Adventures in Portland!

I feel like I've been a little more erratic than usual in my jewelry making and blogging lately... part of that is due to a fun vacation my husband and I took out to Portland, Oregon at the end of last month.  I thought I'd do a little recap of some of the highlights for you (and for my own memory's sake!)  Since Eric is chronicling our trip over on Beerploma from a more detailed and beer-centric level, I'd suggest checking those posts out especially if you're looking for more details on the beers.  You can find his first post HERE. 

The reason (excuse?) for our trip to the West Coast was ostensibly for the National Homebrew Convention (I refuse to call it by it's new, stupid name.)  Thousands of thirsty beer geeks would make the pilgrimage to Beervana for the conference and surrounding activities.  In an effort to beat the rush, and give us way more time to explore the area, Eric and I flew out almost a week early.  Two of our good friends and fellow homebrewers Ron and Denise came out the same day so we kidnapped (beernapped?) them for most of our beer explorations and shenanigans starting with hitting a bunch of breweries on arrival day.  Life is always more fun with friends!

Our first full day dawned sunny and gorgeous... perfect for more exploring and a food tour!  Eric and I started our day with a jaunt over to the Blue Star Donuts located just a few blocks from our place to get some coffee and sugary sustenance to jumpstart thing.  Everyone raves about Voodoo Donut but seriously, do yourself a favor and go to Blue Star instead! 

I couldn't wait to take a picture before taking a couple of good bites from this lovely!

The day's main event was a food tour with Forktown Food Tours. After having done one of these on our last trip, Eric and I were more than excited for the Downtown and The Farmers Market tour that we signed up for with our friends.  We started with a little plate of items curated from the amazing Portland Farmers Market and then had some free time to explore a bit before heading off on the rest of the adventure.  I highly recommend checking these guys out if you find yourself in Portland... so much food, drink, scenery, and local history!  I promise you won't go hungry and, even if you've been to Portland before, you just might discover some new favorite places!

Just some of the yumminess from our tour!  Curated plate from the Farmers Market; dip and cocktail from Southpark Seafood; Handmade pasta from Grassa; Adorable & delicious cupcakes from Saint Cupcake.

One of the things that I love about Portland is all the interesting murals, interesting buildings, graffiti, and public art.  One of the things we learned from our tour guide this time is that the city commissions a number of new murals each year... so there's always going to be cool new art to look at around the city!  I know that Eric captured a lot of cool ones that I didn't... another reason to check out his series over on Beerploma!

Sunday we started with an amazing brunch in our Air B&B neighborhood at Interurban before heading out to Tillamook and the coast for the day.  This may be the best Bloody Mary I've had... or maybe it was the combination of good friends, tasty food, gorgeous weather. 

Our main reason for heading this direction was to get to the brewery that got away last time... the elusive de Garde Brewing.  This time we were successful!  We took a little detour to the coast for some beach combing and photo fun and then headed to fun (and cheese) filled visit to the newly remodeled and expanded Tillamook Creamery.

Monday was our other road tripping day, this time headed east to Hood River.  The goal was lunch and delicious beer at one of our very favorite Oregon breweries, pFriem Family Brewers.  We made a couple of stops along the way most notably the Bonneville Fish Hatchery, home of Herman the 70 year old, 10 foot long, 450 pound sturgeon.

Taking a little break from all the beers, we joined a group of friends we know through the Minnesota homebrew community for a day of winery tours in the Willamette Valley.  We made stops at four different wineries plus had a delicious lunch at Red Hills Market.  As seems to happen every few years, I once again learned that wine sneaks up on me WAY faster than beer or even liquor.  Glad our friends arranged for a Pinot Car for the day for us all!

Fun with our friends on our Willamette Valley winery tour!  

One of our favorite places to take friends and explore is the flagship McMenamins property Edgefield.  It's just on the outskirts of Portland and a wonderful compound that includes a hotel, numerous bars, gardens, pool hall, spa, winery, distillery, two par three golf courses, concert venue, movie theater, and more!  We enjoyed wandering around the grounds with Ron and Denise, trying some more of the beers, and even doing a wine flight!  Eric hopefully got a couple of good shots of a hummingbird who was really enjoying some of the flowers.  (As an aside, if you're not familiar with McMenamins, they own a variety of hotels, pubs, and more throughout Oregon and Seattle.  Many of their locations are historic properties that they have renovated and given new life.  Edgefield, for instance, was originally the county poor farm.  They are super quirky and fun to explore.)

