most amazing deal ever!

so, edyta (my wedding photographer) is offering the most amazing deal ever. as in, it seriously makes me contemplate wanting to get married again (to the same guy, of course!) just to take advantage of this if i were to enter and win. she's giving away a FREE day of wedding photography.

the package includes:

Complimentary Wedding Package (includes 8 hours of coverage, 20pg 10×10 album of your choice, online hosting, disc of images). Couple must pay for travel (airline ticket, car rental and hotel if needed - this will serve as the deposit to secure the date). $4400 value!

sign me up! umm....edyta, can we enter to win just a portrait session? teehee....jealous! so ladies (and gents)...head over to edyta's blog to get more details and send in your entry! this is an amazing (and cost-saving) opportunity.

cocktails

so over the weekend while out with friends for the bachelorette, we started discussing how we like gin, and how we are liking the trend of herby/refreshing drinks. on saturday night i had a gin cocktail with apple, lemon, basil and honey--it was SO delicious and refreshing.

this morning i woke up and checked my normal blogs, and saw this post from edyta...how timely! as she said, great minds think alike:

Trends of 2009 - Custom & Complex Cocktails

photos via edyta via brides

serious art lust

so today on one of my favorite design blogs, design*sponge, i saw a piece of art that i want. badly. it is called ratp carte intégral by antoine + manuel and it is amazing. this piece combines a sort of ryan mcginness-like icon art that brandon and i love (remember our bathroom art project?), the place i constantly feel homesick for (paris), and a map--i love maps, ESPECIALLY those relating to transit lines, as this one does. i feel like this was made for me specifically. now i just need to see if i can purchase it anywhere...

image courtesy of antoine + manuel

christmas gift

i realize i never shared what brandon got me for christmas, which is surprising because i'm EXTREMELY excited about my gift. this year, especially since we just got back from new york, brandon and i decided to set a very low price limit for christmas gifts. in november i blogged about brevity designs, and the necklaces and earrings i was swooning over. i didn't know that brandon actually does read my blog, but the husband paid attention to my swooning post AND he was paying attention to the time i said in passing that i wanted to start wearing earrings more often. i was genuinely shocked when i opened my little package from brandon--i had no idea he knew about those earrings! i have been wearing them constantly....here's a picture i snapped today

gift spotlight

(logo courtesy of paste shirts)

as i mentioned previously, i said that if i got my act together, i'd like to highlight some people who are making some great products that would make nice gifts for that special someone. somehow, in my crazy mind map, that led me to remember that i never showcased the shirt brandon bought in new york...whoopsies! so, what a perfect opportunity to show the shirt AND highlight someone who is making some really great stuff. to give a little background, while brandon and i were in new york, we stopped into this random little wholesale trade show for young artists in soho. we decided to stop in on a whim because brandon wanted to look at t-shirts. we stopped at a booth that had a shirt that caught both of our eyes--it was a silkscreened shirt of abe lincoln as a pirate. we had a conversation with the guy that makes the shirts (i am assuming it is jason of paste shirts) who told us that it started out as abe lincon as george michael, but something just didn't look right. in the process of removing abe/george's aviators, he moved one lens out of the way and looked and had one of those "of COURSE!" moments--and pirate abe was born. to view the shirt and others, visit paste shirts online shop. there are mens and womens shirts available. you can also visit the accompanying blog, called cup copy paste.

swooning

a little birdie (aka edyta, my wedding photographer) passed this link on and i have to say i fell in love with the jewelry, and one necklace design in particular...of course, the bubble. i couldn't even decide which finish i liked most so i had to include them all...and a cute pair of earrings...

(images courtesy of brevity)

here is a blog that goes along with the creator of brevity. are these jewelry pieces not so adorable? also, check out the paper goods section on the brevity store website. there is definitely a goldmine of christmas gifts on these websites...i can get my act together, throughout the next few weeks i'll be posting interesting/unique/fun finds that i stumble upon (or that are passed on) just in time for holiday shopping...

nursery completed!

today brandon and i went over to my sister's place to put the finishing touches on the nursery since the new window is finally in, including the final piece--the installation of the mobile. i decided that it would be smartest to do a site installation, because i knew it would just be a headache attempting to transport it on bart.

jen picked us up in emeryville so she could return something at ikea, and then we headed out to concord. with a little fishing line (lovingly donated from josh's fishing pole), some felted birds, and some sticks found in tahoe, patootie's mobile was created. i have to admit, it turned out better than i had expected...i had felted the birds a while ago, but more recently gotten the idea for the twigs here. i think it definitely added exactly what i was looking for to the creation!

so now for the completed nursery...soon there will be a little baby to put in here!

dining table [finally]

we have pretty much been looking for a dining room table since we got married. we went back and forth and looked at tons and tons and tons of tables and just couldn't decide on one. i at last fell in love with this table (or the modern table on his website) but came to decide that, if i got that table now, the size would be dictated by our small space, so we might as well get a smaller breakfast nook type table now, and then we can get my dream table later. with that mindset, brandon found a table and showed it to me. we decided to go for it...it is simple, neutral, and functional. after a mix-up with the table top color, we now have the correct table and therefore our dining room is at last coming together. we also decided that, as long as chris was generously giving us a ride, we might as well get the desk i have been eying while we're there. i just wanted something simple so our dining room could be transformed from hallway to office/dining. it of course needs tweaking, but we're much closer than we were earlier. THANK YOU CHRIS! we owe you big time for the schlepping.

