If you park and walk north, there’s a tiny beach with little bean-like pebbles, instead of sand…

Easy breezy and fast art journal… progression…

Here is what I used:

1. #358 – Jungle Green – Ultrafine Opaque Glitter
2. #232 – Michigan Moss Green – Ultrafine Opaque Glitter
3. #46 – Summertree Blue/Green – Ultrafine Opaque Glitter
4. #113 – Sky Blue – Ultrafine Opaque Glitter
5. #89 – Martini – Ultrafine Transparent Glitter
6. #71 – White Gold – Ultrafine Opaque Glitter
7. Faux Snow Glitter
8. Fantasy Fiber – Mint Sparkle
9. Want 2 Scrap – Nestabling pearl frames #4059
10. Assorted seashells – all sizes – including 2 small sand dollars and two small starfish – Michael’s sells little boxes of random colored seashells in various sizes and shapes
11. Fresh water pearls and loose pearls
12. Hot glue gun
13. Assorted thick paper
14. A few acrylic paint colors – you pick!
15. 2 different colors of crepe paper
16. Ribbon – I used May Arts BM66 – 3/8″ Blue/Green Reversible Ribbon
17. 2 rivets

And I used 3D Embossit Art Glitter Adhesive to give the areas I glittered a little bit of a lift.

The beauty of this “under the sea” themed crown is that it doesn’t have to be perfect or symmetrical. It should have imperfections, have an organic feel to it and don’t plan it out too much. Have fun, make a mess and let loose!

I started with my paper elements first. I traced a crown onto a thick white construction paper and cut that out, and then I quickly free-handed some seaweed “s” shapes and curves and cut those out. All these pieces got a super quick coat of acrylic paint. I used a deep turquoise green and a more avacado green on the seaweed. Use whatever colors you like! Pink, purple… have fun! I then added a crepe paper fringe to the bottom of the crown in green and blue.

I then added the Want2Scrap pearl self-adhesive bling frame to the center of the crown and cut up another frame to use on the sides of the crown. These are so easy to use and will really give this crown a finished look.

More glitter on the seaweed! I used all the green colors on the seaweed to give it lots of color, shimmer, sparkle and texture.

I then glued down the seaweed to the crown and added the fantasy fiber on the base of the crown using a hot glue gun.

Next, I took my seashells and glittered about half of them in random blue and green glitter colors. After these dried, I hot glued them to the bottom of the crown in a loosey-goosey sort of way. I also glued down some fresh water pearls I had laying around and wound them around the shells. I had two sand dollars and those each got a covering of the clear Martini glitter and the starfish got the complimentary white gold glitter. I think that’s my favorite part!

After the shells went down, I added more pearls, some faux snow, the rivets on the ends of the crown and laced through some ribbon. The finished crown was quite heavy, but it looks so fun!

Meg wanted to be a little mer-dog for the afternoon ;)

We’ve been working on getting all settled… the last 2 months have been a blur. So much driving, so much to do.

Here are some pics from our 6th cross country trip in the last five years and what we found when we got to the end of the line…

My (former) office back in Cary, NC. Meg was hiding out in here on the last day. It was sort of sad since she rarely wants to be away from us. Seeing the house all empty was so strange… handing over the keys to the new owner was even stranger!

Tennessee. Near Knoxville. We got to experience lots of interesting hotel smells on this trip.

Hello snow, we didn’t expect to see you here! Before this blizzard hit, we got to hob-nob with the truckers and discuss alternate snow-routes while at a Flying J truck stop in Amarillo, Texas. I thought these seasoned drivers would use their years of experience, navigational tools, someone’s bum knee that could predict precipitation and guide us through the storm safely. None of that. We were told to “go with our gut”. That’s the big secret. Drive ’til you can’t drive no more, which actually did happen. White out conditions… the road actually “disappeared” as the snow accumulated, and it accumulated very quickly. We landed in Tucumcari, New Mexico. We grabbed some delicious truck-stop Indian food and hunkered down for an early evening while listening to the wind howling outside.

The next day, lucky for us, the only stretch of highway they didn’t close was the 30 miles we needed to be on. But, it was closed in every other direction.

We got up to the Bay Area and rented the first place we saw, which was surreal. We stayed at a hotel in Half Moon Bay and waited to get our keys.

I think that’s Alcatraz off in the distance?

She can smell the hustle and bustle

The bay bridge currently has a light show attached to it

Golden Gate Park

Golden Gate Bridge, take 1

Golden Gate Bridge, take 2

Golden Gate Bridge, take 3

Thought those clouds were curiously nifty

More Half Moon Bay

More Half Moon Bay

We also explored San Francisco, drove up and down some steep-hilled neighborhoods with Meg’s head out the window, poked our nose into Golden Gate Park, approached the Golden Gate Bridge from every angle imaginable and found a few more beaches…

And this… we stopped here. They recently repainted the sign with their new address of “1 Hacker Way”. How fancy.

Down the street from our new home is a silent movie and train museum.

And here is our stuff. If I never see the inside of another Pod again, I’d be a-ok with that!

So… here we are! (Where is that exactly?)