Wedding Stationery

I didn't wake up at whatever o'clock in the morning to catch the Royal Wedding on the telly but I have been thinking about weddings recently. I'm looking forward to being in my friend Cate's wedding this summer, and I've been touched by the amazing flood of positive feedback from friends and internet strangers alike about my wedding posting on Style Me Pretty. Thank you to everyone who shared my work with friends, liked a wall post, or cared enough about my ideas to swing by and visit my own silly little blog.

I got some questions about designing wedding invitations so I hope you'll all forgive me if I do a little self-promoting PSA here while the whole western world seems to have weddings on the brain. Below is a photo of my wedding suite to clarify the pieces I am currently offering to customize. There is the wedding invitation (with my original teapot illustration) and the matching RSVP postcard back with return address—I can customize these with the bride and groom's information. I also do little cartoony portraits like the ones I used on our postage stamps.

I've been in the process of organizing photos and design files to put up some listings in my Etsy shop, but in the meantime, I am definitely available for custom orders of stationery or portraits. Message me for a quote and once we work out the details, I'll post a reserved listing in the shop for you. If you're interested or have questions, I love getting email here: theyuppielifestyle@gmail.com.

More details for future brides: For the envelopes, I bought the polka-dotted paper, envelope liner stencils, envelopes, and this great adhesive runner from Paper Source and assembled everything myself. For custom rubber stamps, I highly recommend Berkeley Stamp & Engraving Co. for their fast and friendly service; I used them for the "please do not bend" stamp and have used them for other custom rubber stamp projects in the past.

| Photo Credit: Me. |

California Poppies

I took this photo a couple weeks ago at the edge of Mission Dolores Park while we were waiting for the J train line. As a little kid growing up in the dessert, I always wondered why the poppy was the California state flower because the only ones I ever saw had been planted in people's flower beds. Now I see how they make our state pretty by growing wild in unexpected places. I love being constantly reminded of how magical this city is—there are poppies blooming all over even these ruddy old train tracks.

Here are some other ways to bring the brightness of poppy orange to your life.

| 1. Penguin Group, Postcards from Penguin | 2. RJ Graziano, Chain Hoop Earrings | 3. Jack Spade, Leather Flask | 4. J.Crew, Retro Dot Underwire Tank |

| Photo Credit: top. Me; 1–4. See links provided. |

My Wedding Is on Style Me Pretty!

I am very excited to announce that my wedding is being featured on Style Me Pretty today. This is a pretty big deal for me because I poured a lot of heart and soul into styling my wedding last year, and it is so great to have an opportunity to share all those little details with other brides looking for ideas. You can check out the full post right here. And to those of you who helped make that day such a lovely one—thanks again for being awesome.

Here are just a few shots of some of the details from that day. If you are looking for someone to design party invitations or style your wedding, shoot me a note at theyuppielifestyle@gmail.com and I would love to find out how I can be of help.

| Photo Credit: Wedding photos by Aubrey Trinnaman and Blake Henderson of Jerry Yoon Photography. |

Mystery White Flowers

I saw these pretty white flowers at Mr. and Mrs. Miscellaneous a couple weekends ago. These are just the right kind of flowers to throw in jars around the house if guests are coming over because you don't have to buy very many stalks to get a full-blooming arrangement. Does anyone know what kind they are? I will give a gold star to the person who can find me the answer!

P.S. I've been fiddling with a new template that I am hoping to implement very soon, so I apologize in advance if things are a bit askew during the transition. Thanks for your patience! ♥

Updated on 05|03|11: These flowers appear to be called chincherinchee.

| Photo Credit: Me. |

Hoppin' Hounds and Easter Biscuits

Instead of going to an Easter egg hunt over the weekend, we went to an Easter biscuit hunt just for dogs. Every year at the Byrne Preserve in Los Altos Hills, there is a Hoppin' Hounds Easter Biscuit Hunt that raises money for Palo Alto Animal Services. The event runs from 9 to 10:30 but getting there on the earlier side is a good idea because by 10, things had already significantly died down. The doggie treats were not too deeply hidden in the hunt area, but Lillabelle didn't seem to care about looking for treats. I think she was just stoked to be outside, prancing around in the tall grass. I don't think we've ever let here run free in such a big open space before. We thought it was a pretty epic setting for an Easter hunt.

On Sunday, I made some paper bunny ears to put on Lillabelle and we tried to photograph her with a basket of plastic eggs. She was a lot less stoked about that.

| Photo Credit: Me. |

An Illustrated Guide to Unusual Advertising

I don't know how I got on their mailing list but somehow I received a catalog from The J. Peterman Company in the mail the other day. What was odd about the catalog, or "Owner's Manual" as it was labeled, was that rather than there being photographs of the products being sold, there were these adorable illustrations. They remind me of paper doll clothes that I played with when I was little.

I've been reflecting on effective advertising lately because a sweet marketing student contacted me last week to ask for help with learning about marketing to the yuppie demographic. And while I think that J. Peterman's illustrations are incredibly charming, I don't think anyone these days would buy an article of clothing that they'd never even seen a photo of. There's no practical way get a sense of fit or fabric with this approach. To make things even more laughable, each item in the catalog has these hilariously verbose descriptions, which are allegedly written by J. Peterman as he either philosophizes about the item or recounts the exotic adventure on which he found the inspiration for it. Here is the description for the striped Russian Navy Shirt above.

