The UPS truck showed up at our door today and dropped off a Crate and Barrel package. I asked Josh (jokingly) what he bought from Crate and Barrel (he laughed…I don’t think he’s ever ordered anything from there…me on the other hand, well, that’s a different story). So I open the little box and on the top is a card from my darling friend Jen and her new husband Spencer! The card was SO sweet (the gift was a thank you for helping with her wedding), and I couldn’t believe it when I saw THESE:
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been searching for these little darlings since this Favorite Friday post! They are even MORE beautiful in person! What a FANTASTIC bride!!!! Thank you, thank you Jen and Spencer!!!! I can’t wait to use them!!! What a great surprise!
If you are looking for these same place card holders, you can pick them at Crate and Barrel here.
Felicity’s birthday was on Thursday, but we celebrated yesterday with Josh’s family. It was a really fun time with an easy dinner of soup, salad, and breadsticks, chocolate cupcakes with pink icing and sprinkles for the kids, and coconut cake for the adults. My extra treat was the white chocolate suckers (see the post before this one). Everything looked beautiful! I used my new Paradise Collection to make all the accessories for this party. The new collection is happy and bright with vibrant colors. It hits two peas on May 5th! I will be sure to give you a few sneak peeks in the coming days. You can also buy all the party stuff I put together in a new digikit that is also part of the collection (also coming May 5th). Here’s a peak at the printable digikit:
Here are some photos of the fun night celebrating Flissa’s second birthday! Here’s the birthday girl wearing her pink party dress and wrapped in her blanky.
These are my cute sisters-in-law:
Party food always makes everything better!
I cheated on the cake—just white box cake (Duncan Hines), but I didn’t skimp on the frosting. I used the Barefoot Contessa’s coconut cream cheese frosting.
I love these four little cousins!
The hats looked so adorable on the kids!
Living Room decorations
and party-goers (it’s girly enough at our house that even grandpa is holding a wand).
My friend Carolyn sent me a picture of white chocolate lollipops she made from molds and I had to try it myself for Flissa’s family birthday party. (Carolyn says that she has a blog but hasn’t updated it for a while. I’m trying to convince her to put her gorgeous little girl bows up…if she does I will be sure to post it here!) So I borrowed Carolyn’s daisy molds and made the suckers. They were SO fast and easy to make. All you do is get white chocolate chips, melt them, add a little food coloring (I used two drops of red in one package of white chocolate chips to get this light pink), and let them cool in the fridge. I was sort of surprised at how fast the entire process was.
That’s my short post for the day! I have to get together the rest of Flissa’s b-day party and I am working on a new line for Two Peas which should hit in two weeks! Not only that but I found out this week that My Minds’s Eye has picked up a Halloween line from me for the July release (CHA). Lots of exciting things happening and so little time! Will post on the party and new line soon!
This weekend was filled with parties and events for Jen’s wedding. But don’t plan on her posting about it anytime soon since she is on her honeymoon. I just thought I would post a couple of tidbits although I don’t know that this will be a very exciting post as I promised to not show any of the riske photos from the bachelorette party. I tried to make the food for the party as easy as possible. One of the ladies offered her house so we nixed going to a restaurant for a more comfortable atmosphere. I ordered sushi (from Happy Sumo) and soup (the Zuppa is my favorite from the Olive Garden). I’ll be using the Olive Garden for easy parties in the future…the soup was only $20 for a gallon and $4 for 12 breadsticks.
This is my favorite picture of Aimee and Cynthia (sisters) laughing at one of the stories being told.
As I said, I wasn’t allowed to post any of the ridiculous pictures, so that basically eliminated everything else:).
Okay, a little about the wedding. As the matron of honor (wow, that sounds old, huh?) and with two little flower girls to boot, there wasn’t much time for pictures. I will just say that it was a BEAUTIFUL day—the bride looked beautiful and the groom handsome, and well, it was all a fantastic success. When Jen posts pictures, I will DEFIANTLY send you over to her site because they will be fabulous. I will also get the link to her photographer, Kelly Nicole. Here are a few of my candid pics:
The bride and groom
I think this little flower girl is pretty adorable.
This next little flower girl ripped the hem of her dress,refused to wear her wreath, and managed to have a blow out in her dress during my toast (Josh missed the toast and a few other things). She looks so innocent…
Our fabulous cupcakes from cupcakechicutah were AMAZING! I would highly recommend her! We had the red velvet for the wedding favors and we had the chocolate coconut and chocolate mint at our bachelorette party.
