for several meals since it was right down the street from our hotel. Can't say the food was any good but the waiters were a crack up!

London 2016

Getting around London was very easy since there wasn't any language issues. We used the tube, taxis and Uber. I did manage to buy some interesting things and had to ship two big boxes home before we headed off to Paris. I was also surprised by all the great graffiti along some alleys, pretty amazing artwork! 

My Junking trip to London and Paris

Kimpton Flea Market, London  2016

Took me awhile to figure out how to blog about my recent trip to London and Paris. My good friend Patty wanted to do something big for her 50th birthday (it's a year long celebration) so she picked Paris. The tour group she picked was also doing a London trip a week earlier, so we signed up for both. You may notice I fail to mention the tour group's name, because it wasn't the best travel experience I've ever had. Being a one woman operation, I can only hope it gets better as she get more experience. It was billed as a "junking" tour of London. (Junking means shopping at flea markets type of places.) We did do a little of that but not as much as I thought we would if we followed the very loose schedule from the tour leader. There were some other hard core junkers on the trip and they googled whatever they could find and let us tag along so in the end we did do a lot of junking, thanks to other guests on the trip. 
The Kimpton Flea market at the race track was the best and what I though we would see more of. Huge and tons of cool stuff, most of which was too big for me to bring home.