It's Hard to Live in The City

Nope. I don't think it would be honestly. I would love to live in NYC. It is one of my favourite places & I have so much fun when I'm there.



I've been trying to kill some kits & grabbed a few old pictures from a NYC vacation last Thanksgiving for this layout. I was inspired by that stamp of the city buildings you can see in the above photo. Too cute! Great stamped across the page, no?!



Just a few 3 by 4 photos representing, eating, staying, shoppings & sightseeing in the city. I love the reflection photo in the shot in the ACE hotel.

I also tried to liven up my title by adding the arrow for the 'i' in city.



We're headed back to the big apple next month and I can't wait. This time around we're Brooklyn-bound for some adventures! Stay tuned-I'm sure there will be lots of layouts of that!

xoxo
K

NYC: A Simple Story Part Trois

*For part one & two see the past two blog posts.

Window displays. I love them. It's almost as good to window shop as it is to buy something for yourself. And New York does window displays like nobody else. And at Christmas time they take it up a notch!

Check these out...

*still missing a little journaling here. 





I used a little gold printed velum from Kelly Purkey's DD kit for each of the backgrounds for the circles which name each of the stores. I used Kelly's font stamps, Eleanor to stamp each of the titles onto white woodgrain paper. 



And then there was the food. I love food. I already made a mini album about it but I couldn't help but add it into this one as well because I love it so.





On a tip from Kelly I used my Gold Brilliance ink to stamp right onto my photos using her food themed stamp set. I love the effect.



The cheese, the ice cream sandwiches. Yum times two.



I used the Epiphany tool to make this little badge. It's super easy and actually really cute too! A little stamping and then punching it out sticking it to the clear bubble.



An awesome brunch with some of my fav camp girlfriends from back in the day. And of course, date night at Otto, a Mario Batelli restaurant.



More stamping on photos and some little gold letters.



And that's it. She's done with a little washi tape and some thickers!



I hope you enjoyed my mini album. It wasn't so mini! Again, if you would like to see part one or two click on the link to take you to those posts!

xoxo
K

NYC: A Simple Story Part Deux

If you missed it, yesterday I shared part one of my Simple Stories album about our visit to NYC for American Thanksgiving.

And on to today.



A little Thanksgiving football- Jets vs. Patriots. And our first tailgate party-complete with Turkey and all the fixings. It was epic.



I used a little velum speech balloon to do a little journaling about the game. It was a bust and the Jets lost-like by a lot.

And then we shopped. Well, correction- I shopped. At Macy's. At midnight. Yep. Bucket list item. It was pretty cool and I got some really great deals actually. It still needs a little journaling.



I couldn't get over some of the store displays-two of my fav were J. Crew and Anthro in Rockefeller Plaza. I used tiny Lily Bee stickers to identify each display.



And then we traveled to Brooklyn. It was as cool as I expected it to be.



More little letters and I love the little wood veneers with the phrases on them.



MOre Brooklyn. We visited the Brooklyn Flea & happened upon the Brooklyn Art Library. They have the coolest project there-the sketchbook project.



A lot of love for the Brooklyn Art Library. It was perhaps the neatest library. I would have stayed for ages just exploring the sketchbooks.



And then there were the decorations. This city gets decked out for the Holidays. It truly is magical.





Tomorrow I'll be back to share the window displays and more. Oh the window displays. They are stunning pieces of work.

xoxo
K

NYC: A Simple Story

We went to New York in November for American Thanksgiving and it was- in a word- awesome. I crossed a few very cool things off my bucket list and I had too many pictures that needed to be scrapbooked.

Enter a Simple Stories binder. It was the perfect solution so at my weekend retreat for my LSS The Paperie, I banged out this album. 12 hours later and it was completed.

Today I'm sharing the first batch of photoswith more to come tomorrow and Thursday.



I covered the plain chipboard that was the cover with some pattern paper, fussy cut trees and some little flags and arrows. I added the stamp' let your heart be light' by Studio Calico to the green arrow piece and embossed it in teal. A little twine, some wood veneer and a combination of letters completed it.



I needed an opening page. I didn't want to use a photo so I stole a quote form one of my fav movies 'Elf' and used the last phrase of how he got to NY. I laid my letters down and misted with Mr. Huey clay to create the masked effect.



I havne't completed my journaling here but added a little digital text on the photos to have a little something done already when I printed the photos. Also those red thickers might be one of my fav fonts of all time by AC. I LOVE them.





A little stamping on pictures, some labels and a star paperclip for the Macy's Day Parade (a Bucket List Item).



I wanted something cute to finish off the balloons so I ended on Virginia from 'Miracle on 34th St.' with 'Yes, Virginia'...



And started the next page with pics of the big guy and the rest of that quote- '...there is a Santa'. The badge is an old one form Ormulu.




The other thing I did here was use the big sign on the Macy's building for my title and added 'in the magic' with a combo of stamps and stickers.



I loved all the confetti left over from the parade in front of Macy's where they broadcast on t.v and needed a foot shot. I added some sequins here and the year as well.

And was the parade. It was an absolutely beautiful day for it too! 15 degrees and not a cloud in the sky. We took advantage of the lovely day and headed to Central Park after a quick bite to eat to wander and enjoy the sunshine.



Excuse the colors in the photo above-the color below is more true to the album. I used Kelly Purkey's stamp 'it's a wonderful life' which I just love. The font combo is perfect!



And I had the perfect sticker for that shot taken into the sunshine! It was indeed a 'merry & bright' day. And then below there's the obligatory shadow shot and on the other side, a few shots of us.



I'll be back to share more tomorrow.

xoxo
K

Dear Mini Albums...

I. Love. You.

Seriously?! What's not to love about a great mini-album? They are usually quick to make and packed full of photos. I've been wanting to try my hand at one of the Simple Stories albums that include 4 by 6 and 3 by 4 photos in their divided page protectors.

I got my chance recently when I realized that I had an obscene number of photos from our trip to NYC for American Thanksgiving.



We crammed a ton of activity into 5 days in Manhatten and her neighbouring Brooklyn and I wanted to capture all of that.

Enter: a Simple Stories binder and some divided page protectors.

I'm still finishing typing some journaling to include in the book to tell a few stories, but for the most part it's all done.

Today I wanted to give you a peek at it and share a little review as well.



So I loved:

-the size. Plenty big to create a little layout if need be but not so overwheleming you spent ages finishing a 'page'.
-the aspect of cramming tons of photos into it via the dividied page protectors. I used mostly the ones with two 4 by 6 photos and four 3 by 4 photos for my book.
-the album is sturdy and the fabric on the edge didn't fray at all-even with all the handling that I did shuffling it around while working on it.

I didn't particularly enjoy:

-the fact that the pockets weren't true to size. I had to tape my photos/paper back to back so that you couldn't see any of the 'white edge' from the photo sharing the pocket.
-the pages- both chipboard and paper- that came with my album were warped and as a result I chose not to use very many of them.
-two of the pockets that came with the album were weird shapes-two 4 by 4 photos and a long narrow strip as well. I wansn't so much into that.

The things I didn't enjoy were pretty trivial really. I would def use this album again. In fact, I have my next one planned I think.

Stay tuned for pictures of the inside of the album coming soon!

xoxo
K