This cake wasn’t just beautiful, it was YUMMY! Raspberry filled and swirled on the bottom, carrot cake for the middle, and lemon with lemon curd for the top…
Felicity and me…I loved our bridesmaids dresses and those huge peony’s we wore in side buns in our hair. We also had fabulous green shoes! That’s the fantastic combo you get when two designers get married!
After posting that business card video below (seriously, you need to watch it because you will completely enjoy it!), my brother-in-law Nate posted this American Psyho Business card scene.
So I’m sure you also feel this way many times: too many things, so little time! There are SO many things I want to do creatively, with my family, for myself…but I need just one more hour in my day (you know you can relate with me on this one)! There is the daily grind of regular life, there are things that must be done, and there’s, well, work. And all of it is necessary. So carving out a piece of time in your life that is complete devoted to some kind of creative effort or ME time is difficult. I see this especially for moms (when’s the last time you got some ME time, mommies?). Last night, I had a bit of ME time by going out with my girlfriend, Jen (aka: the projectgirl). Did I mention that she is getting married? Yep. She is. And I’m guessing she has been too busy to even mention it on her blog. Currently, she is staying at my house as we make final preparations this week for the big day. Last night we went out for pedicures and a little late night dinner. VERY indulgent and something I can be okay with as Ms. Jen lives in San Francisco and I’m always so happy when she is in town! So with a week’s worth of wedding stuff in front me (I am currently fancied-up for our bridal luncheon today at the Lion House) and Two Peas products to make, My Minds Eye submissions barking at me, my daytime job (yes, I still have one of these), and well, I have been sketching out new designs for this website (lol…good timing, I know!), things start to get a tiny-bit busy. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining! I think this is what life is all about! And most of it is SO fun (I love everything I do!)! I guess this post is sort of a reminder for me to enjoy the process—something I am terrible at doing. I’m sort of an end result person (a prognosis attained from the doctorate I’m sure). So I hope if things are crazy for you, you take a moment to smell the roses and enjoy your process!
And, because I love you so much, here’s something for you all to enjoy. Josh was sent this little goodie from a friend on facebook and I CANNOT resist posting it here! I mean, it IS design related. Please, please, I urge you to watch to the VERY END! Business card anyone?
Your Business Card is Crap!
Wait, wait….This is THE most impressive business card I have ever seen. It’s MINE…hahaha! That is such a great line! And where in the world can I get this guy’s business card?
Last week, something possessed me to take a second away from digital scrapbooking and to actually scrapbook the traditional way. I used my Bella Bella line from My Minds Eye.
It’s nice to get off the computer sometimes and really get down and dirty! I think there is something about really feeling the paper in your hands ( I love paper…sheets and sheets of it all over my home just because I like the stuff!). I do think traditional scrapbooking is harder for me because I’m always wishing for a control-Z (I actually wish there was a control-z for a lot of regular things in life!). But once I got use to the idea of planning the layout ahead and being okay with the home spun nature of it all (aka, my glops of glue!), I was good!
I got this lovely recipe book from the library a couple of weeks ago and finally got around to using it last night for dinner! I think the recipes are relatively easy and the photos are inspiring. There are probably 10 recipes I have marked in this book.
I really think this is a very easy recipe as it requires very little work and ingredients I generally have in my kitchen.
There are basically two parts: Cook the Salmon (and I did Chicken too because I knew my ids would prefer that) and Make the Lemon sauce. Let me see if I can decipher these ingredients from the picture…
SLOW-ROASTED Salmon with spring herb sauce
1 1/2 pouds fresh wild king or sockeye salmon fillet
1/4 cup extra virgin olive oil
Kosher salt
1 cup dry white wine
3 tablespoons finely chopped shallots
1 tablespoon fresh lemon juice
6 tablespoons unsalted butter
1/2 cup mixed coarsely chopped soft-leafed herbs such as basil, chervil, chives, dill, fennel, lovage, mint, sorrel, or tarragon, plus additional small tender herb springs for garnish
Coarse sea salt for finishing
(and remember that if you have my kitchen recipe digital kit that you put this one on a recipe card for your kitchen! It’s a keeper! I’ve been pretty good about documenting all my recipes as I have had many new ones recently and my little recipe box is getting nicely filled!)
