pretty little paper...

maybe valentine's day is really about paper things. i just want to hang these pretty little garlands everywhere...

they'd make a lovely little backdrop for a wedding ceremony or, well...

how would you hang them?

{all from royal buffet}

and then...

would it be silly of me to decorate my everyday table with these pretty little placecards by Timeless Paper?

she has butterflies and peacocks and dragonflies and hummingbirds and...

go see for yourself. aren't they lovely?

I need to start having more dinner parties...

my heart

G just kissed me and said, "I'm glad you love me. It makes my life better."

image from fffound via styleswoon

don we now our gay apparel

Cara and Jeff's Wedding in 73 Seconds by Jeff Kirsch on Vimeo. Cara says, "the most important thing to remember when planning your wedding: know yourself and be yourself." I just read this on Meg's blog and I wish I had that sense of clarity when planning my wedding.

And, if I could take my 800 wedding photos and turn them into a cohesive, fantastic video like the one above, I would. But...

We set up a "photospot" at our wedding and left a box of "gay apparel" for donning while taking pics, but something went wrong with the camera and/or our guests couldn't figure out how to work it. The pics that I have seen from our photospot were taken by our photographer, who realized that that once someone had grabbed an axe and the rubber chicken head, it was time to take some pics. And they are awesome. And the very kind and wonderful and super busy owner of said "difficult" camera handed me a jump drive over xmas that supposedly contained the 20 odd photos from the photospot, but, in fact, it only had the photos from my bachelorette party - entertaining yes, but not exactly the kind of axe wielding that I was looking for.

cup of joe

okay, I think everyone has seen this by now but I'm totally in love with this so here it is again. I just have to start making lattes again...

{coffee stencil

via the ever loverly

august & everything after}

and happy weekend!!!

chocolate hazelnut love

today is world nutella day. while I don't have a great love of nutella, although I do like it from time to time, I am a big fan of declared "__" days. such as talk like a pirate day (september 19th), groundhog day (can you really call that a holiday? a great movie sure, but... february 2) or world nutella day.

perhaps you'd like to celebrate world nutella day by making these nutella filled cupcakes from yummymummy (save me one please - or one of these...).

what's your favorite "holiday?" (feel free to make one up.)

you have the key to my...

apartment, house, car or trunk filled with chocolate...

by good jewelry.

hint hint

While it seems somehow wrong to cover up the sleek, modern look of the macbookPro, it is advisable to protect our lovely and ever so useful laptops. This is the BookBook hardback leather case by twelve south.

If the husband didn't prefer his desktop computer to a laptop, perhaps if the laptop weren't mine, this would make a great Valentine's gift for him. But in the space that we share perhaps it wouldn't be the worst gift for me, hint hint.

{found via oh joy!}

what are you getting/making your man for valentine's day? please use detailed descriptions and perhaps even website references... ;)

be mine again

I'll be honest. Yet again, I am at a loss for fantastic gift ideas for my man.

For eight of the nine years of our relationship, st. valentine's day has meant very little to us. Until last year, when G picked valentine's day to propose marriage to me (part of me can't believe that in under one year we got engaged and married - although if I could go back and do it all over, I think I would have done it in three months. oh if...). Although it still strikes me as a little odd that my unconventional husband picked such a predictable holiday on which to propose, his reasoning is sound -- if we already have to feel vaguely uneasy about celebrating/not-celebrating st. valentine's, now we have a real reason to celebrate. Except that we are not the kind of couple that elbows other couples to show we love each other in fancy restaurants, and have you noticed how freakin' expensive flowers and chocolates and vacation spots become on valentine's day, this year conveniently falling on a US holiday three day weekend? And have you noticed that on oh so many places of gift ideas, the majority of the ideas are for women and children? What's a girl with a difficult husband to do?

Anyway, for this holiday of predictable and often forced romance, I offer you gift ideas that won't work for my man, but maybe they'll work for yours. the hunt is on.

{copper spine ring by verameat}

I already bought him the only ring he'll ever agree to wear-the wedding ring

{you have my heart hankie & morse code hankie by sewmoni}

a bike mechanic with a white heart hanky, I can see it now... (although I just love the word hankie and this would be a lovely gift for me)

{love pillow by LuLu DK at Fine Linens}

if there is one thing that G can't stand it's too many pillows so I'm just positive that he'd love these fantastically cute albeit overpriced "love" pillows

{chair personality socks available at charles and marie}

again, these are for me. how much do you love the argyle?

{smartwool socks}

so yeah, why not awesome socks? well, his shop deals smartwool and we are both lucky enough to have a plethora of comfy wools socks in the drawers.

{fridge magnet bottle opener from delight.com}

maybe... but does this say I love you, or does it say I am happy to enable your drinking habit?

{scandiphone from delight.com}

actually, he already has a rotary phone, but the standard kind. he's also holding out until life forces him into a cell phone.

{personalized & hand carved cribbage board by SpiritLake on etsy}

we do love to play cribbage...

{numchuck pillow for ninja pillow fight by sushibooties on etsy}

hiya!!!

and then, can I have these???

{also from sushibooties}

and what he really wants but "we" can't afford.

{the saddleback leather briefcase has a 100 year warranty and converts into a backpack. saddlebackleather.com}

G says, "dudes love leather sh*t. it makes them feel tough when they obviously aren't." If you can afford it, your man wants one too.

the muse effect

all right all you photoshop experts out there, what do you do to give an images this glow-y dreamy effect? would you say this is a poloroid sort of effect? holga?

don't get me wrong, I love my photographer, Kathryn, but I was thinking it would be fun to edit a photo or two to look like this. there's just something about this that says ethereal wedding...

{image from english muse}

you don't need favors

but if you wanted a little fun table thing for your guests...

We considered the 1000 paper crane idea, and then we considered a crow theme but realized it was a bit too, I don't know goth for us. And in the end we did nothing for little extras - in fact we didn't do some things we wish we had but that's another story.

I would have done these if I had thought of them. They'd be easy to do your self or, of course, you can order them from the lovely and talented kat's krafts on etsy. do I need to spout my love for etsy again? I think I do.

little boxes

G and I don't have cable which is good. But, it leaves us a little behind on the few awesome series that we actually do want to watch. We just started watching the Showtime series Weeds about two weeks ago and we're horribly addicted! The good and bad thing about watching series after they are release to dvd is that you can let them suck you in for hours at a time, watching show after show after show until your eyes are so tired and you know your'e beyond your bed time and you get up all cranky-pants in the morning with this damned song stuck in your head. Because it's so damned catchy. You meaning me and G. But it could be you.

Everyone seems to love that as of season two, Weeds started using different artists to sing the opening theme song Little Boxes. But even when they are a good cover, they are not as good as Malvina Reynolds original. There is just something about her crackly voice that gets me.

What am I doing this weekend? Probably finishing season three with my man. The other bonus about watching Weeds instead of say Mad Men (which is also divine and I can't wait until I can digest Season 3 in a weekend) where everyone is constantly drinking, is that for our dry January, Weeds doesn't make me want to drink. G and I can officially start drinking again on Tuesday (which is February 2nd, but we drank on our second xmas at my mum's on January 2nd. The rules are one month. Why we had to pick a month with 31 days instead of 28, well... anyway.