Favorite Travel Souvenirs

One of my very most favorite things to do ever is travel.  If time and money weren’t an obstacle, I would travel to every continent on the planet.  My hubby and I decided a long time ago to make traveling a priority, even if it meant cutting back in other areas (like going out to eat frequently for example which we rarely do), so we’ve had the good fortune to take multiple vacations in the few years we’ve been married.  I was happy to see that Centsational Girl is having a travel souvenirs blog party today because this is something I have wanted to share. 

Whenever we travel, there is a must-have souvenir that we always pick-up- magnets!



We started collecting magnets on our honeymoon and haven’t left a vacation without picking up at least one since (with the exception of a weekend trip to Washington DC last year which I’m still disappointed about).  Magnets are the perfect vacation souvenir in my opinion because they’re available absolutely everywhere, they don’t take up much space in your luggage or in your house once you get home, and they’re inexpensive.



We amassed quite a few magnets last year because we took a Mediterranean cruise and picked up a magnet in each port we stopped in.  A couple of the magnets are also souvenirs relatives had brought back for us from their trips. 

If you’re wondering what some of our favorite travel spots have been, I’d pick Costa Rica, Mallorca, Bermuda, and Genoa Italy as some of my favorites.  Although to tell you the truth, I have never met a vacation spot I didn’t like!



The other vacation souvenir we started collecting, but quickly proved to be much less practical, is coffee mugs.  Mugs are also available practically anywhere, but after we had brought home a few, we quickly began to run out of cabinet space to store them.  Plus, there’s only so many mugs a household of two needs.  Nevertheless, it is fun to have my tea in the “Las Vegas mug” and think back on the trip.



We also have several mugs from Disney because their mugs are so darn cute.



Of course if we come across some locally made unique items, or even a fun pen or t-shirt, we might snag one of those too, but magnets and mugs are the only items we make sure to always look for.

Update: I totally forgot to include one of my other favorite travel souvenirs- postcards!  I love collecting postcards especially vintage looking ones.  I mean, I only dedicated an entire wall of my house to travel photos and postcards!

All this travel talk has me itching to go on another vacation!  Do you have any getaways planned for this summer?  Is there a type of souvenir you like to pick up each time?

DIY Photo Coasters

It’s Pinterest Challenge time!  The Pinterest Challenge was thought up by Katie and Sherry to inspire us to actually MAKE something that we Pin on Pinterest- you know, instead of just pinning a bunch of stuff and letting it sit there. 

Somehow my Pinterest challenges unintentionally end up being travel related.  For the first one, I made a map photo frame and for the second one I made an entire travel themed photo gallery wall.  Unintentionally, I stuck with the travel theme for this latest challenge and made photo coasters from vintage Jersey shore photos.



I was inspired from seeing these travel coasters on Pinterest (shared on House of Turquoise, but originally from Better Homes & Gardens).

A while back, a friend gave us glass photo coasters from Target.  They came with a photo of some rocks, but the photo is removable so you can insert a pic of your choice.



Since we love the beach so much, I though it would be fun to use some vintage images of the New Jersey shore.  So I went online and searched for a bunch of free vintage images of some of our favorite Jersey shore spots.  I really love vintage travel stuff so this is right up my alley.



After I printed a bunch of old images out, I used the rock photo as a guide to see which images could be cropped to the right size to fit in the opening for the photo.  I chose three images from three of our favorite places at the Jersey shore, beaches that are particularly special to us because we went there while we were dating (Cape May, Wildwood, and Atlantic City, New Jersey).  The fourth image is a general New Jersey Seashore vintage picture.



After the pictures were cut to size, they were easy to pop right in the back of the coaster.  The coasters are made to also double as mini-photo frames so I could even stand them up, but I prefer them in coaster format.



I added the coasters to my living room side table and think they add a little cheer and fun.



We like pretty much anything that reminds us of the beach, so these are the perfect fit for us.



Is it summer yet?  These are making me want to drive right down to the beach!  I even had a dream I was at the shore last night, so these coasters and beach season must really be on my mind!

Travel Gallery Wall

I did it!  I made a travel gallery wall in my upstairs hallway!  I’ve wanted a gallery wall for months and finally finished it!  We love to travel, so I filled the wall with photos and souvenirs of our trips.  I am so excited by how it turned out!

 

I absolutely love it!  I’m so happy I made it travel themed because these photos and mementos invoke so many wonderful memories. I painted a bunch of frames that I already owned white and filled them with bright photos and postcards.  One of our favorite vacation souvenirs are art print postcards.  I always look out for postcards with prints of local art work whenever we travel.  It’s so nice to bring home a piece of unique art to remember a trip and they’re usually pretty easy to find and cost less than $1.
 
