about town

One of the many reasons I like hosting exchange students is because they definitely make life more interesting.  Their youthful spirit and thirst for adventure is contagious.  I had the pleasure of capturing this some of this excitement at The Color Run in Ypsilanti last Saturday.

I played paparazzi for our German daughter, Jule and her Danish friend Therese.  It was a rather cool and gray morning but that didn’t curb the enthusiasm of 15,000 happy people jammin’ to catchy dance tunes getting ready to run through explosions of color.

How it works is at each kilometer marker there is a different colored large arch with numerous color puffers waiting to douse you with powdered color.

I met up with Jule & Therese at the last blue arch to capture the spirit of the run.  You really can go as crazy as you want with the color.

There are plenty of color puffers that are happy to cover you with their color if you wish.

I must admit, part of me wanted to be more than just the paparazzi and I’m already thinking of who might want to color run with me in the coming year.  You can see when the color run is coming to your city HERE. (Registration for summer runs in Windsor & Toledo open May 15 for all you Detroiters)

Think you might have caught the color fever?  Watch this magical video & you might need to sign up for your very own run to remember!

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Steve & I made our way down to Ann Arbor Sunday afternoon to experience the art-full parade of puppets make their way down Main Street.

Festifools brings students and community volunteers together to create unique public art that is free and accessible to everyone. Specifically, they make huge-mongous papier-mâché puppets and march them around in early April.

The creativity was quite impressive and the environment oh-so-whimsical.

Not surprising that mother earth and happy hippie guy made an appearance :-)

This pretty purple dragon was one of my favs… along with Mr. VanGough.

Simply a fabulous way to spend the first Sunday afternoon in April.  Mark it on your calendars for 2014!

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Before the summer slips away, Steve & I wanted to squeeze in a little road trip & decided on the New Jersey coast.  It’s just a day’s drive away & is full of festive beach towns & shopping areas… a perfect combination for my exploring soul.

Our first stop was Ocean City.

I don’t know what it is about amusement rides paired with beaches that makes me happy… but they do.

I’m also a sucker for pretty painted shops that have garage doors as their entry way.

The 2 mile long boardwalk really comes alive at night & offers loads of entertainment options, a variety of shops & all kinds of eateries.

Like this place that serves ginormous pies… have you ever seen such a large piece of pizza!?  It was quite tasty too :-)

Next we headed south to Cape May.

This very popular beach town has many streets lined with colorful Victorian homes.

And lots of sweet storefronts.  The layout reminds me of something Disneyland would try to recreate… but this is the real deal.  One of my favorite stops was Bath Time… their displays were dynamite!

It was an overcast day while we were there, but the beaches were still beautiful.

Next we turned north to hit the classic Seaside Heights boardwalk.

This boardwalk had more of a fair feel because it was full of those games where you play to win insanely large stuffed animals.

But my favorite part of this stop was the skyride.

And the free fun house mirrors were quite amusing too.  What can I say… I’m a kid at heart.

Another 25 minutes north and we hit Point Pleasant.

More cute shops (my favorite was Stella Luna) & another boardwalk.  Turns out they have fireworks on the beach every Thursday night so we bought a bag of salt water taffy & enjoyed the show with sand between our toes.

Two smaller towns not to miss are Stone Harbor & Avalon.

After soaking in the sun & jumping some big waves, we headed over to Pirate Island for a mini golf dual.

And what would a summer vacation be without some delicious ice cream from the local creamery, Springers?  Plus can I say that pretzel cones are the best invention ever!?  I need to scope out if any ice cream parlors offer these in Metro Detroit.

I hope you enjoyed this instagram tour of our time away.  If this type of vacation looks like fun to you, check out this great website that describes all the great beach towns in New Jersey.

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It’s hard to believe our German exchange student, Tessa is heading back home in just a few days.  We couldn’t let her leave Michigan without a little tour up north so we hopped on I-75 until we hit the bridge and took in all the beauty the mitten is famous for.  One way I captured our adventure is with a little help from instagram.  If you’re also addicted to this photo app, you can follow us at tuesdaycat.

