Tour of Healdsburg California - A Blog Hop with Treasures Found!

When I saw the Staycation Travel Challenge at the Treasures Found blog earlier this month, I jumped at the chance to participate. The premise of the challenge was simple. Take a staycation in your hometown, gather inspiration, and channel your inspiration in to a creative project! 

For this challenge, I profiled my hometown, Healdsburg, California. For those of you who aren't yet familiar with Healdsburg, its a small town in Sonoma wine country, just an hour and a half north of San Francisco. I created a beaded flower ring using the inspiration garnered from my stay cation. Scroll all the way to the bottom of the post to see my ring, and enjoy the photo tour along the way!  

Top left: Chardonnay grapes ready for harvest. Top right: Dried lavender on the patio of Diavola. Bottom left: An afternoon paper flower workshop at Healdsburg SHED. Bottom right: Fresh flowers for sale at Healdsburg SHED. 

Wine tasting! Travelers please take note: nearly all tasting rooms close promptly at 5pm, so be sure to get your tastings in early in the day! 

Inspiration abounds at the boutiques around the Healdsburg town square! These gorgeous African hand beaded bracelets can be found at Circumference Imports Gallery. 

Bocce ball at Campo Fina. You can find this restaurant right on the town square. You'd never guess it from the entrance, but in the back lies a gorgeous courtyard with tons of outdoor seating and a full size bocce ball court! The world class food doesn't hurt either ;) 

Lime Stone is a beautifully curated boutique located right on the town square (Healdsburg Avenue and Matheson Street). Come here for home accessories you can't get anywhere else! 

If you do just one thing in Healdsburg, make it the Alexander Valley Bar at Medlock Ames! You can do a wine tasting here during the day, or, at 5pm, the tasting room closes, and their speak-easy style bar opens! As you can see from this image, this bar happens to be on a vineyard, and you can walk the gorgeous grounds, wine or cocktail in hand! Close to the Healdsburg/Geyserville border,  It's the perfect stop for a drink before going out to dinner! 

Alexander Valley Bar grounds at twilight. 

Rustic Restaurant at Frances Ford Coppola Winery in Geyserville California (neighboring Healdsburg). For dinner, you can't beat the view at Rustic. Call for a reservation, and make sure you request a seat outside! 

Moon over the vines in wine country. 

As you can see from the photos above, Healdsburg has a strong agricultural influence. I noticed a lot of chartreuse green, and hints of pink everywhere! This is what I came up with for my "Healdsburg-inspired" piece of jewelry.

My Healdsburg inspired ring! Three flowers on a gold wire wrapped ring! Each flower was in made in a different shade of pink, with a small beaded green leaf below. 

A close up of one of the flowers. Each flower was made with two layers of five petals each. The top 'petals' are each made with loops of four beads. The second layer of petals were made with eight beads each. The centers were made with round pearls that I recycled from an old necklace of mine. The wire looping allowed me to 'shape' each petal. 

So there you have it. Staycation 2013 was a fabulous success! A huge thank you to Erin Prais-Hintz of Tesori Trovati Jewelry for including me in your 2013 Travel Challenge! I had a blast participating!

*Update* To see the complete list of blog hop participants, follow this link: http://treasures-found.blogspot.com/2013/08/2nd-annual-challenge-of-travel-stevens.html 

california dreaming

A week ago today, Brandt, Bauer and I boarded a one way flight from Washington DC to San Francisco.  Our final destination?  Healdsburg California in Sonoma County Wine Country.  It sounds simple, but with four checked bags,  three carry-ons, and a dog it was actually quite the project.  With the majority of our things en route to California well before our flight,  we weighed our first bag outside the terminal.  We saw that it was 67 (!) pounds. This required some immediate rearranging, as checked bags now carry a 50 pound weight limit or you have an additional $70 fee on top of the $25 bag fee.  You know, on top of airfare, and the $125 just to take the dog on board… But I digress.

We did some frantic rearranging in line for check in, and finally got called up by a ticketing agent.  We put our first bag on the scale…. 50 pounds,  exactly!  We cheered.  The ticket agent was nonplussed. Next bag up, 49(!) pounds.  We high-fived. The ticket agent finally cracked a smile.  We got all four bags successfully checked, and ourselves and our other bags through security.  ( Bauer was a carry on, but for the record he weighed in at a whopping 7 pounds, including carrier.) Once we were in the air, we could finally breath a sigh of relief.  A majority of hectic move was behind us, and together we handled it beautifully.  I am so excited for our new adventure!

The Mamas and The Papas –California Dreaming (on Spotify)