Wait a minute. Does Russia really have a navy?
They do. Of course they do.
Watch the news on TV tonight. If they're wearing striped shirts like this, it's the Russian Navy.
Unless you see a dark-eyed girl paddling a green boat and her boyfriend laughs and smokes and laughs and his cigarette is slightly less than one inch long and permanently attached and he is wearing a not bad-looking striped navy shirt, then it's France.
Unless it's New York.
But if the girl and her boyfriend are both blonde, and pale smoky-eyed, and he, you notice, is deeply tanned and wearing a striped navy shirt, then it's Finland.
Or the island of Sylt.
Or Krk.
Or Sukhumi.
Under a suit jacket, it's L.A. Or maybe Munich.
But when they're both wearing striped navy shirts, it's Zihuatanejo.
Or Sochi.
If there are two girls and one boyfriend and all three are wearing striped navy shirts, then it's definitely Russia.
Unless it's Central Park.
Russian Navy Shirt (No. 1017), for men and women. A faithful copy; like the original, it's “unimproved.” Pure cotton. The blue is wonderful: dark, deep, moody. Maybe it's the Russian soul, coming back.

Who needs to buy children's toys when you can cut out the clothes from J. Peterman's catalog for paper dolls and read your children stories like these at bedtime? They certainly made for a good evening of dramatic readings at the dinner table at our house.

| Art Credit: From The J. Peterman Company. |

Keeping in Healthy Spirits

After getting a lot of positive feedback from male readers on my post about men's shirts, I asked Nick for suggestions for more male-oriented posts and he told me to write about Healthy Spirits. Healthy Spirits is a neat little shop with a huge selection of beers imported from Europe. We like it there because it is not the sort of shop you'd run into to pick up a six pack of any old American beer on your way to a party. Tucked away on a residential corner a few blocks uphill from the main Castro strip, it is a shop clearly run by people who care about helping you find a well-crafted beer you'll enjoy.

Nick loves Belgian brews so it is nice that all the beers are sold by the bottle and we can get a few different ones to try whenever we are in the area. They have a section of beers that are fruitier and sweeter too, so if you aren't typically a beer drinker or are looking for something a little more "girly" they'll be able to recommend something for you. If you're looking for a snack to enjoy while getting your beverage on, their hummus supposedly gets rave reviews and they also have a great selection of some of fabulous ice creams by the pint. Despite the name, hard-to-find quality beers are really their specialty and the highlight of this shop is the shelves and shelves of different beers that they've somehow managed to cram into the small space.

Healthy Spirits is located at 2299 15th Street, San Francisco, California 94114.

| Photo Credit: Me. |

Veggies Are Good for You and Pretty Too

I am kind of obsessed with monochromatic art so this print caught my eye on Pinterest. Pinterest is a neat site for creating virtual pinboards for beautiful things you stumble upon on around the internet. You just put a little bookmarklet in your browser toolbar and you can "pin" any image right away. They're a startup out of Palo Alto and I was lucky enough to snag an invite from a friend in the first couple months of the site, when people were really using it for what it was intended to be and it was awesome to see what designers, photographers, and other creative types were sharing.

This fantastic print is called "Hello Spring" by an illustrator named Heidi Schweigert; she has a shop called Red Cruiser on Etsy that has other great work like this. But for some reason, when I saw it on Pinterest it was credited to Eric Carle with no backlink to the Red Cruiser shop listing. Not cool. Like a game of telephone, it got repinned over and over with the wrong information because people assumed it was labeled correctly in the first place. So, this is a little reminder about how important it is to give people credit for their work.

You can follow me on Pinterest here.

| Art Credit: Red Cruiser/Heidi Schweigert. |

2011 Cherry Blossom Festival

Every year there is a big Cherry Blossom Festival in SF's Japantown that spans across two weekends. I think the best day to go is the day of the Grand Parade. The Japantown here is not very big so the area was pretty packed but it was still a lot of fun to be there. These are some of the photos I took of the huge cast of characters that made an appearance. All of the kids in the parade were so adorable and the anime costume portion of the parade was quite intense! I thought the guy with the pointy helmet thingy over his head and the giant blade was especially hardcore.

| Photo Credit: Me. |

The Mission Here Is Cheese

Last Saturday, Nick and I checked out Mission Cheese, the brand new cheese bar that just opened last week. Once I read about the existence of a cheese bar in the Mission on one of my favorite blogs, I had to check it out. The concept is similar to that of a wine bar, except instead of a long list of many categories of wines, there's an extensive cheese list for you to choose from to put together your own cheese plate. If that does not already sound magical enough, you can also get sound advice about what cheese to buy and bring home and there are a few great hot food options. It is like a one-stop shop for the most awesome things to do with cheese. We stopped by at lunch to have a couple sandwiches, but I'll definitely be going back to try the mac and cheese and the raclette.

In Nick's California Gold sandwich, the prosciutto and cheese worked together instead of competing with each other; I usually don't like prosciutto sandwiches because a lot of places stuff the sandwiches with overly salty, low-quality prosciutto but Mission Cheese really nailed it. I got the Cheddar Head, which was surprisingly light and fruity while still being delightfully cheesy. One thing I will say about the sandwiches is that since they are pressed sandwiches and not grilled, the finely-grated cheese they use is very soft and warmed through but not melted down all the way to any sort of stringy consistency. I thought this was a nice change—especially because the lightly-pressed technique left the bread crispy on the outer surface without making the crust hurt-your-mouth hard—but I mention it because people looking for melty and messy might be surprised.

Despite having only been open for a few days, Mission Cheese is clearly an operation that's been well thought-out and put together with care. I loved the contrast of the standard SF modern dark interior with the happy touches that made the place so inviting: the chartreuse tiles at the bar, the cute ruffly aprons on the friendly staff members, and the beautiful orange ranunculus in little jars at each table. They even got the napkins just right with their soft, comforting texture. The place is a little hard to find right now because all they have is a paper sign taped to the inside of their front window, but I don't see how this place could possibly be anything but an epic win if they keep up the great work.

Mission Cheese is located at 736 Valencia Street, San Francisco, California 94117.

| Photo Credit: Me. |