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Home » driftwood signs

Continuing Our Adventure…What’s Next?

August 15, 2016 by Kristin

It was just a little over one year ago, that we left behind our “perfect” life for an “imperfect” future. I use quotation marks because our life looked perfect, and even felt perfect…with thriving careers and a beautiful home. But our priorities had changed. We evaluated what was important to us (spending time together, travel and the freedom to do both – how and when we wanted to) and we made huge changes to craft the new lifestyle we desired for ourselves.

We sold our house, sold or gave away most of our stuff, and implemented a one year plan to travel full time in an RV and support ourselves with our small business.

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Our home and workshop on the road.

Our Goals:

  • Travel throughout the country EXPLORING the USA, including the vast expanses of our national parks, rugged coastlines, towering mountains, green forests and arid deserts! We crave experiencing new places and creating new adventures together.
  • Grow our online business, Destination Tree! Do what makes you happy, right? Well, we’re passionate about making cool and unique custom artwork. And we believed we could do what we love, the way that we wanted to, and make a great living at it.

We had a few doubters. We had a lot of supporters. And we have no regrets. We accomplished exactly what we set out to do.

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One of our many views on the road.

Our Success:

  • We visited 34 states. We hiked and explored over 40 National Park Sites. We have an even deeper appreciation for the beauty and majesty of our planet.
  • We retrofitted a 10×10 space into a mobile workshop. We created and shipped hundreds of custom orders all around the world while traveling all across the country. We grew our business beyond our wildest expectation
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One of our many shipments from one of the many locations we created artwork across the country!

Of course, there were challenges and sacrifices along the way. But they were all part of the journey. They were learning lessons and reminders that anything worth doing isn’t always going to be easy.

So now, more than a year later, a lot of people have asked:

“WHAT’S NEXT??”

Well, we’ve confirmed two things over the last year. We love to travel and we love being entrepreneurs. Traveling for an entire year fueled our desire to continue exploring both our country and the world. And the freedom, flexibility and joy we get out of entrepreneurship is priceless.

As we enter into this next chapter of our adventures, we have NO intention of settling down. However, we ARE going to restructure how we manage our two passions. Our business has grown so much over the past year that it is physically impossible to continue managing it in a 10×10 space while simultaneously traveling.

We’ve always loved Northern Michigan, so we’re leasing a warehouse in Petoskey in order to have the space to continue growing Destination Tree over the next several months and through the holiday season. We’ve also leased an inspiring little place to live for the same time period where we’ll develop our plans for our next phase which involves an exciting balance of entrepreneurship and continuing to travel the world.

Life really is like a Choose Your Own Adventure book. And we’re going to keep living, enjoying the twists, turns and unexpected challenges along the way, but also making conscious choices to LIVE INTENTIONALLY…setting the course and steering the direction we want to go and exploring new places across the globe.

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I’ve struggled with how to close out this blog post. Because our journey isn’t over. So, I’ve decided to leave you with my recent thoughts from our 365th day on the road:

If there’s one thing I’ve learned on this journey, it is to believe in yourself. Believe in yourself and your abilities. Believe in yourself and your sense of adventure. Believe in yourself and the decisions you make. Believe in yourself and the mistakes, challenges and mishaps you learn from along the way. And believe in yourself enough to follow your dreams. It’s a big fat risk, but it’s worth it. And so are you.”

Cheers!

Kristin & Matt

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Filed Under: All Blog Posts, Blogs by Kristin, Inspiration, On the Road Tagged With: adventure, choices, cross country, dare, decisions, destination tree, dream, driftwood signs, grateful, inspiration, national parks, road trip, travel, wanderlust

Inspiration Around the World

March 9, 2016 by Matt

We’re thrilled to celebrate Number Eight Hundred!! That’s right. A total of 800 pieces of Destination Tree artwork including centerpieces, driftwood signs and driftwood collages are displayed all around the world.

Number Eight Hundred
Each piece of Destination Tree artwork is labeled with a unique artwork number on the back. And we could hardly believe it when we reached EIGHT HUNDRED!!

And to commemorate this milestone, we’d like to share a fun little poem highlighting some of the special places this artwork now calls “home”.

Hanging from porches and pool-side torches, breweries and vineyards alike,
Beach retreats and mountain peaks, and on trails where people hike.

Shipped to celebrity hosts, and hunters of ghosts,
And weddings where people cheers and toast.

Gracing vacation homes, military bases, and fancy hotel lobbies,
Chicken coops, island mansions and rooms for people’s hobbies.

