Last weekend, I went to New York City with my friend Jackie. We arrived early Saturday morning and set out for Rockefeller Center and Times Square. Unfortunately, it was raining/snowing the whole day but that didn’t stop us from sightseeing! We also learned quite a bit about how to be aggressive with your umbrella. Pretty much if you didn’t fight back against the crowd, your umbrella would be swept away from you.

We managed to get tickets to see the Rockettes! We were on the top mezzanine, but I thoroughly enjoyed the show! Here are a few of my favorite parts of the show.

The first time the Rockettes came out:

The Soldiers falling down:

Dancing Santa Clauses:

NYC Bus

Nativity Scene- I loved that they even had this in the show. Most folks stay away from anything Jesus related in order to be a little more PC. So it really made my day to have Christmas represented! They even had live camels and sheep on the stage! Fun!

After the show we grabbed a quick dinner and then headed back to the hotel since we had been awake since 3am!!

On Sunday we set out to see as much as we could. Our first stop was The Plaza Hotel:

Right across from The Plaza is the Apple Store….

and F & O Schwarz….

…where I saw these awesome Edward & Bella Barbie dolls. (Did anyone else crack up as much as me when Jim gave Kelly the poster of Edward last night on the Office. Loved it!)

Then for lunch we dropped into Serendipity! We had a two hour wait so we spent most of it walking in Central Park and Bloomingdale’s.

Serendipity was decorated so cute for Christmas! I’ve heard the food there isn’t that great, but we really enjoyed it…

The menu was gigantic and we were seated next to the heater which was a good thing for about 5 minutes..,then we started stripping off all of our layers. I think I was wearing 4 shirts.

And of course we ended our meal with Frozen Hot Chocolates! Yum!

After lunch we saw the skating rink in Central Park….

And then heading to see Grand Central Station, The Chrysler Building and finally ended up at the Empire State Building where we waited 2 hours to get to the top! It was FREEZING up there so we were only able to stay on top for about 15 minutes. It was truly a gorgeous view but too cold for us! Here you can see all the bright lights of Times Square and the skating rink at Rockefeller! You can also barely see the top of the Christmas tree as well.

After eating a delicious dinner at Mercer Kitchen we headed back to our hotel and crashed for then night.

On Monday, our first order of business was to see the Statue of Liberty. We thought about taking a ferry out to it, but we couldn’t get tickets to go inside it and the line was pretty crazy. A person can only handle so many long lines, so we skipped the ferry and just saw it from afar.

Then we visited Ground Zero and then headed back to Rockefeller to take a few more pics! We bought these matching hats at Century 21.

After Rockefeller, we wondered around Saks 5th Ave, Tiffanys and a ton of other shops. We also visited Crumbs. Their cupcakes were AMAZING….

And then we ate a hotdog in Times Square…

..and then I felt like I was going to throw up. I think it was eating a huge cupcake and then eating a hotdog that didn’t sit to well, haha.

At this point, we were out of time and had to head to the airport. I love NYC and can’t wait to go back!

Now that I’m finished with my letterpress class, I’ve finally had a little time to add all of the finishing touches. Letterpress is not easy folks, and I have sweated and slaved over these prints but now I’m so happy to share with you the results! I will eventually put these items up in my Etsy shop, but if you would like to purchase anything, just email me- (staceeadams at gmail dot com)

Letterpress Happy Birthday Banner ($25)- Printed on a Vandercook Press then sewn on to Bias Tape.

Kraft Gift Tag (4 for $2)- Printed on a Vandercook Press

Present Tag ($1 each)- This little tag would be absolutely adorable to attach to your next wrapped present! Printed on a Chandler and Price Press.

Travel Tags (Set of 3 for $2)

My favorite is the Eiffel Tower!

Baby Gift Tags (2 for $1)

My whole Tag collection…

I LOVE letterpress!!!

This past weekend, Normer and I headed out to California to go camping with Sean and Erin. We flew into Orange County and then had a two hour drive to Ventura (north of LA). From Ventura, we caught a boat to take us out to the island of Santa Cruz. It was about an hour boat ride to the Channel Islands National Park. This was our first view:

There are two campgrounds on the island of Santa Cruz. Ours was about a 1/2 mile hike in. The other site was a back country campground that is way too far for me to walk carrying a pack. We set up camp and then headed out on the trails to check out the island.

It was gorgeous! We felt like we were in Greece and not just off the coast of California!

View of Anacapa island in the distance.

Me and Normer

Normer slipped over the edge and was hanging on for dear life.

Just kidding! Both Normer and Sean were always pushing how close they could get to the edge. Freaked us girls out!!

The wind was ridiculous and it made it quite chilly!

We hiked over to this one lookout to get a good view of the sunset. For some reason, Erin is always hiding in all my pictures!

