It was difficult the first few days to unwind, slow down and relax. But it didn't take long. This is a pic of me snorkeling.



 Local food was in abundance, very rich and delicious. A traditional Greek Salad or Moussaka?

I've returned from 2 weeks in Greece. We spent 10 days on the island of Naxos and 4 days in Athens. We did change our itinerary once we arrived to include more days on Naxos, what does that tell you? The trip was an amazing, beautiful, breath-taking, soul searching and humbling experience.

I'm sure I won't have time for art any time soon, so I thought I would spend the next week or so giving you a little photo tour of the trip. I think you'll enjoy them.
We arrived from the mainland to the island of Naxos by ferry.

Our host was Ionis from Castello Studios in Agi Anna. After we got off the ferry in Naxos we took a bus to Agi Anna to arrive at our accommodations on the Aegean Sea. The coast line on this island has many small towns with the main port town of Naxos, also known as Chora. This island is the largest of the Cyclades islands, but not as developed as some of the better known islands, such as Santorini and Mykonos.

This is the street view from where we were lodged.

We were steadily climbing upward toward a square at the top of this hillside.

By now, I'm sure I'm relaxing and enjoying myself by the sea. Wish you all were here.
 I had purchased these stamps from Inkadinkadoo just before I left town, inspired by my upcoming vacation. I thought I would give them a whirl and leave you a post while I'm gone. I used a Technique Junkie technique called Level Up. Basically, you raise one or two of the images.
I used one of Mel's techniques, Gesso paper, for the background and then water colored them with Twinkling H20's.
This will be my last post till I return from my trip on the 21st. I look forward to 'seeing' you then. I'm sure I'll have some wonderful stories to share.

I'm leaving tomorrow for my trip to Greece. Thought I would show a few photos of the island Hydra. This is a non-motorized island,  The mules have been reserved to carry our luggage to our accommodations.

Hydra is one of  the Saronic islands, closest to Athens. The first week we'll be in the Cyclades.

When I return, I'm sure I'll have wonderful photos to share with you.

I haven't had much time lately for crafting, but thought I would share a few thank you cards...post card style, for my upcoming journey. I thought it might be fun to be able to leave a few thank you notes while I travel. I had already made several full sized cards, but find that I'm running out of room and decided to make them a little more packable. All of the stamps are from Club Scrap.
 The first card is just stamped and lightly colorized with colored pencils. Then I give them a little spritz with some smooch.
 On the 2nd card, I used gesso on all of the paper and stamped with a rainbow pad while the gesso was just a little damp. I found a sketch on Splitcoast Stampers for this card.
Thanks for stopping by, I hope your week gives you a little bit of time for being crafty.

The mat piece was made using metallic inks. When it was dry, I rubbed the stickles all over the paper for texture. The image from Club Scrap was stamped and gold embossed on a distress ink background. When it was dry, again, I just rubbed distress stickles on it.
Thanks Linda for your consistency in offering these challenges.

I've been missing in action as life has just swept me away. I'm a Realtor by day (and many evenings) and work has been crazy busy, for which I am thankful. I've had family in my home for almost 3 weeks visiting, need I say more? Hopefully soon, I'll be back to a more normal schedule, I miss my crafting time.

Until then, I hope you'll enjoy this photo of my 2.5 year old grand daughter at the fairy ball a couple of weeks ago. She's living in a fairy land kind of world, isn't it wonderful?


I am changing the look of my blog, but haven't finished that yet either. Do you have any feedback for me?