Traveling the Blues Highway 61

We started at the Lousiana circle which gave

us a bird's eye view of the railway bridge on the border

of Vicksburg - a wonderfully quaint city.

 I didn't get many photos - as I'm still working

out the logistics in the new rig.

The side window has an even bigger mirror and a screen.

Since I couldn't do any about the mirror

I removed the screen and that helped the driveby shots.

The front window was all about dodging bug guts.

And below is an old railway station.

 And dry docked off the side of the road was this

gorgeous ship.

 Huge cotton fields and corn throughout the ride

and they're still called plantations.

 The BB King museum was wonderful - chockful

of awesome memoriabilia and about this life story.

His journey of where he started to what he became - A blues icon

is absolutely riveting.

 No photos allowed in the museum.

But the outside was cool.

 This is Morgan Freeman's blues bar.

Lots of sofas and chairs outside just waiting on a jam session.

 And the Delta Blues museum was also chockful

of all the greats and their journeys were just as remarkable as BB's.

 The highway was very fun.

We continued the ride to the "crossroads"

where the blues started.

And we went to Beale street where all the Blues greats 

honed their craft - 

it was sortof like a clean Bourbon Street-

blues pouring out from the bars and juke joints.

Scenes from the Dauphin Island Ferry

This is our second ferry ride.

We adore ferries.

And this was on a lovely day.

Love pelicans - too bad about window glare :|

I paid for this pose.

 This was our swan song with our soon to former RV.

We had great trips in it, but now we're looking for a bit more room.

The lovely part was being able to make a sandwich on the ride

and devour it.

 And oil rigs are everywhere.

They are very cool.

I happened to be on the right side of the boat to get this.

Or should I say starboard.

 Fort Gains - was so very cool.

And don't the cannons rock?

Especially from the ferry boat - which was way smaller

than we have normally been on.

 And a muddy river, blue skies and white clouds.

The skies change like the wind.

Drives me crazy - with the settings.

I have a book to write these things down in.

Did I do that??

NOOOO.....which I know surprises you.

So far the scrappy part has been non-existent.

It has been a wild ride from Florida to Texas and picking up the new one.

Mostly we've been traveling wildly from KOA to KOA

to get to the dealship on time.

Nothing is easy in dealing with a dealership.

It took all day to get things done and get on the road.

And internet is spotty at most places.

Therefore, we set up camp, eat and by then its bed time.

On the intinery for tomorrow - heading up to BB Kings museum

and then hit the Delta Blues museum.

I'm not sure if its going to be the same day.

Its FUN.

Packed and on our way

WELL.

Because we're on our way to upgrade our RV and there'll

be more room. I'm bringing a very limited

and modest amount of supplies.

I really tried to limit things and thus, plan on being 

more creative with less.

 I decided to go with a project life format in 8.5x11 and chose,

wet glue, hermafix, tiny attacher, 5 6x6 basic grey paper pads, 4 washi tape,

3 inks - black, grey, brown and a couple sets of wooden stamps as

well as some acryllic.

I tossed some twine, basic punches (not shown there) and assorted

amount of dodads.

 And 2 misters, pop dots and later, decided I needed some 8.5x11

white, black and kraft cardstock, some sticker alphas

and a cut apart sheet.

 Added my mixed media journal and a new toy - the Canon Selphy

which is a 4x6 photo printer. I'll give you an update

once I put it to use.

I downsized my backpack camera bag to a smaller one

that has 2 lenses - a 65mm and 70-300.

My workout equipment - missing is my jumprope.

We shall see how this works out.

 And my clothes - you can never have too many.

 Various beauty and health products.

A girl can never be without.

 And of course my laptop which is a given.

We got off to an early start

and juggling way more stuff - that'll be stowed neatly

in the new one which we will be picking up on Tuesday!!!

Repurposing Cigar Boxes

Stealing the word repurposing from my pal Connie

at Crafty Goodies who does it all the time.

Also thanks to my pal Shari Parker for the idea!

THIS POST IS PICTURE HEAVY-

you have been warned!

I acquired 5 cigar boxes - a couple from Tom, two from my neighbor

and a couple I purchased from a local tobacco shop.

 They are different in size and materials.

This is the one I made for Annie who is an aspiring ballerina.

I used papers on the first two and found that paint is really better.

This is the front of the box.

 This is the inside and the original yellow was just to

pretty to cover all the way up.