Art and plant life from the amazing McMenamins Edgefield

When Eric and I travel, we tend to have one big splurge meal.  For this trip, that meal was at Mae.  I had read about this place when looking at an article on restaurants in Eater and was intrigued by the idea of Appalachian cooking with the bounty of the Pacific Northwest.  Mae is currently a pop-up restaurant that's in the back of another bar/restaurant and only has seatings on Monday and Wednesday for the time being.  (They are working on a brick and mortar location that will be all their own.)  The seating was family style and we had the pleasure of sitting with some folks that we met in the parking lot as we were all looking for the entrance.  Dinner was amazing... especially the vegetable courses.  I actually ate so much of the early veggies that I barely had room for the main event... fried chicken and fixins!  It truly was a lovely meal with an embarrassment of culinary riches!

I'm not going to lie... the rest of our trip was really a blur of breweries, the social parts of the homebrew conference, and food.  Instead of going into lots of detail, I'll just leave you with a couple of photo-collages that sum things up. 

Over the course of our 9 day trip, we hit up lots of breweries and brewpubs.  This doesn't capture the half of them and they aren't all my favorites even.  But this is a collection of the most photogenic beers that I captured!

Travel, food, and beer... things best enjoyed with good friend.  So, cheers to you!  And cheers to our friends who shared our Portland adventures with us this year! 

Bead Cruise 2017

2017 marked the 12th annual sailing of the Bead Cruise organized by Heather Powers of Humblebeads fame... and my third trip aboard this beady voyage.  This cruise is always an amazing time filled with laughter, learning, and (for me, anyway) lounging on the beach.  I think most of us Bead Cruisers would agree that the experience is as much about seeing old friends (and meeting new ones!) as it is the wonderful classes.

As I have after past Bead Cruises and other jewelry class experiences, I thought I'd share a little of my adventures with you here to give you an idea of what it's all about.  This year we set sail on Royal Caribbean's Liberty of the Seas out of Galveston, Texas with stops in Roatan, Belize City, and Cozumel.  Below you'll see our ship, my roommate Lissa and I on the bus to the port, and us enjoying our first cocktail of the cruise.

Full disclosure: the fun actually started with a couple of nights in Houston with a field trip to one of our fellow cruiser's bead stores, Beadoholique, and a group dinner to kick things off.  Whenever possible, Heather tries to schedule a pre-cruise bead store adventure!  The first night of the cruise, Heather always hosts a welcome party with a pendant exchange.  This gives us all a chance to meet each other and our instructors, get any important updates from Heather, and get out fabulous goody bags filled with yummy and fun things from the cruise sponsors.  Here's part of what I got in my bag this year...

Just some of our goodies from the Bead Cruise Sponsors: Whim Beads, Nunn Design, Allegory Gallery, Firefly Design Studio, Vintaj, East of the Sun West of the Moon, Thornburg Bead Studio, Humblebeads, Sue Beads, Mary Harding, Marsha Neal, Tesori Trovati

This trip we had two at sea days at the start of the trip allowing us to begin our adventure with our full and half day classes (more about those in a bit) before hitting our first port... Roatan, Honduras.  Lissa and I, along with a van full of our fellow Bead Cruisers got a guided tour of the island.  The highlight of the tour was a boat ride through the mangroves and a view of Roatan's Little Venice community from the water.

That night was the Midsummer Night's Dream costume party.  The annual costume cocktail party is always a highlight.  Heather chooses a different theme every year, but people really responded to this year's fairy-centric theme and went all out!  Here's a peek at some of my favorite fairies...

Our second port was Belize City, Belize.  This was my first time taking a tender off of a cruise ship and I can tell you I far prefer ports where you can just walk off the ship.  When you have to tender, you actually end up taking a smaller boat from the ship to shore and back.  It just makes the whole process and timing of things a little more complicated and stressful when you're trying to make it to a shore excursion.  But I digress... after a 40 minute boat ride we found our tour group and headed off to the Mayan ruins at Altun Ha.  Despite the crazy heat, I had to climb to the top of the large temple for some pictures.  I was rewarded with a cool breeze and a magnificent view from the top!