So I’m sure you don’t have ALL those ingredients in your kitchen. I just bastardized it a bit, heehee. I only had flat leaf pasley and I used dried thyme to help. I did have the lemons and butter, but no shallots. I substituted a finely chopped red onion instead. I also threw in pasta as our carb…I know, not traditional with Salmon, but I knew that’s what my kids would eat.
For the salmon and chicken, you just let the meats sit in olive oil for about 30 minutes and then stick them in the oven until done. Salt them before they go in the oven. I then put the pasta on and made the lemon sauce. All you need to do is mix the wine, lemon, shallots, and a teaspoon of salt in a pan and let it boil until it reduces to half. Then whisk in the butter. Easy peasy!
And that’s it! Combine the pasta with some of the sauce, throw on the fresh herbs at the end (for the dry ones, I think I threw them into the sauce…once again bastardized).
I’ve been dreaming of a beautiful bedroom these days. With my office in the bedroom and with my girls using it as their hang out room, it is currently stuffed to capacity. However, I found these 4 bedrooms on HouseBeautiful’s website to inspire me to help make my room a little prettier…
Florescent pink pillows…who knew they could be so stunning?
This one is probably my favorite. Soft, sweet, and bright. And SO comfy. Don’t you just want to climb into that bed, snuggle in, and read a book?
The chandelier on this one is TO DIE FOR. Yum, yum!
I’m attracted to the colors on this one! I think that blue is in my living room…
I’m back from a bit of a hiatus from my blog. I’ve had a number of things barking at me these last couple of weeks and I’ve devoted myself to being a little more careful about what I choose to spend my time doing. I actually was sitting in on a seminar a few weeks ago that asked us to rate the top 5 things in our lives (things we like to do, wanted to spend more of our time on, etc.). We were then asked to take that list and compare it to what we ACTUALLY do with our day. This simple task is an eye opener. I found myself acknowledging that I didn’t want to spend my life living the way I was now (so busy and stressed out) and not doing the things that I LOVE. Life’s too short right? My number one thing I wanted to do more of was spend a little more quality time with my little family—especially my girls. They’ve always been my number one priority, but I decided to MAKE sure that if I am doing something other than being with them, that it is completely worth it (that’s one way to justify not getting around to the laundry, heehee). Other top things for me? Designing, of course. I am COMPLETELY passionate about it. Surprisingly enough, cooking came up high on my list too. I completely forget how much I enjoy cooking as I spend more nights quickly try to get dinner together at night without a thought to how fun the process is. So you may see a bit more cooking on this site as I flex my creative muscles and make myself spend more time on things I love doing!
What are your top 5 things? What do you care about the most? I really believe that we have the ability to DESIGN our lives…which is a task in and of itself. How would you design your life if you could? I have some ideas about how I am changing my life to be a little less busy and more dynamic and engaging! I am always seeking after beauty in my life and that is one of the things I hope to bring to anyone who reads this blog. I hope that creativity is an integral part of your life too.
Which brings me to what I originally planned on posting about today: Easter inspiration. This is such a wonderful holiday—for decorations, family, and reflection. Hopefully, you get a chance this week to think about your life and what you need and don’t need in it! And while you are pondering these very big questions, lol, here is some eye candy to make you happy and feel inspired for this holiday!
This is Bossy Feltworks etsy shop. What a little darling chicky, huh?
This one’s from SoMommySew. These birdies and colors are divine?
If you want something to tandalize your eyes and your tummy, you should read this post over from the kitchn. It’a an assortment of very pretty little cookies you can find at different locations. These are too sweet and are true eye candy:
Those ladybugs are KILLING me…and little umbrellas? So sweet! Hope this all makes you as happy as it does me! More holiday stuff all this week…because, well, how can I help it? Happy Easter, Passover, or whatever you choose to celebrate this season. The main thing is that you celebrate!
And the winner of the Peony PLace Extras giveaway is:
Congrats LiviaY! All you need to do is email me at carina@diginirvana.com and we’ll get you set up with those stamps! Thanks to everyone else for playing!
If you’ve been reading my blog, you know I’ve been searching for these little darlings since this Favorite Friday post! They are even MORE beautiful in person! What a FANTASTIC bride!!!! Thank you, thank you Jen and Spencer!!!! I can’t wait to use them!!! What a great surprise!
