It's been awhile....

since I have posted anything.  Seems like my days get busier everyday and I just don't have time or the energy to post here!  I should be doing all my laundry right now, but I'm avoiding that growing pile!  No kids at home any more, so why do I still have so much?
We had our visit to New York to visit our daughter.  Here's some photos I took from the plane.  It was a nice clear day, so we had a great view of the city.

 She's a pretty busy young woman (two jobs) but we managed to see her as much as possible.  We stayed in a hotel this time, our son and his girlfriend stayed with her in her teeny tiny apartment.  It was a great hotel - The Hampton Inn in Chelsea, two blocks from her apartment.  Plus, it was just down from an antique store and across the street was a flea market on the weekend.  The antique store had shelves of door knobs, door plates, all that stuff you could use for altered items!  But unfortunately New York prices!  We did come home with some gorgeous door handles.

Our first day, we went to meet our daughter for lunch near her work place, but on the way we stopped at my first "wish list destination" which wasn't too far from our hotel either, "Tinsel Trading".  I haven't been able to get there before, so I was determined this time.  A whole store of ribbons, trims, vintage ribbons, buttons, etc.  There are some incredible vintage ribbons in glass cases that are so beautiful but extremely expensive.  But this isn't the only notions store in the garment district.  There is store after store of trims, ribbons, buttons, in this area.  I could have stayed there all day, but my husband, for some reason, didn't share the same enthusiasm!

One of Urban's customers, Brenda, recommended we check out the "Frick Gallery" which was breathtaking.  It is an art gallery in the "Frick Family"home that is the most beautiful mansion I have ever seen.  Thank you, Brenda for recommending it!  If you haven't been to this gallery when in New York, I would definitely make the trip.
Other than eating, eating, and more eating (the food is so good) and shopping, we walked along the "High Line" park, which is made from an abandoned rail line above the street level.  I'm not sure how many blocks it goes for, but they were just opening the next section a week after we were there.  It is such a cool idea, instead of demolishing the rail line, to turn it into a walking trail park, with shrubs, flowers and grasses where the tracks are.

The weather wasn't great, we only had two nice sunny days, so our trip to Central Park was short and sweet.

And here's a view of Union Square from inside the biggest and busiest DSW shoe store I have ever seen.

So that's a little bit of my trip and a few photos.(I didn't take as many this time, it was raining quite a bit)  I think I'm still tired from all that walking!
Now, back to scrapbooking!  I do have a couple of projects to share.
First, from May's kit for The Little Black Dress Kit club, I made this little book using the Glitz chipboard book covers that were included.  I have lots of photos from Fort Edmonton and I put some of my favorites in here:

I used my Tim Holtz woodgrain embossing folder on the cover and cut out the center with a Tim Holtz die, then inked and distressed stained it.

This next layout is for Little Black Dresse's June kit.  It seems like I just get their monthly kit finished, and then the next one is here!

We have an old birdhouse in one of our trees that is practically falling apart, but every year there are birds nesting in it one after the other.  I love it when I can catch those little babies feeding!  A close-up of the flower that I made using a Martha Stewart "All over the Page" pinking circle punch, Graphic45 metal flower, and the little center spikes are exclamation marks from the American Crafts letters included in the kit.  That's all I have finished so far for their June kit, still working on the rest.

Next is my monthly layout for Urban's June page kit.  The kit included papers from  Pink Paislee's Hometown collection.  This paper line is designed by the owner/designer of Collage Press (was one of my favorite companies) who is now just designing for Pink Paislee.  It is all about borders in this kit:

Check out what the other Urban designers have come up with, they are all fantastic!

And if I didn't have enough to do, I joined up with a few of the other girls at work and Nicole in a tag exchange!  Actually, I think we are all enjoying making these tags, there's only five of us, so there's not many to do.  These are my May and June tags:

May's tag had to be monochromatic and include a quote.  June's tag had to be masculine and include a zipper.

And now I have left the best news for last!  I was asked to do a layout for Canadian Scrapbooker and it made the cover!  I was given this photo and had to come up with an 8 1/2 x 11 page.  I've never done a layout in this size, it was a bit of a challenge.  You know me, I put a lot on my pages.  It felt kind of weird scrapbooking a photo of people you have no idea who they are, but I was so inspired by their clothing in this beautiful photo.   There's still some magazines left at the store, but they sell out fast!

This ended up being a very long post, didn't it?!  A whole month's worth of news, I guess.  I had better start that laundry, though!  Take care and have a great week!