Our final stop was in Cozumel, Mexico where Lissa, myself, and a few other ladies from our group enjoyed some beach time and a fabulous cooking class at Playa Mia.  Those of you who know me, know that I'm no cook.  As a matter of fact, I'm barely allowed in the kitchen!  I'm so shocked that I made myself a three course lunch and it was absolutely delicious!!

Ok, enough about the vacation aspects of the Bead Cruise and onto the classes!  One of the things that I appreciate about the Bead Cruise is that there are classes for a wide variety of interests... it's not all seed beads like some retreats that I've seen.  A full day and a half day class are included as part of your cruise registration with the option to add up to two extra half day classes.  I was an overachiever as always and signed up for four classes.  Sadly, I wasn't as diligent about taking pictures during my classes as I have been in the past (I was super busy with my projects!) but I do have pics of my finished/semi-finished projects.

This year I took classes from Eva Sherman and Heather Powers that focused on metal work and polymer clay.  I never imagined that I would actually enjoy polymer clay until I went to Heather's Inspired by Nature retreat last fall... but I'm really enjoying the versatility of this medium.  My all day class was Eva's "Groovy Cuffs and Pendants" where we learned a fun technique to layer polymer clay and create really cool patterns.  I adore how my pieces turned out and am itching to break out the toaster oven to make some more things now that I'm home!  My half day class was Heather's "Sweetest Song" where we used her "Metal Sketches" technique to create a cute, folk-art inspired bird pendant.  We had all the supplies to finish a necklace, but I ran out of time and wanted to focus on getting my pendant colored with the Swellegant patinas and dyes.  I need to sit down and finish the other components so I'll have a wearable necklace!

The two optional half day classes were held at the end of the cruise on our final at sea day before returning to Galveston.  My morning class was another polymer clay class, Heather's "Sea Pods."  I had fun sculpting a variety of pod and shell shapes and turning them into headpins.  Some of the designs were easier than others, but I'll give them all another try at home where there are no time constraints.  We used alcohol inks and patina paints to give life to these little beauties so now I have more things I'd like to buy to add to my tool box.  My final half day class was back to Eva for her "Gypsy Woman Cuff."  This was a fun bracelet project that looks more complicated than it really was.  Eva had pre-cut copper sheet that she had textured with a rolling mill.  I finished one cuff in class and went home with the supplies to make two more.  Beyond that, I think I'd need to book studio time someplace to use a guillotine and maybe a rolling mill since those are both tools that are a little expensive for me right now.      

The Bead Cruise ends with the last of the annual events, the dreaded Goodbye Party on the last night.  Each year, Heather challenges cruisers to make something using items from our goody bags from at least three sponsors and the group votes on their favorites and prizes are awarded at the party.  It was nice to see prizes go to several first time Bead Cruisers this year.  The next morning it's off the ship and back to the airport for our re-entry to the real world.  As I write this a few days after arriving back home, I still feel the motion of the ocean in my inner ear, but am starting to readjust to life on dry land.  To wrap this up, I'll just leave you with a few pictures of me relaxing during the cruise... when life gets to hectic I'll just close my eyes and imagine myself back on the beach in Cozumel or enjoying a sunset on my stateroom balcony!

Setting Sail!

Hi everyone!  While I do have a couple of blog posts that I've scheduled for next week, it's going to be pretty quiet here on my blog for a bit.  Why? you ask...  Well, I'm going on a jewelry making vacation to the Caribbean!  Do not adjust your monitors, you heard me right.  My friend Kathleen and I are setting sail on the Bead Cruise with 48 other folks in just a couple of days.

I honestly can't believe that I haven't mentioned this trip here before... I guess that I've just been too wrapped up in other things and trying to get everything ready.  I can assure you that my silence isn't because of a lack of enthusiasm!

I had seen mention of the Bead Cruise in past years, but I think it was the series of post-cruise posts over on the Art Bead Scene blog last spring was what put me over the edge to decide to go in 2014.  I'm not going to lie, the giveaway ABS did with an extra gift bag from the cruise may have been the tipping point.  Don't judge me... there was so much beady goodness!!  You can see what I mean HERE.  

I'm looking forward to the three classes I'm taking over the course of the trip as well as the extra activities like the beading pajama party and disco-themed cocktail party.  Most of all, I'm looking forward to meeting some of my online friends in person for the first time and making lots of new friends that share a love of jewelry making.  (The relaxation aspect and warmer weather will be lovely too!)

I promise a full report on all the fun, friends, and beads when I get back.  Now I better get on with my packing!