Up next: Sunset View on the Channel Islands

Normer and I had quite the halloween this past weekend! I spent about 2 days making our costumes. I have really learned a lot about costume making over the years so it was fun to put all of that to use this year for myself!

Here we are!

I never got a full shot of the Eiffel Tower but it goes all the way to the floor! And Normer is Big Ben if you didn’t get it. Last minute I decided to make a little beret for myself to wear. I asked Normer if he had any old dress pants that he didn’t wear anymore. He scronged up a pair for me and I cut them up to make the hat. It needed to be a little more poofy on top to look like an actual beret but I thought it did the job pretty well. It was super easy to make so that has inspired me to make more hats for myself!

Oh and sorry for the red eye in the pic. I’m too tired to edit it. We might be getting a new camera for Christmas! Yah!

Happy November everyone!

Wow, I have come across some really fun blogs lately and I thought I would share!

This first one if full of printables and costumes ideas for kids. But I think a lot of these could be adapted for adults too! And I LOVE FREE printables!!!!

http://www.familye.com/

And speaking of free printables and all things to do with beautiful paper, check out Paper Crave. She even frequently blogs about letterpress. Be still my heart!

http://papercrave.com/

Going with the theme of offering printables, here is the site A Field Journal. It’s just plain gorgeous!

http://afieldjournal.blogspot.com/

Now, if I can just talk Normer into purchasing me a color printer….seems like I’m always trying to talk him into something.

Some of you have requested more letterpress and here it is!
I meant to bring my camera to my class but forgot so iPhone pics will have to do for now.
Here’s the Vandercook press. We have two types of presses that we are using in class. I’ve used the Vandercook the most because I’m scared of the other press. We’ll meet that one next week though.

I’m still learning so I can’t remember all the correct terminology but I’ll do my best to explain the process. First thing you have to do is set your type. There are huge drawers of metal type and you just pick out what you want. It takes forever. I’ve only set 2 words at a time so, I can’t imagine setting the type for a whole book!

After you set your type, then you lock it up in the base of the press. You can see here how I have that clear block surrounding by wood blocks. The wood blocks are called furniture. I am running an experiment in this pic and trying to print with acrylic stamps instead of type. It totally worked and I’m super pumped about it.

I’m excited because it is really expensive to buy graphic blocks to print with. They are called ornaments and are very, very expensive! This is a cheap way to print and get pretty much the same effect. Anyway, so you build your furniture up and make sure that everything is really tight.

Then you have to mix your ink. I mixed up this really fun blue and inked the press.

Then you print! The Vandercook does have a motorized roller, but you have to print by hand. You put the paper in the top, hold on to it and then roll out the press with your right arm. This is a very slow way to print. But the results are quite beautiful. Here are the tags I printed. Next week I’m going to print “To” and “From” on them in red. Then I’ll punch a hole, put in a piece of ribbon and sell it on Etsy! I’m also working on Christmas cards next week too!

Last weekend my fun friend, Amy, came over to work on some sewing projects. We both have a ton of friends that will have babies soon, so we needed to make lots of gifts! We decided to make an Amy Butler pattern of a little butterfly pillow. Boy, we didn’t know what we were signing up for.
Here is Amy tracing her pattern on the window.

There I am sewing, I’m still happy at this point…

And here are our finished projects…those are forced smiles by the way. Our butterflies did NOT turn out well. They look great from afar..but man, they were bad, really bad.

In other news, I’m taking a letterpress class. I’ve been in the class about 3 weeks now and I got to print on a press made in 1897. It was pretty amazing. This week in class I’m working on gift tags. I’m going to print To and From on the cards and then sew little designs on them.

I’m also working on Wedding Invitations. Here is one design I’ve come up with:

And here’s the other:

Just to give you a preview the text will go on the right side of this invite but will be letter pressed! I’m excited about it!

I’ll post pics of the finished product. It might be a few weeks because it will probably take me an entire class just to set all that type!

Ya’ll. I am so excited. I love animals. I always have…but there is a major problem, I’m severely allergic to all animals. Cats, dogs, horses…anything furry and I’m allergic.

This weekend I went to visit my very fun friend Becca. She lives just outside of Denver and I love to go visit her whenever I can. We had such a fun weekend of sewing, baking, and catching up. But hold on, more on those fun times in a second.

I have finally found a dog that I’m not allergic to. You don’t know how HUGE this is for me. Becca and her husband, Jake, have a Miniature Poodle. His name is Tank. He is the most adorable dog and I AM NOT ALLERGIC TO HIM. Did you hear that? I’M NOT ALLERGIC TO HIM!!

I mean, look at this cuteness:

I have spent my whole life with this scenario: Touch an animal and then immediately go scrub down my arms so I don’t break out or start sneezing.

Now look at this picture:

There I am….holding a dog. HOLDING a dog. I’m not sneezing, I’m not itching. I’m smiling while holding a dog. What a concept.