Brides & grooms, living rooms, hospitals where patients wait,
Designer stores, cabin doors, we’re in almost every state.

Studios, corner offices, and places where leaders meet,
Ice cream shops, house boats, and mailboxes by the street.

Our clients are a diverse group, but all share in the same great taste,
With a passion for quality and a love for the planet, we let nothing go to waste.

Our artwork hangs, stands or leans, and can be found places worldwide,
Wherever it goes, we aim to inspire, our journey’s been one wild ride!

Cheers to our clients, friends, family and supporters who have encouraged us and all been a part of the journey of Destination Tree.

Matt

Here are the “destinations” of our Destination Tree artwork…feel free to zoom in and move around. We look forward to adding a pin on the map for you!

What’s it look like creating hundreds of pieces of driftwood artwork while traveling the country on a year long road trip? Take a look!

Driftwood Artwork Creation
Custom coordinates have become one of our most popular pieces of artwork for housewarming and wedding gifts.
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Sanding and sorting driftwood, packaging and engraving…all in a days work. Makers gonna make!
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The holidays are especially busy, and this was one half of a day’s outgoing orders. Destination Tree – WORLDWIDE!
DT Stamping Party
It’s a Stamping Party! We manage business on the road by being super organized, utilizing every speck of space, and doing tasks in batches.
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The mobile Destination Tree headquarters. Where artwork is created and then shipped anywhere in the world.

 

Filed Under: All Blog Posts, Blogs by Matt, Inspiration Tagged With: destination tree, driftwood signs, inspiration

The Oregon Coast…Sunsets, Driftwood and Rain

January 18, 2016 by Kristin

A Home Base for the Holidays.

We’ve been traveling the country with our truck and travel trailer, visiting as many national parks as possible on our year-long adventure. BUT, we’ve also been balancing all that adventure with the pursuit of managing and growing our small business, Destination Tree. It hasn’t been without challenges, but we’ve adapted, innovated and managed to create and ship custom artwork from wherever we are to anywhere in the world. Continuing to provide exceptional customer service, and managing a significant increase in order volume for the holiday season would require some serious focus though. So, we decided to stay in one location and spent just over seven weeks in Gold Beach, Oregon. We chose this locale as our “home base” for several reasons.

  • We love the Pacific Northwest! The mossy forests, sea stack lined coast, and driftwood beaches speak to us. There is something magical about a west coast sunset. A foggy beach walk. Misty sea stacks. It really is a special place.
  • Driftwood! We’ve been creating driftwood artwork while we travel the country, but we knew access to LOTS of driftwood would be imperative as we anticipated an increase in order volume for holiday gift givers.
  • Mild temps! We’re living in a travel trailer which comes with some unavoidable practicalities. We can’t let our pipes freeze, so above freezing temperatures are critical to our adventure, and it doesn’t freeze on the coast of Oregon.
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Matt photographs the sunset, driftwood, and sea stacks on Gold Beach.

Before the Storm

We relished the beauty of the Pacific Northwest our first few weeks. Our eyes couldn’t get enough west coast sunsets.

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A purple-y, pink-y, blue-ish sunset makes my heart happy. Those two dogs running down the beach make me pretty darn happy too.

We walked the beach every day, collecting sun bleached driftwood for the upcoming holiday season. It takes a keen eye to spot a piece of driftwood that is the right size, shape, weight, sturdiness, quality and beauty. It can be time consuming, but to get the right pieces it’s worth it. And it turns out we have two crazy beach dogs who love chasing each other and the surf.

We also took some time to get our bearings and do some coastal exploring. We hiked portions of the Oregon Coastal Trail and drove up and down the coast checking out beaches, sea stacks and driftwood canvases.

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Matt and Dobie, along with driftwood and sea stacks as far as the eye can see.
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The coast constantly changed with the tides, covering and uncovering sea stacks. Makes for good scenery…probably not good swimming.
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Arch Rock, visible at low tide is just one of the unique sea stack shapes along the Oregon coast.
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This hidden little beach had no trails to access it, and I’m pretty sure I talked Matt out of rappelling down the side of the cliff to get to it.

Most of our hiking was on the beach and along the Oregon Coastal Trail, but we did take a day to hike up Humbug Mountain.

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Humbug Mountain…a towering coastal beauty that felt like a personal rain forest. For some perspective, look at the tiny car on the road leading to the base!

We felt like we were back in the rain forests of Washington with moss covered trees and rushing waterfalls. In total, it was a 6 mile round trip hike, and a summit of over 1,700 feet. It felt like a real accomplishment to make it to the top, but the real beauty was in the scenery all along the trail, and a few spots that peaked through to the coastline.