 

One of the frames that I painted was document sized and did not come with matting which made it a little tricky to frame a photo in.  So instead I came up with a postcard collage for it.
 

I wrapped the frame backing with a map of Rome from our recent trip to Europe and placed a collection of post card art on top of it.  I love how it turned out and am glad I got to frame a map as part of the wall.  Rob’s favorite part is a post card from Cannes of a vintage 1925 advertisement of a monkey drinking a bottle of liquor!
 

I made sure to save a spot for the map photo frame I made a few months ago too.
Of course the wall is full of lots of vacation photos.  I also included a piece of hand painted art from our honeymoon in Costa Rica.
 

I’m so thrilled with how this gallery wall came together.  It will also be fun to play around with the photos and art and swap them out as we travel in the future.  I hope this give me an excuse to take more vacations! 



I’ll be back to share details of how I put together the wall, including how I worked out the spacing between each frame, later this week.  I found much of my inspiration for this wall on other blogs and on Pinterest (like the gallery wall from Young House Love and travel wall from Running Lawyer).

So what do you think?  Do you have any gallery walls in your house? Do you display vacation mementos is another way?

Hotel Bedroom Decor

I haven’t been around much this past week because of a work trip, so I wanted to drop in and share a look at where I was staying.  I stayed at a Westin in Virginia and it was a pretty nice room but not overly exciting.





The room did have a few nice touches though (please forgive my late at night dark photos).  Like this mirrored side table:



And this cool mirror:



So that’s a look at where I’ve been this week.  I’ll be back next week with our regularly scheduled programing, including a great post tomorrow for (un)Football Sunday.

Bonjour Corsica

I'm back with some more photos from our European vacation.  Last week, I shared our visit to Genoa, Italy and today I wanted to give you the scoop of our next port of call- Ajaccio, Corsica.

Corsica is an island off the coast of France and is a French territory.  We visited Ajaccio which is the capital of Corsica and was the birthplace of Napoleon Bonaparte.  Okay, enough with the history lesson, here are the pictures!

Coast of Ajaccio

Sailboat in the Harbor

La Madonuccia Cathedrale

Ajaccio Cathedral

Oratoire San Rucchellu Church

Napoleon Statue

Napoleon's Birth House

Ajaccio Street

Goat Sighting

French Bookstore

Beach in Ajaccio

It was fun to see visit a place that looked both French and tropical at the same time (lots of palm trees everywhere).  I'll be sharing our next stop- Cannes, France soon.  

In the meanwhile, don't forget to enter this awesome giveaway for a 3M DIY kit.

Ciao Genoa

I'm excited to start sharing the details of our European vacation!  We took a Mediterranean cruise where we visited six different destinations.  I've wanted to go on this trip for years and am so grateful we finally had a chance to do it. Of course I took a LOT of photos.  I will spare you a four hour slide show, a la middle school science class, so I've narrowed it down to just a few photos from each location that I'll be sharing over the next week.

The first port we visited was Genoa, Italy.  Genoa is a coastal city in northern Italy that dates back to ancient times. It was one of my favorite stops on the cruise, although I'm tempted to say that about each destination.  The old city is full of tiny narrow streets, old buildings, city walls that date back to the 9th century, and even the house where Christopher Columbus was born.  I really fell in love with Genoa and it was so beautiful that it almost seemed like a movie set of an old city in Italy- I couldn't believe it was real!

My photos don't really do the city justice, but here's a small look at Genoa:

Arriving by cruise ship, we were greeted by a wonderful view of the city. 

San Lorenzo Cathedral built in the 1100s

Ancient city walls & gate

Building in the Piazza de Ferrari 

Detail of the opera house building, Teatro Carlo Felice

House where Christopher Columbus was born

Church of Gesu

Narrow streets of Genoa

Doggy in a pizzeria 

Bakery window in Genoa

Old buildings in Genoa

Laundry being hung to dry

Windows of an old building

Isn't Genoa beautiful?  We really enjoyed exploring the city, although there was much more that we didn't have a chance to see.  I'll be back next week with a look at our next port in Corsica.

European Vacation

Ciao! Bonjour! Hola! Hello!

We just returned from an amazing vacation in Europe! I have been wanting to take this vacation for years and am thrilled that we finally had the chance to.  I can't wait to share all of the details, but I'm still going through all of the photos (since you probably don't want to see all 1,500 photos that I took!)  So in the meanwhile, here's a peak at where we spent the last week:









Can't wait to share more!