Now,  the only problem with this is that we live in a small condo on the 4th floor and there is no end in sight of when we might be able to move. We are stuck here for awhile. Yet, now that I know I am able to have a dog in my house, I have dog fever. Probably worse than baby fever. Ok, maybe not that bad, but it’s bad.

I want a little “Tank” of my own. But the husband is resisting. And he is resisting for practical reasons of which I totally understand. But come on, how can you resist this?

How could you deny that cute little face, Normer? Hmm???

Ok, back to the fun weekend in Denver. Becca is an amazing cook. She has been to culinary school and worked in a bakery. I think I gained 10 pounds from all the baked goods I ate this weekend. I got to Denver Saturday morning and the very first thing we did when I arrived was play Settlers. Ha, Becca and Jake are my kind of people. The next thing we did was bake a delectable White Strawberry filled Layer Cake with one of Becca’s friends.

Later that night we went up on one of the mountains to visit a house that Becca and Jake are remodeling. It was absolutely gorgeous with fantastic views. How would you like to wake up to this everyday?

After grilling some yummy chicken kabobs and watching the sunset, we made smores over the fire. What a fun night!
On Sunday, I woke up extra early and was able to go running with my new friend Eve. Eve is great friends with my close friend Jackie. I met her through Jackie’s wedding and she just happens to live in Denver. She took me running on a beautiful trail with mountain views. Then Eve and I meet Becca for a breakfast at a cute little coffee shop. After breakfast, Becca and I headed back home to start sewing. We worked on napkins, purses and I even appliqued on a onesie. Here is Becca with her napkin:

And after all that sewing, we had to make a cake. So we made Pioneer Woman’s Apple Cake.

Yum-O. It would have been a lot better if we had let the butter brown more, but we got too impatient. After the apple cake, we were quite exhausted so we called it a night!

I had such a fun weekend in Denver. Thanks Becca and Jake for having me over!

Oh, and one more thing…I’m dog campaigning. Here is my first official act on this official campaign trail.

Normer, I want us to get a poodle. All of my life, I have had to cast aside my affection and love for animals because of my stupid allergies. I have always wanted a dog. A little dog of my own to love and cherish.  For 28 long years, I have suffered because of my allergies. But not anymore. Now, with your help, we can put away those painful memories and fulfill my heart’s desires. Oh, my sweet husband, won’t you let us get a little puppy?

Want to join me on this campaign? Feel free to write a comment on here telling Normer why we should get a dog.

For our second day in Madrid, we didn’t have any definite plans of what to do. So we decided to walk around in the Parque Del Buen Retiro. It was a huge park with tons of paths, gardens, ponds, and tons of people walking around.

One of the first things we saw were these guys in kayaks playing some game with a volleyball. They would use their paddles to throw the ball into a net.

Monument to Alfonso XII

Yes, that is a bunny on a leash.

A very interesting curved tree. And just a side note, it was hot, hot, hot in Madrid.

After the walk in the park we headed back towards our hotel to find some lunch and then got some gelato to cool off!!

The very famous Bear and Tree Statue

After lunch, we decided to take a little side trip up to El Escorial to see the Monastery there.

The week before we left for Spain, I fell down during a run and banged up my knee pretty badly. I had to walk around Madrid with this HUGE bandage on my knee. I got a lot of stares from all the locals, but whatever! Normer grabbed this shot of me while we were waiting in the train station for our trip.

El Escorial is about 28 miles north of Madrid. The monastery there was built in the 1560’s. A majority of the Spanish Kings are buried there, from Charles I (who died in 1556) through to Alfonso XIII (died 1931) through Philip II, Philip III, Philip IV, Charles II, Louis I, Charles III, Charles IV, Ferdinand VII, Isabel II, and Alfonso XII.

We weren’t able to go in since it was closed but the outside was gorgeous!

This is my favorite picture.

I still can’t get over how huge this place is!

We walked around the town of El Escorial and it was quite charming.

Loved these restaurante signs.

Fall colors were everywhere!

Now, I have no idea what these next pictures are about. We stumbled upon this scene:

Here’s another view:

Yes, those statues on the right are shooting at the people on the left. And those are corpses laying on the ground. Like I said, I don’t know what to think about this. I really don’t. Quite different huh?

So, moving on….After getting very lost and having to take a taxi back to the train station, we finally made it back to Madrid and called it a night.
Madrid wasn’t our favorite place that we’ve been to, but we enjoyed the sights while we were there!

Normer and I spent a weekend in Madrid last week. Our hotel was across from Plaza Major so that was our first stop.

Beautiful Spain!

I’ve seen a lot of street performers before but I think this guy wins the award for being pretty freaking creative.

In front of the royal palace.

I love the Spanish architecture.

Normer next to the Prado Museum.

After walking around for hours, we ate a late dinner (Spanish style) and then called it a night! More of Spain up next!