The Hearst Mansion Project Inspiration

Again the crafts were put on hold for a trip. Just two days after I got back from Chicago to see Devon and family I flew down to San Bernadino, CA to help Matt, my fiance, come home after being away for 16 months with work. We decided to celebrate by driving the Pacific Coast Highway all the way home to Seattle. Along the way we stopped at gorgeous gardens, amazing sea-side Inns, and grabbed great food along the way. 

Inspiration is one of those things we find in other crafter's current projects, like last week with Devon, and also from seeing the amazing sights this country has to offer. We saw everything from craggy seascapes to the tallest redwoods. But you know what held the most inspiration for me? The Hearst Mansion. A California castle in San Simeon, CA. Hearst collected everything from Egyptian statues from the tomb of King Tut himself (over 3000 years old!) to tapestries that the Louvre in Paris has copies of. I'm not kidding. So below are just a few of the hundreds of pictures I took to inspire future projects. 

Our favorite part of the mansion? The indoor Grecian Pool. All hand-laid tiles, over 300,000 in total, filled with amazing symmetry and marble statues. We need this in our lives.

A terrace angel

A Grecian outdoor pool, all marble

Mermaids! My favorite

The blue is startling against the black, white, and concrete 

The tile patterns were stunning throughout the castle

The blend of ornate and nature

The stone carvings were everywhere!

Magnificent ceilings all hand carved wood from Italy

One of the many amazing views

The main house (and the King Tut statues bottom left)

The door to the main house

These are the tapestries the Louvre wishes they had

This is one of the oldest tapestries in the castle, look at the detail!

Not exactly a craft but such an inspiration for mix of nature and ornate, details with huge spaces, and appreciation of the past. Such an inspiration!! More crafts soon. All the beauty of the last four days seeing the coastline on the Pacific just made me want to come home and create.