A tandem bike tour on Mackinac Island

A bike break at British Landing

A delightful discovery in Good Hart ~ a must-stop along 119

Symons General Store in Petoskey

Sweet storefront entrance in Charlevoix

Stocking up on more sweets at the Taffy Barrel in Charlevoix

Searching for stones & soaking in the sun on a road side beach on Old Mission Peninsula after a stop at the classic general store

Lots of yarn bombing sitings in Traverse City

Fantastic shops in Glen Arbor ~ also scored some sweet summer skirts at Cottonseed & had lunch at Cherry Republic

After a swim at Glen Haven Beach, we headed out to see the always stunning Sleeping Bear Dunes

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It was about a month ago when I cleared 5 days from my normal routine & headed to St. Paul to partake in the 2nd annual Creative Connection.  This fantastic conference is all about women, passion & business and is the brain child of Jo Packham, creator & editor in chief of the magazine Where Women Create.

The time away was just what I needed and gave me a super-charged dose of inspiration (so much so… it’s taken me this long to write this post).  The thing about being a business owner… it’s easy to just to continue running laps around the track but if that’s all you do, you’ll never experience the gorgeous countryside, buzzing city or all that’s in between.  I find whenever I remove myself from the day to day, that’s when new dreams & ideas start to stir.

Here’s what 5 days away gave me…

1. The opportunity to meet wonderfully creative women like Kelly Rae Roberts & Claudine Hellmuth plus many-many others.

2. Learning new techniques to get my creative juices flowing and creating goodies just for fun… like headbands & screen printed napkins.

3.  Discovering LOADS of amazing blogs & getting to know some of the gals behind them like Megan Hunt (aka Princess Lasertron) who taught my headband class.  I just love her energy, outlook on life & quirky-ness (I mean who else would ever think of naming their business Princess Lasetron?)  And check out her wedding dress that she designed & made… this girl’s got moxie!

I’ve subscribed to so many blogs after this event and can’t wait to start sharing some of them with you.  One of my goals is giving blog tours once a week on my blog so I can shine a light on other creative women that are making a living at doing what they love.

Speaking of blogs, you may have noticed that we’ve done a little housekeeping ourselves.  I’ve made the transition to hosting our blog right on our website so now everything catching fireflies is in one simple spot.

Oh and I’m also wanting to sign up for this next time they have a class.

4.  Since I do what I love for a living, work does tend to be woven into most things I do… but one ‘hobby’ I really want to dive into is photography.  Watching all these creative bloggers & friends buzz around with their big cameras encouraged me to make the time to play around capturing the loveliness of this life in a whole new light.  (plus I gotta figure out how to take pictures of our Basset Hound, Gus running in our backyard after seeing these hilarious photos)

5.  I love savvy business women who are making things happen.  After hearing these two on a panel about monetizing your blog, I immediately started following their websites/blogs:  TaraGentile.com,  ScoutieGirl.com & CraftMBA  They are filled with lots of incredible information that benefit artists & entrepreneurs.

6. Becki Crosby of Whippy Cake taught a class on photo styling… because don’t those pictures look good enough to eat?!  While I did learn some tips on how to set up great photos… being in a room filled with flower pictures for 3 hours rubbed off on me & really influenced my 2012 frame line.

A sneak peak of what’s to come in the new year.

7. So many amazing speakers & panels of women who have followed their creative bliss to find great success like…  Karen Walrond of Chookooloonks, Melody Ross of Brave Girls Club, Janine Vangool of Uppercase Magazine, Kelly Rae Roberts, Leigh Standley of Curly Girl & Susan Branch.

8.  Experiencing all that the twin cities offer like a great little collection of food trucks… then enjoying my lunch overlooking the Mississippi River.

And finding fabulous little shops like Digs Studio, Patina and I like you (this place is so wonderful- I have to devote a whole blog post about it soon).

And have you ever seen such a stunning candy shop?! Sadly they weren’t open when we walked by :-(

Another delightful discovery for a hearty fall breakfast… Ranchero Cubano – Victors 1959 Cafe.

9. Spending time with friends from afar.  Normally I only get to see Michelle Allen during the trade show season, so it was really refreshing to spend a chunk of time with her in a creatively charged environment.  We were both inspired & look forward to putting it on our calendar next year!

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