She wanted to keep the koi motif throughout the rest of her wedding stationery – putting it on the top of the reply card and blank A2 cards later to be used for thank yous.

The invites were printed on Strathmore 110 lb. cover stock in sage green and platinum grey ink.

One of the beautiful handcrafted items featured in Finn’s Montessori style bedroom was a branch with hand-sewn birds attached. With all the wedding arrangements we’ve been doing with manzanita branches, I knew I could make something similar!

The pattern for making the birds came from the Spool Sewing blog. And I used some various fabrics I stockpiled from our recent trip to Japan.

I had a couple of sand-blasted manzanita branches (about 24″ tall) leftover from a wedding and attached the birds using a glue gun. We’re going to hang the branch on the wall in the baby’s room. Hopefully soon!

Printed on chipboard in red and charcoal grey.

I had some leftover A2 cards and printed these tigers in orange. Maybe I will make a set of zodiac animal cards….

Even if you don’t plan to hold your wedding on Valentine’s Day weekend, you can still have beautiful, romantic bouquets in multiple shades of pink and red. Accent with deep purple or peach for something a little different. Adding ostrich feathers makes a dramatic and glamorous statement. And little sparkling rhinestones glued onto roses and calla lilies or just placed between the flowers add a little bling bling edge.

Lots of different soft textures evoke romance and love, so plan to have a bouquet of various types of flowers in the same color family.  Flowers for romance include roses, of course, as well as the multi-petaled ranunculus, cymbidium orchids, fluffy peonies, mini calla lilies, and sweet peas.  You can also decorate the bouquet handles with lace overlays, rhinestones, or large satin bows.  Let your bridal bouquet speak the language of love!

My best friend, Jenny, recently gave birth to a bouncing baby boy, Maxwell Linus, in December. Before the big day of labor and agony, I threw her and her husband Nick a baby shower in Brookline, MA. A chance for me to make letterpressed invitations and thank you cards??!! (perhaps!)

These cards were printed on Strathmore 110 lb. cover in natural white.

As you can see, Jenny loves puns! As a matter of fact, hubby was the emcee at her wedding and everytime he got up to speak, he had a pun prepared. Jenny was in stitches, but everyone else was groaning!

It’s been great talking to Jenny about her new role as Max’s mama – someone to look up to! I am 33 weeks into my first pregnancy and so far so good! I can’t believe the end is in sight – it has all happened too fast!

Every Wednesday morning, I walk to the most excellent Santa Monica Farmer’s market that spans along Arizona from 4th Street to 2nd Street. Lately there have been loads of restaurant chef sightings and restaurant buyers with their huge carts buying up all the great stuff! I have to start getting there before 9:00 am, I think!

The past couple of weeks, I have been enamored by the plump, sweet blueberries grown by the coastal farm, Pudwill Berry Farm of Nigomo, CA. I like to plop these into my cereal and know I am ingesting some crazy delicious healthy fruit! I have never been a huge blueberry fan because I’ve usually had only tart or flavorless ones. But these are so plump, juicy, and sweet, it’s like eating just picked blueberries from New Jersey in the summer! Although constant sunshine of California may make the berries sweeter, proper storage is just as important as the mild climate that helps the fruit mature and ripen over a longer period of time.

Coastal blueberries start appearing in February and peak in April/May. Randy and Pyoungyun Pudwill grow theirs year-round in hoop houses. In addition to blueberries, they grow other types of delicious berries like raspberries and blackberries. You can find Pudwill berries at these LA farmers markets: Wednesday: Santa Monica; Thursday: Thousand Oaks; Saturday: Santa Monica; Sunday: Beverly Hills, Hollywood, Santa Monica, Studio City.

For more information about California’s recent blueberry boom and how Californians have learned to successfully cultivate blueberries, check out this article from the LATimes.

When Nancy and Nori were starting to plan their wedding, I heavily hinted to them that I would love to make their invitations! At the time I was enrolled in the evening contemporary letterpress course with Gerald Lange at Art Center College of Design in Pasadena. It was my second time taking this studio course with Gerald at Art Center (as a way to get printing time). I originally learned letterpress from him in an introductory class at Otis College of Art a year earlier.