my helpers

clowning around...how can anyone take them seriously?

the result-in-progress

85% reveal

well, here is the big "reveal" of the nursery. it's not completely done, but the majority of the work is finished. phew! my sister has finally seen it so now i can post the full pictures.

brandon assembling the crib for his future niece


the crib in place


the mural, to be finished after the window is replaced


"it is just as it is with the flower. if you love a flower that lives on a star, it is sweet to look at the sky at night. all the stars are a-bloom with flowers."

sneak peak

so today was a very long and exhausting, yet fun-filled day. it was finally the day to begin getting the baby room together. jen and josh were in tahoe so we decided to take the opportunity to kind of put it together while they were out. they knew we were doing it, but it's still a bit of a surprise since they don't know exactly what it will look like. we assembled the crib, painted [most of] the mural (josh had painted the room already), put up a shelf, and started to organize the room. the mural was frustrating because it was REALLY hot today in concord, so the paint was thickening really quickly. it didn't end up quite as i had hoped, but it still looks good i think--i just need to do some touch-ups.

still to be done: finish & install the mobile, get the window replaced, touch up paint as a result of window replacement, touch up mural in general, hang curtain/valence, bring in rocking chair and adjust final furniture plan once rocker is in place. i'm only giving a sneak peak of the nursery because my sister hasn't seen it yet, and i don't want to reveal it to the masses before it's revealed to her. more pictures soon to follow...

architecture [nerd]

yeah yeah yeah, i am an architecture nerd but i embrace it. we are trying to figure out a space plan for the nursery, and so i decided to have some fun in handy dandy autocad and draft up the initial idea. things might get changed around with the addition of a toy box (from our childhood), which might delete another piece of furniture (namely the ikea storage unit, which would actually be okay if we actually installed some shelves as i've shown on the elevations...don't mind me, i'm thinking this out as i type). actually, it might be fun to customize the old toy box...we'll see how adventurous i get. i get creative leave from work, right? to implement the nursery?

anyway, the plan...

north elevation (i actually have no idea which way is north, i'm just going off north being up on the plan that i drew)

east elevation (going around the room clockwise)

south elevation

west elevation

it's not exactly set which walls will be painted, or if all of them will be. it also hasn't been decided which wall the "mural" will be on, although currently i'm leaning towards the wall behind the rocking chair and the cub station (east elevation). we'll see! the bedding arrived and is very cute (i have yet to see it in person) but i think the blue is going to be a bit too bold to paint the entire room, so it's going to be the challenge to find the right shade/saturation of the color to paint. also, i know some of the walls look a little bare, but keep in mind there will be a rocking chair in the corner (which i didn't extend my nerdiness to attempt in elevation), books and things on the shelves, and a mobile above the crib to spice things up.

wedding invitations

well, i've had a few people ask about weddings/my wedding invitations recently, and i realized i had never documented them, so last night i decided to take some pictures of them. brandon and i designed, printed and assembled them all by hand--truly a labor of love.

first, our save the dates...we took the picture in golden gate park, near where brandon proposed.

next, i got the [insane] idea to do envelope liners. time consuming, but so pretty! thank you, martha stewart, for the how-to...
and then for the final product, the actual invitations. the names have been blurred for privacy, in case that was a point of confusion--no, we didn't have gray smudges on our invites. on the left is the invitation how it would come out of the envelope--folded up with the band around it. on the right is the unfolded invitation. the left side had a pocket which held the rsvp card and map/directions/additional information card. we also decided to "splurge" and purchase custom stamps from zazzle.
and now for the invitations:

overall, they were extremely time consuming and stressful at times, but i think we enjoyed making them, and at the end of the day i was glad we customized ours so much. i really feel our invitations represented us, and i like that there are no other invitations out there exactly like ours.

*note: if you'd like to see better resolution of any of the photos, please let me know!*

six months

happy six months to us (well, as of yesterday). time flies when you're having fun! just wanted to say happy 6 months to the love of my life...i look forward to many many many more months to come. it's been amazing so far, and i can't wait for all the adventures waiting for us!

*photo courtesy of edyta szyszlo photography*

wedding pictures...6 months later

so brandon and i have been dragging our heels on choosing our wedding album photos and the pictures for our framed "haiku" (a framed arrangement of 9 photos). after a facebook hello from our photographer (not related to us not doing this yet), i decided it was time to finally just bite the bullet and choose the photos. it was extremely difficult to basically rule out 900+ photos and condense the day to a very small amount, but i think we did a decent job and i feel better knowing this is finished. almost. just a few final touches and it will be off to the photographer for the final printing, etc. i can't wait to see the finished product!

in the meantime, here is what we chose for our "haiku":

photos by edyta szyszlo

apartment improvements

well, we decided to have a home/apartment improvement weekend and paint some fun things on the wall. here is the before and after of hall "garden" and our ryan mcginness inspired bathroom...

hall before

hall after
bath before

bath after

and where were the cats during all of this? napping for the most part, thank goodness...