Handmade U - Second Sponsor

Hi Everyone,

I'm so excited to have another one of my favorite shops sponsoring Handmade U! France from Banana Fish Studios has been so kind to offer a small surprise to each lucky lady attending the September event.

If you are still interested in attending please let me know! I do have payment plans available if that works best for you!

Can't wait for the Fall Semester to begin!

Please visit France and check out her fun shop, it should reopen in mid July after her move!!

-Rach

New York Kind of Day

Hello All,

Last weekend Jim and I ventured to NYC, the Big Apple, to meet his parents for a fun-filled weekend.

When we landed at LaGuardia, we met Jim's Godparents Anita and Al and had lunch with them at the airport. It was a great opportunity to meet them and visit for awhile. After our visit we headed down to Times Square which was bustling with activity.

We settled into our room at the Renaissance Times Square, and then met his parents to decide on a show for Friday night. The concierge mentioned that The House of Blue Leaves was a "dark comedy". It was starring Ben Stiller, Edie Falco, and Jennifer Jason Leigh, so how could we go wrong?!? Well I'll get to that.....

We decided to get a quick bite to eat at Junior's which was very close to our theatre. Junior's is famous for their Cheesecake, and let me tell you the yellow regular cake with chocolate frosting was not bad either! (I know so sorry what was I thinking not to get a picture!!)

We then headed to the Walter Kerre theatre for our show.

It was a nice theatre and we had great seats. The show started and we quickly realized that it was no comedy at all, dark or otherwise. It was a very heavy topic, and although the acting was incredible, I mean you really didn't like Ben Stiller at the end of it, and you can imagine how hard it is not to like Ben Stiller! Kudo's Ben, Edie and Jennifer on your acting chops, however we left the show pretty disappointed in the story/heaviness. Perhaps just our expectations were not as they should've been.

After the show Jim and I walked around Times Square for awhile. We were talked into one of the late night comedy shows you buy tickets for on the street then they direct you to some basement theatre with a line up of comedian's you think you might have heard of before....but you really haven't.

Out of the 5 or so comedians, a couple were pretty funny, the others, well you kind of felt sorry for them. Man that is a tough job!!

We did see a famous person on the street.

Saturday morning we decided to try and do the touristy thing. We went to see if we could do the NBC tour, unfortunately it was sold out. So instead we bought tickets to visit the Top of the Rock.

We had time before our time to go up to run over to CRUMBS CUPCAKES!!! Oh yes. Even though we had had a big breakfast we found room in our stomachs for a little piece of heaven!

After our cupcake detour we headed back to go up to the Top of the Rock. How convenient that we had to walk through Anthropologie to get to the elevators :) (No I didn't buy anything)

The view from the roof deck was so amazing. I loved walking around and seeing all the landmarks from above. You really feel in the middle of it all up there!

There is a room on the rooftop that if you don't know what you are walking through you will miss out on some fun!!

Jim knew about it, and showed me the ways! When you walk through this room, there are lights above you that follow you as you walk through, or run through, or run around in circles! Pretty cool stuff.

After the Rock, Jim and I decided to head down to Macy's. On our way we took a detour so I could stop at my favorite NYC store, Tinsel Trading Company. How nice it was to see this in the window, as we were headed to register for our wedding at Macy's!!

I found some very cool ribbon to use at my upcoming art event Handmade U, and I also found navy vintage feather pins to turn into hair fascinators for my bridemaids!

Then onto the MEGA STORE! We spend a hurried couple hours in Macy's with Jim wielding the price gun zapper, and us going quickly through the list of items we decided to register for. We found a number of beautiful things and were so happy to get that completed!

Exhausted we headed back to our hotel to get changed for dinner and the main attraction- Spiderman!

The show is still in previews, but it had been reworked since it previewed awhile back. The spidermen flying around was cool, the costumes and scenery were also fun to see. The main actors were great and sang wonderfully. If you watched the American Idol finale and saw Bono singing, the actor he sang with was the lead in the show we saw.

After the show we headed back to the hotel and crashed! What a jam-packed fun day.

Sunday we had breakfast, went to church at a beautiful Cathedral and headed onto the airport at it's conclusion.

What a wonderful trip to NYC with Jim's parents. Thanks to them for taking us it was a great treat.

- Rach

March Moulin Rouge

Bon Jour -

As long as I've known what an art retreat was I have wanted to attend one of Kim Caldwell's events. Over the top amazing does not begin to describe the effort that Kim puts in her events. I was not prepared for how beautifully decorated and extravagant the event was going to be. From the velvet gift bags filled with wonderful vendor donations, to the sweet table set ups and the tasty food we were served (along with cupcakes, thank you very much!!) it was all more than I could imagine.

I really lucked out and got paired up with an awesome roomie!! Denise Hahn iss not only super talented, but a fellow lover of cupcakes and treasure hunting. How could we not get along??! Denise was sweet enough to pick me up from the airport and we also picked up one of my favorite gals Michelle Geller too. More on Michelle to come....

We checked into the Hotel and it was so cute! Hotel Belamar. Highly recommend. It is very close to Susie Cakes cupcakes and new little wine shop across the street. Also there is a bagel shop that we took advantage of each morning, thanks to Denise and her car!!

We met up with Valita and the four of us headed down to the Fashion District in LA. We shopped hard, looked through beads, laces, and trims, OH MY! We could have spent hours there....but we had to stop and have lunch....it was a little late in the afternoon my time and I was fading fast!! Luckily, Denise, our native LA'ian...I know that isn't right, but sounds good....took us to an amazingly cute cafe! Here we are happy to be seated with a cool beverage!

The meal was so tasty, and I'll tell you it was the weekend of sweet potato fries! YUM!

To top it off and start the weekend right....mini cupcakes, one for each of us!

We all had started to dig in before someone with a more level head, I think Michelle, thought to take a photo!! So we all patiently put the cupcakes back on the plate for the photo :)

The floor of this cafe was even so cool...

After our shopping excursion we headed back to the hotel to freshen up before our welcome to Moulin Rouge.

Then we walked into our amazing art room for the weekend. Here is my spot:

More on this fabulous weekend to come!!

Have a wonderful Memorial Day Weekend!!

-Rach