Mother’s Day NYC Trip – AI Journal

What could be more fun than a trip to NYC with your favorite people?  A keepsake to spark the memories.  I set out to create a journal for our trip where we could re-live all of the fun times we had.  They were a big hit.  It was hard to keep them a secret until we got on the train and started our journey.  We printed and added pictures on our way home and placed them into the journal. (I bought a special printer for the occasion, the photo paper was sticky backed, BONUS!

I am going to tell you a little bit about the journals and if you are interested, at the end I share a little about our trip.  This is not only to share with you but also for me to be able to look back and remember this precious time.

The Journals

I started out by cutting out all of the journals. I tried to use some thinner paper (the patterned paper from Amazon).  Heavy cardstock works better. It is sturdier.

I planned out the planners on graph paper first so I could figure out what I wanted on each page.  I knew I wanted to do something special for the middle. I decided to use the skills I learned from Sandy Allnock at www.art-classes.com on perspective.  What a lesson.  I learned so much that I feel so much more confident in creating scenes with perspective.

Next I cut all of the elements out.  I created all the paintings next and once I was done, I assembled each of the journals.  I created them in this order. It’s neat to see how similar and yet so different each one is.

The best part is the container that holds it.  It keeps your journal safe!  I love it and will be buying more (although I wish it wasn’t such thick plastic, for the environment ya know).  Other than that, I loved every bit of creating this journal.  I feel like it really stretched my creative muscles.

Journal 1

Journal 2

Journal 3

The Trip

In case you wanted to see a peek at one of the finished books.

What did we do in NYC?  Well, you can see the fun we had.  We started out by checking into our Hotel (Marriott Marquis Times Square – thanks to my husbands millions of miles).

We walked through Times Square, up to 5th Avenue where we had to stop in The American Girl doll store.  See, my mom is a big doll lover and she has many. She was thrilled.  It is a pretty amazing store if you have the chance to see it.

We did all the fun things, St Patricks Cathedral, M&M store and found a really cool store called “Wonderland Dreams”.  It’s an immersive paint experience that you have to see.  We did not go through the downstairs but the top floor is amazing.  Check them out https://www.wonderlanddreams.com/.

Next, we were onto Rockafeller Center and all that Spring brings.  Mother’s Day in NYC never disappoints.  It was in full bloom with so many different and beautiful flowers.  The skating rink was transformed into a roller rink, so fun.  After we returned to the hotel, we sat in the 8th floor outdoor lounge and enjoyed a very expensive glass of wine, the experience was worth the price.  Times square is such an amazing place to people watch, we saw the Naked Cowboy, many superheroes, cartoon characters and even King Kong!

On Saturday, we took a frightening cab ride to Trump Tower so that we could walk around Central Park.  Poor Jan will never sit in the front again, LOL.  Mom and Jan decided to tour Central Park via Horse and Buggy and Stacy and I walked around, saw John Lennon’s Strawberry Fields, the Fountain and took a Bike and Buggy ride back to meet them.

On our way back to the hotel, we stopped for drinks in Bryant Park where they were having an artist fair.  We took in an afternoon show on Broadway called “Bad Cinderella” which DID NOT DISAPPOINT.  It was a great spin on the old Cinderella fairy tail but with a sassy, outspoken heroin who in the ends gets love and all the messiness that comes with it!  And a couple of “wow, didn’t see that coming” moments.  If you have a chance to see it, do it.  It’s in unfortunately closing on June 4, 2023.

We had drinks at Lilly’s, dinner at the most scrumptious Italian place called Armarone Scarlatto and entertainment in Times Square.  Stacy and I danced with a puppet!!  We had the crowd going wild!!

On Sunday, we had a nice breakfast and hung out in nice public area near the train station until our train left.  We had some side splitting laughs sitting there.

It was one of the best times of my life and I am so grateful to have been able to create these memories with these awesome ladies.

I know I don’t usually have such long blog posts and if you stuck it out, thank you!  I appreciate everyone’s encouragement and positive energy.

Thank you so much for stopping by and I hope I have inspired you to create a lovely keepsake for you, family or friends.

Check out more of my work – https://www.facebook.com/TOBinArtStudio/
Instagram: @Tobin0971

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