Mexico City

Sunday, September 3, 2017

We went to Mexico City a few days early so that we could explore and celebrate our 10 year anniversary! We left Fox & Jane with Grandma & Grandpa and headed for the airport at the glorious hour of 4am :) The sun rising over Mt. Rainier was beautiful and worth the missed hours of sleep!

We had a layover in LA and then headed down to Mexico. It was much more green than I was expecting!

Holy colorful buildings! YAAAAS!

If these colorful ginormous flower pots don't make you happy, I don't know what will!

Diana and her friends picked us up and we went straight to the hotel to drop off our bags before dinner. Up on the 14th floor it was really neat to see views of the biggest city in the Western Hemisphere out the windows.

Fresh guac and the best limes I've ever tasted in my life!

chips & guac | tacos | corn flavored ice cream served in an actual corn husk, not my favorite lol | pineapple ice cream in an actual pineapple that was delicious!

Can we just take a minute and talk about these authentic tacos?!

Night night Mexico City!

The next morning we hired an Uber (our first one!) and rode into the city. Traffic was easy breezy... false lol.

You know me, I love bright colors, and Mexico City had them all in spades!

Makes me want to learn how to crochet!

Ciudad Mexico! Notice the construction workers taking a break in the shade of the giant letters.

Snippets from the city - some parts remind me of Italy.

Inside the most glamorous post office I've ever seen.

Street vendors selling Mexican goods.

Tiles like unto Lisbon adorn this beautiful building.

We heard a commotion and noticed the traffic was piling up so we ran to see what was going on: a parade! SO COOL!

We found fresh fruit smoothies for a snack.

"Tops" of meat.

Me in front of the Zocalo where the opening scene of James Bond - Spectre was filmed. Apparently that festival isn't even a "thing" but they did have a parade BECAUSE of the movie last year. I don't know if there will be another one this year! But crazy huh? Hollywood... People weren't allowed in the square because of construction when we visited, but usually this is THE place where everything goes down.

Door details.

Me outside the cathedral.

Looking up at the Torre Latinoamericana. Of course we had to go up!

Being the largest city in the Western Hemisphere, you could literally see buildings as far as the eye can see in EVERY direction. You know how most big cities have a recognizable skyline? There are like 20 distinct skylines all around. It's crazy cool!

Creeper me :)

There was a Picasso exhibition inside, but I whimped out - in addition to being a huge city, it's also 7,382′ above sea level and I was huffing and puffing around trying to adjust!

Me & Chris in various places around Mexico City.

Love this yellow bridge.

Love this pink, blue, orange combo!

We popped our heads into this restaurant and love the outfits the waitresses were wearing.

Sugar skull mural.

Our last night in Mexico City (after a fun, full day at the Teotihuacan pyramids and two days of teaching - recaps coming soon!) we at a Thai food place inside the same mall as our hotel.

It was the BEST tom kha gai soup I've ever had! I seriously have been craving it ever since... better go back!

Funny story (although maybe it's more of an inside joke/you had to be there situation!). Sunday morning we headed back home. We woke up at 3am (so 1am our time) to get to the airport (we thought it might be crazy busy being the biggest city and all). We got through everything super fast with hours to spare. And then our flight was two hours delayed because there wasn't a second pilot... We re-booked our tickets from LAX to Seattle because we would have missed our connection. By the time we landed at LAX I was starving. I found the first thing I could to eat - some overpriced, way too hot nasty meat sandwich. I laughed and said, "Wouldn't it be funny if there was like a Chick-fil-A right around the corner?" We didn't think it was possible since this terminal seemed small and dark. We sat down at our gate, another couple sat down next to us, and when I looked at what they were eating I about had a heart attack! SHAKE SHACK!!! Are you flippin' kidding me?! I don't know if you remember, but the last trip Chris and I took solo was in March 2016 to London. We tried Shake Shack for the first time there and loved it SO MUCH we went back every.single.day. Those buns tho! Basically, we compare all burgers to Shake Shack and stalk their website to see when and where the next location will open, hoping and praying it'll be near us. I was sadly full, but Chris got himself a burger and it was epic. I knew I was going to Las Vegas the next weekend where there are Shake Shack's galore, so I didn't partake. It was just hilarious that it was literally around the corner from where I ate my sub par lunch and we talked about how there was probably food around the corner. I settled too fast! Lesson learned!!

For some reason when we got our flights re-booked they put us in first class! I'm not complaining! It was fun to be waited on hand and foot, though I didn't even get anything except a bottle of water.

Hello again old stomping grounds!

Flying back into Seattle, I always look for the landmark volcanoes.

It fascinates me that even 37 years after Mount St. Helens erupted you can still see where the lava spilled out and nothing has grown back there.

A short video of our time in Mexico City:

We had an AWESOME trip together, just me & Chris, in Mexico City! Thank you Malm & Dald for watching the kiddos!

Paige Taylor Evans + Silhouette!

Friday, September 1, 2017

Guess what?! My cut files are now available in the Silhouette Design Store!

There are 40 designs available NOW and about 10 new ones will be added every week!

I also asked a few girls to be on my Paige Taylor Evans + Silhouette Design Team!
Please welcome Lorilei Murphy, Bea Valint, Zsoka Marko, and Audrey Yeager!

Here are some layouts by me and the team to get you excited about these cut files!

daisies background

flower cluster

hearts heart

superstar

cut and fold butterflies

cloud trio

flower half

Are there any designs that you would like to see be made into cut files? I am open and would LOVE suggestions!! Thank you so much!

You Are The Best Layout by Missy Whidden

If you don't already have the Turn the Page 2x2 Paper Pads, let's just say this layout by designer Missy Whidden will convince you that you NEED them :)

Hello again, friends! Missy here, and I had a blast creating this layout using the Turn the Page 2x2 Paper Pads. They are the cutest things and they are perfect for getting lots of color and patterns on your layout. I decided to create a big title using lots of different pages from the little pattern pad. I hand drew the letters and then fussy cut them out. I like that they look imperfect - that’s the beauty of hand cutting them! I went with Paper 07 as my background - I love how the colors popped against the neutral gray color. I covered a lot of the center area with white gesso and then used several colors of Shimmerz to add the watercolor areas. I arranged the letters and situated my photos towards the bottom so they overlapped together.

These small 2x2 Paper Pads are perfect for something like this. The designs are smaller as well which gives you a different look than the bigger papers. Here you can see how the gesso created some texture on the background. I added even more texture with some machine stitching through all the words. I embellished around the page with lots of Turn the Page Puffy Stickers.

On either side of the photos, I tucked in a large flower die cut from the Turn the Page Ephemera Die Cuts. I added in a few more Puffy Stickers and some tangled thread. Down at the bottom I decided to overlap the letters on top of the photo. I added some foam adhesive behind the photos and the letters to raise them up off the page a little bit. This helps emphasize the word BEST and makes it stand out. I added a cut floral Puffy Sticker here as well as a pretty bird from the Ephemera Die Cuts.

I felt like the upper right area needed a little something, so I created a small cluster using a heart die cut from the Ephemera Die Cuts and two Puffy Stickers. The birds in this collection are so adorable!

I hope this inspires you to give the Turn the Page 2x2 Paper Pads a try! They are really fun and versatile and made putting this layout together very easy! I hope you’ll check out my process video and see how I created it. Thanks so much for stopping by!