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A mix of moss covered trees, lush ferns and fall leaves…plus a few tarzan vines for fun. I promise, I did NOT swing from those.

In between our coastal adventures, we created and shipped orders and continued preparations for the holiday rush.

The Unexpected

Rain. Rain? Yes, rain. And of course we know the Pacific Northwest is rainy. Especially in the winter. And we had some rainy days mixed in our first few weeks, but then we hit a turning point. Torrential rains. Monsoon rains!!! I suppose the best way to describe it is to quote Forrest Gump, “One day it started raining, and it didn’t quit for four months. We been through every kind of rain there is. Little bitty stingin’ rain… and big ol’ fat rain. Rain that flew in sideways. And sometimes rain even seemed to come straight up from underneath. Shoot, it even rained at night…”

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Gettin’ silly on one of my post office trips…I swear people laughed and pointed when they saw me running through rain with armloads of boxes, the nice ones held open the door.

We experienced an unrelenting Pineapple Express for weeks. We watched the beach change drastically from one high tide to the next. While it might be normal to locals, we were surprised when we saw sections of the highway, erode down the mountainside – fortunately their road crews were on the spot every time it occurred to shore it up.

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Normal high tide (above) and Storm high tide (beneath). We watched the beach disappear and the waves pound the coast a few feet from the highway!

The beautiful river alongside our campsite surged with water, even setting off loud, flashing, red-light alarms when the levels were close to overflowing. Were we worried? No, of course not. Well, that’s a lie. We had an overnight bag and an emergency evacuation route planned out if the river level and tides truly threatened to sweep us away! On one occasion, Matt walked down to the bridge at night and watched bales of hay and branches build up on the side of the bridge because the water was no longer just going UNDER the bridge, but actually all around it. Fortunately, we never used the emergency bags or the evacuation route. Whew.

Anyhow, to put it mildly, all this rain was not what we expected! We have all our driftwood, packaging materials, tools and supplies in a very tiny space. Prior to Oregon, we were used to expanding our space by setting up shop outside. While Matt engraved, drilled and assembled orders, I simultaneously photographed, packaged and shipped.

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With sunshine, our space expands to the outdoors, with the rain we relocated to the 8×8 “garage” in the back of our RV.

But with the rain, we now had to store everything and do everything in a 8′ x 8′ space. Challenging is an understatement. But we adapted once again. We utilized every square inch of space we had and worked in “shifts” using our back space to do each of our tasks in batches.

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Matt was in driftwood heaven the day he engraved a sign on a piece of lemon tree driftwood. It smelled like a fresh grove of ripe lemons!

Gratitude

Oh, but we have so much to be grateful for. The rain made our lives more difficult, but the coast was still breathtakingly beautiful. Also, we knew the rain benefited the area, the mountains, rivers and land needed the winter rain.

Also, when it rains every day, you gain a new appreciation for a break in the rain. If the skies cleared for five minutes or an hour, we were outside immediately. We caught some of the most beautiful sunsets after the rain, and captured some of our best product photography between the storms.

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Post-storm sunset. Yep, this was worth the rain. And yes, that sea stack is in almost every picture I took at Gold Beach. It’s such a lovely little sea stack.
I take a photograph of every single piece of driftwood artwork we make. Not all of them are GOOD photographs, however, this one taken on the beach, between the storms (with my favorite little sea stack) is my absolute favorite. And the custom coordinate sign was our most popular order this holiday season!
I take a photograph of every single piece of driftwood artwork we make. Not all of them are GOOD photographs, however, this one taken on the beach, between the storms is my absolute favorite. And the custom coordinate sign was our most popular order this holiday season!
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I almost never had a good weather day for photographing Destination Tree’s, but this day was an exception. And yes, yes, that is my favorite little sea stack, AGAIN. It adds DEPTH! But seriously, this is an excellent list of destinations on this custom Destination Tree!

And truthfully, when it comes down to it, you just adapt. Whether it’s raining or not, we had two dogs that needed to be walked. And, we had two humans (me and Matt!) who would get cabin fever in our tiny abode without some leg stretching. So, this is what rain jackets are for! And towels. Lots of towels.

More Gratitude

Our coastal day trips were over, but we were too busy to care. While the rain poured down, our orders poured in. Every time our phone chimed with another order we high fived. After days and days of chiming, we started to worry more about filling all our orders and less about when the rain would stop. We were giddy with excitement, all our hard work and prep for the holiday season was paying off! This is what we love to do! We created custom, driftwood artwork non-stop, every day and enjoyed every freaking second of it. The Gold Beach post office got to know us VERY well, as we dropped off stacks of boxes several times a day, every day. The holiday season more than exceeded our expectations.