FYI...doilies and modge podge - meh!

 Most have the same goodies in them.

Their albums I made for each of them - that you may have seen on different posts.

Rainbow colored pencils, calculators, flashlights,

sticky pads and a fish that didn't fit.

Also a cute little old timey tea set that didn't fit and needed to be bubblewrapped.

 I did have better ideas as I went along mostly because

for the next 3 I used coloring book covers

and they had a bunch of unnecessary crap all over them

so fussy cut was the way to go.

Ms. Amelia loves the princesses of Disney and these were available.

I painted the box black - they popped off

so I kept the embellies down to a minimum.

Cover.

 Inside.

It was then I got creative with the glitter.

 A little purse

 I actually did NOT paint this one because it looked really 

lovely without it and I was able to cover up any mention of cigars

although these boxes are really designed lovely.

Outside.

 Inside.

You can see a bit of the design behind this one - but it adds to the action.

 This is Quintin's and that's the fish that doesn't fit.

He also has a "green" thing going on.

 And then this one!!! I only painted the top of the box

and the inside.

And fussy cut the Captain out. 

Boom!

 And totally boom!

I hope Cavin loves it - he's the eldest of the bunch so 

he may think it lame.

 And the inside.

 Owen's was the first one I did and he loves maps.

I downloaded a map in B&W so he could color them in if he wants.

I also added some geo tags for fun.

Also the cork map from Studio Calico was great for the inside.

And a quote from some America paper I had.

Owen was the last one to have a little album made.

I had these tags from Creative Cafe forEVER.

And it made the cutest book.

 I kept it simple.

 And there ya have it.

I hope they'll add more stuff.

Coming up - maybe if I think about it.

PACKING FOR A TWO MONTH RV TRIP.

And then - I hope you follow us.

I'll be taking some scrappy stuff so I'm hoping to do

road scrap blogging.

Highlights of our Road Trip to Texas

We like staying off the main highway as much as possible

and its then you see little

gems like the town of Shinersville and

their old buildings - 

Don't they make you swoon?

 It was a Sunday and all the stores were closed

and the streets were bare.

 Evidently there was a shindig going on and they

didn't tell us where.

That's ok because we were headed to the Alamo.

 Of course you can't wander through Texas without seeing

an oil rig or 3M. LOL.

Tried to get this statue of all the lost

from the fight at the Alamo without a bunch of people

posing. So its at a very weird angle and the names are hard to read.

 From across the street - again it was full of people

because we picked the 4th of July weekend to visit and

6 million others had the same idea.

 The lines were around the block to get into the actual Alamo

and it was extremely hot so we admired it from the outside.

 There were entrances into the courtyards that

were green, lush and most important cool that we hightailed into.

There were nooks and crannies to explore- too dark

to capture on the camera, this well that was in the center of this

courtyard.

 And cannons - what's a fort without cannons.

And a gift shop.

That has this amazing diorama (under glass) of the fort/mission as it

would've looked back in the day when it was under seige.

It was alot bigger than you think.

I took this with my phone and that is the front of the mission that

still stands today (fixed up), and the walls that surround it today

were two stories back then are now one story and wooden slats have

been installed in the arches.

Around the back side of the diorama show a lot more buildings

and courtyards with a force of soldiers "attacking"

that really emphasises how outnumbered they really were.

Basic Grey Warehouse Sale Haul

Oh Em Gee!!

This is the second year I participated

in their warehouse sale

and I'm not disappointed - and it wasn't the

first time either which is why I did it again.

Swoon.

The first out of the box is this lovely assortment of

embellishments, chipboard, tags, etc and 

a 6x6 paper pad.

 The second pagckage is a card making kit that has instructions

(always a plus) envelopes, and assorted do-dads.

But wait!

That's not all in the card making package,

there are these dynamite alphas and several pages of

12x12 white cardstock papers and TWO more 

6x6 page pads.

Moving along all of these sticker pages from

various lines.

 And then this stack of papers from all collections 

it seems. The stack is about 2-3 inches high.

 The B sides.

 I have always loved Basic Grey and I still have a bunch

from back in the day - and from last year.

The cool thing about BG is that all papers no matter when

you purchased them - work together.

The dye lots are the same.

It was $38.00 plus S&H.

They don't mess around!!!!

IIn full disclosure, I'm still working with the papers and

embellies I got from last year, but I'm

actually running low.

Can't wait to get started.