What We've Been Up To - Part 1

Soooo I have finally gotten my act together enough to update you on all of the AWESOME things we have done in the past few months. I apologize, but its been crazy busy over here what with the moving, and the wedding planning, and the work, and the life stuff. I hope the next couple of posts make up for us being MIA!

Lets start with our trip to New York back in July! And by our I mean mine, as Taylor hung out with a couple of his groomsmen and his family that day in Jersey.

I am not a huge fan of New York. I get that it is full of life and culture and amazingness, and there are a bajillion places I want to go there (Murray's Cheese Bar anyone?) but its just not my favorite place. There is TOO much going on, and lets face it, when I am not 100% sure of everything I tend to get all hivey. However! I have to admit to having a ton of fun when I went into the city with my mom and her friend Lucy. Mainly because we got popsicles.

You are warned now that this is an INCREDIBLY long post.



We managed to pack a TON into one day. We left Montclair NJ at eight in the morning and got in to New York right before nine. Gotta love the NJ Transit.

Our first stop upon reaching NY was a Starbucks as I am not a morning person. But then we quickly booked it over to Mood Fabrics. Mom got some gorgeous fabric for her Mother of the bride dress, as well as some lace to make more wedding decor. We also picked up some awesome fabric for bridesmaid's gifts and Lucy got a super luxe fabric which I believe she is also making into a dress. Yay Mood!

All fabric needs trim so our next stop was M&J Trimmings. There we picked up bucket loads of velvet ribbon, lace trims, and pretty sashes. I think the sales people thought we were a bit insane, but we have a LOT of table runners to make, trims are important. The store was pretty impressive, I didn't even know ribbon was available in so many different widths and colors. 

We followed up M&J with Tinsel Trading Company which is a pretty adorable little store. Mom loves TTC and I can easily see why!

After that we hopped on the metro/subway/underground train/whatever the hell you call it there and rode over to Chinatown. One of Mom's main goals was to make it to Zipperstop and pick up a couple thousand feet of seam binding. We're using it for a number of things at the wedding, and it was so much cheaper to pick it up in person than it would have been to ship it. (Though it was incredibly heavy to lug around for the rest of the day.) We had to ring a doorbell to be let in to the warehouse which made us feel all sorts of cool.

We then took a long stroll to John Derian. I honestly don't see what all the fuss is about him, but his store was pretty nifty. And best of all it had an ADORABLE little restaurant next to it called Peels. 

Peels was delish and super charmingly hipster. We had pretty awesome cocktails, though Lucy and Mom ordered something with gin in it. I don't understand people who like to drink something that tastes like Christmas trees smell. But I digress. Their house made chips were perfectly spicy and all of our lunches were very good. I had the grilled cheese (because where do I NOT order grilled cheese?) and it was one of the best I've had in a while. I would definitely brave NYC to go back there again. 

After resting in the air conditioning and gathering energy through food Lucy performed a miracle and caught us a cab to go to Purl Soho which is quite possibly heaven in a store. There is absolutely every color of yarn you could think of all in one large wall and then they have all of the Liberty of London print fabrics!!! Mom had me pick out a bunch of them so she could make Taylor and me a modern quilt. Pretty exciting as I love Liberty prints. 

Since we were close by we ducked into Kate Spade and some shabby chic design goddess's store as well. Because why not eh? Its always fun to shop, even though we didn't end up buying anything at either store. 

We then grabbed yet another cab and headed all the way up to Madison Ave to go to Laduree. Mmm, french goodies! This was another one of Mom's must hit lists and I'm glad we went, Laduree always makes me feel so fancy. 

After stocking up on adorable packaging we headed back to the subway and went on over to People's Pops and Molly's Cupcakes. What better way to end a day than to eat a large amount of sugar? I had the coconut milk chocolate dipped popsicle, Mom and Lucy had the lemon and strawberry ones respectively. They were delicious. Molly's didn't disappoint either, and I have decided I need a bar with swing seats in my house. 

Then we caught a cab to Penn Station and headed home. Good times good times!

P.s. How awesome is this street art?