LBD: First Week in London

Happy Monday yall! I hope you each had lovely weekends. 

Secretly, I don't hate Mondays. I actually like the new start that we get each and every week. Tuesdays on the other hand...they're the worst ;)

But speaking of new starts, today I wanted to share my latest Little Black Dress Kit Club layout, which is all about my first week living in London.

So much went wrong that week! My baggage was lost, my flat mates declared war on each other, I was on my period, my straightener exploded!!! All little things, but when you start a brand new adventure in a foreign country, you kind of want things to go well.

It didn't take long for things to turn around. As you can clearly see. I mean I was in London for goodness sake! But it definitely got off to a rocky start.

[PHOTO]

Since I had so much journaling (which I started out with this time!) and all those great photos, I knew I needed to make this layout a double spread.

For the page, I cut down some of the fabulously awesome patterned papers that came in the kit. Then I backed each photo with one design. This is why I love working with double sided paper so much. They're so versatile!

I roughed up the edges of the patterned paper to add some texture. And again, I love that you can see some of the patterns on the other sides of the paper because of that.

[PHOTO]

After that, my embellishments were pretty minimal. I added some of the scraps to the edges of the cardstock and hand stitched down the center with white (I fought with my sewing machine for about an hour, attempt to just sew a straight line in white thread, but sadly I had to concede the battle was lost....) thread.

I also added some tape here and there and some of the fabulous ribbon that came in the kit. The final bit was printing my journaling on vellum and adding it, along with the title, to the page for the win!

cheers & besos,

LBD: Life in London

It's June guys! Can you believe it? I honestly cannot. Slow down a little time, will ya? But I'm also excited that it's the 7th because now I can start sharing Little Black Dress June Kit pages!! I had sooo much fun with this kit yall. Heck, I'm still creating with it! But that's for another day.

Today I'm sharing the title page I created for my London album. Check out the video to watch me create and share this page & my process and also a little bit about my time in London. In case you've ever wondered =)

Also, here's some close ups! Click each photo to see them enlarged. 

Journaling Reads:

Graduation. Ugh. Entry into the real world. Double ugh! I was so not ready for college to be over. But all good things have to end. And as graduation approached, I was so not sure what I wanted to do with my life. Where I wanted to be. What I wanted to be doing. And everyone kept asking. What are your plans? What are your plans? What the HECK were my plans?!

I remember so distinctly having a conversation with Tara & Claire. And this conversation is pretty much branded into my memory, mainly because Claire was dressed as Wilma from the Flintstones and Tara was dressed as a boxer (it was at a Halloween house party.)

Claire gave me the best piece of advice that day. She said, "think outside the box. What do you really want to do?" And the first thing that popped into my head was, MOVE TO EUROPE!!

Her words really resonated with me and so that Fall I started my planning and plotting. I Googled things, mainly "paid internship London" and the Mountbatten Programme kept popping up in my searhces. Not only would I get to move to London, have an apartment provided and have an internship set up for me with one of the world's largest corporations, I'd get paid on top of it! It was pretty much a no brainer.

Can you guess how this turned out? It ended up being the best year of my life!

I met so many amazing people and got to see and experience so many different placs. Plus, I got to know London as wlel. I loved getting to wake up every day in that city. I loved that i was home.

So thank you Claire, for your oh so wise words. Thanks also to my parents for their continual support of my ever increasingly crazy ideas. Thanks most importantly to London for all of the memories!

A small part of my heart stayed back in London when I left. And I only get to put it back in place when I'm visiting. Not to worry London, my love affair with you is nowhere near over. Until next time....

cheers & besos,