The cards were printed on recycled chipboard. For the main graphic, Nancy wanted to feature the dried lunaria, or money plant, she was going to collect from her parents’ farm and use for the reception table centerpieces. The color for the text was a dark chocolate brown, and for the image a rust orange.

In addition to the invitations and thank you cards, Nancy wanted to pass out bookmarks commemorating their special day as wedding favors. These were inserted into books from their personal collection brought to the reception and had special meaning to them as a couple.

Nancy and Nori met while they were both Peace Corps volunteers in Malawi and were married in the fall at The Old Stone House in Brooklyn. When Nancy and I visited the flower market together, she fell in love with all the dried botanicals. Used in combination with fresh flowers, dried botanicals evoke a beautiful natural, rustic, and organic atmosphere.

For the centerpieces, dried lunaria, or money plant, was the key feature. These delicate and papery discs were mixed with large, showy dried lotus pods and okra pods. The dried lunaria were collected from the Nancy’s family farm in Indiana, where they grew in abundance. Dried curly ting ting in a natural finish was used to fill out the centerpiece and add texture and volume.

Fresh seasonal flowers in lovely fall shades accented the dried botanicals. We purchased from the flower market, vibrant flame colored crocosmia. From the local farmer’s market, we used seasonal zinnia in a variety of colors like yellow, orange, red, and pink.

Because the bride and groom spent some time in Thailand working at the Thai-Burmese border, we thought it would be nice to bring in some of their Thailand experiences in the form of tropical orchids in autumnal shades for the personal bouquets, corsages, and boutonnieres.

We made a gorgeous, natural, trailing bouquet for the bride with amazing flowers from the flower market. These included orange cymbidium orchids, magenta phalaenopsis orchids with small stripes of yellow making the petals appear more burgundy, vintage orange ranunculus, hypericum berry, and for the real showstopper – fantastic mauve tree peonies. These individual stems were secured to a rustic wire frame work of fresh trailing vines

For something a little different, the ring bearer carried a small box covered with variegated Ti leaves and accented with orange cymbidium orchids, mokara orchids, and hypericum berries.

Bathroom window ledges were decorated with fresh flowers and dried botanicals: ranunculus, phalaenopsis, hypericum berry, and dried grasses and miniature grape vine wreaths.

All images courtesy of Jenica Miller Photography.

I saw these super cute Valentine’s Day tissue cozies on the wonderful blog Stitch/Craft the other day. Instead of traditional Valentine’s Day cards, which I was thinking about letterpressing, I thought these would be fun to make and quite unique! This year Valentine’s Day AND Lunar New Year fall on the same day, so I was trying to come up with some creative card to celebrate both, but I was unsuccessful. Tissue holders to the rescue! And regular Lunar New Year Tiger cards to be letterpressed later!

I printed out clear and simple directions from Stitch/Craft and
purchased cute fabric from Joanne’s – hubby’s least favorite store after Michael’s – dragged him there since it was on the way one day!

And used some of these paper heart cards I got from The Paper Source many years ago but never got around to doing anything with them.  I just had to trim them a little and ended up using the envelope as a background as well. Voila!

A spry ol' pup when he turned 13

Our Samoyed named Salt turned 17 today! We breathed a sigh of relief at midnight last night – he made it!! We got Salt when we were living in Boston, 7 years ago, at the MSPCA. He was even “on sale” due to his size and age! Ever since he came into our lives, he’s been a great, easy going dog.

At 17 years, Salt is equivalent to about 99-104 years old in “human years” (he’s about 60 pounds).

So what’s the old guy doing today? He is resting up for a big night out, that’s what!

How about those purple balloon shoes? They help with his slipping and weak legs. We may have to upgrade to a less balloon-y style…

Dreaming about days of yore when he used to chase squirrels, bark during car rides, and frolic in the surf!

Happy Birthday Salt, you old dog you!