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Just a typical morning, with boxes packed to the ceiling and printing off shipping labels. Merrrrrry Christmas!!! Driftwood signs and Destination Tree’s shipping ’round the world!
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Good thing the post office was just a few miles away…I’m pretty sure I broke a few laws stacking boxes to the roof and creating new blind spots…

There’s a giddy excitement that goes with creating and sending special gifts all over the country and the world, but it’s a bit open ended, because we don’t get to see the recipient open their package. We don’t get to see their face when they unwrap their hand-crafted, personalized gift. But we DO get the next best thing. FEEDBACK. We’ve had emails and shop feedback that left us smiling for DAYS. To know that we’ve created something that will be cherished for years, something that made someone cry it was so meaningful, or something that “made the best Christmas gift ever” is indescribable. And it reaffirms why we left our “perfect” life for an “imperfect” future.

We’re following our dreams. We’re traveling the country. We’re growing a business that we love. We’re making artwork that is meaningful to people all over the world. And we’re doing it together. It’s not perfect, sometimes it’s really freakin’ hard, but there’s no doubt about it…life is good. We’ll take the storms along with the sunshine, and use them to help us learn, grow and be better, each and every day.

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My partner in crime, in adventure, in storms and smooth sailing.

Good-bye for now, Coastal Oregon. It was an unforgettable, extended stop on our adventure and a momentous step in the journey of Destination Tree.

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Family selfie, Christmas morning on the Oregon Coast. Sunshine! And two dogs who refuse to look at the camera. It was our first Christmas away from our families back home, but we felt their love and support across the miles.

Next up…a little inspiration…you know those things you’ve always wanted to do? You should go do them. That was our mantra as we continued our adventure in January throughout California in Napa Valley, Yosemite, King’s Canyon, Sequoia and Joshua Tree National Park!

Cheers!

Kristin

Filed Under: All Blog Posts, Blogs by Kristin, On the Road Tagged With: destination tree, driftwood signs, grateful

Storytime With Mr. Rogers

December 3, 2014 by Matt

Ahh, storytime. Remember those Choose Your Own Adventure books?  I loved those as a kid. And as far as storytellers, (the real) Mr. Rogers was always inspirational. I hope you enjoy my funny spin on storytime with this video.  I wanted to highlight some of Destination Tree’s driftwood hanging signs and share some of their inspirational messages.  It’s no Choose Your Own Adventure, but it’s hopefully good for a laugh.

Enjoy, and Live Inspired!

-Matt

P.S. For your reading pleasure, here’s the transcript and pictures of this Destination Tree driftwood story… 🙂

An Angry Koala

What do you do when an angry koala escapes from it’s zoo cage next to you?  BE BRAVE. BE YOU.
BeBraveBeYou1

With a high pitched squeal, you let out a few choice expletives in terror…YOUR SAYING GOES HERE.
YourSayingGoesHere1

Suddenly you remember you have superhero-like powers…DREAM IT. DARE IT. DO IT.
DreamItDareItDoIt1

But then it spots you with it’s cold blank stare. NOW what do you do? CHOICES: FIGHT OR QUIT.
Choices1

It starts crawling next to you..time to run…HOME!
Home

Then you remember your wife and the group you came with are standing by waiting for your reaction. BE BOLD. BE YOU.
BeBoldBeYou1

It’s getting close, time to make your move. This is your chance to be the hero…CARPE DIEM.

CarpeDiem1

It throws it’s arms up inches away from you…FREE HUGS!
Free Hugs1

With a grin on your face and a hearty chuckle, you grab it and bring him in for the big hug. LIVE. LAUGH. LOVE.
Live-Laugh-Love1

A sigh of relief is heard from the onlookers…BE AWESOME. BE YOU.
BeAwesomeBeYou1

You knew all along you hand this handled, cause you’re one of a kind! BE GENUINE. BE YOU.
BeGenuineBeYou1

Get your signs and tell your story at www.DestinationTree.com www.DestinationTree.etsy.com
Destination Tree Driftwood Sign

Filed Under: All Blog Posts, Blogs by Matt, Laugh Tagged With: custom signs, destination tree, driftwood signs, funny, inspiration, storytime

About Us

At Destination Tree we create handcrafted driftwood signs, collages and centerpieces. Each piece of artwork is completely unique and inspired by your story.

Our Mission

To create handcrafted, meaningful artwork that helps tell the story of your journey, one destination at a time.

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