THE ENGAGEMENT ARRANGEMENT.

Posted on by

10

I’ve just realised that I haven’t yet shared the many pictures that I managed to accrue from my explorations in organising a little get-together with a few friends for our engagement party celebrations. How remiss of me! So, for those who are unfamiliar with Brisbane, it was held at the Continental Cafe, which despite it’s name, manages to serve up much more than just coffee and cake – although it does do a mean coffee and cake. Continental Cafe’s byline is noted as: “17 years of late lunches” so as you can probably tell, there is much ado with feasting and eating till you’re stuffed at this location.

The restaurant has a cute french provincial feel to it – think massive tapestries alongside rustic chandeliers and exposed beams – so a cosy little place to share in hearty food. The nice people at Continental also typed up and printed us some custom menus – although they got a little enthusiastic with their exclamation marks, resulting in: “Nan & Jane Engaged !!”

My pretty people: Fi (my sister) and Steve, Cliff and Jasper, a cute Vivi holding my one of my hand-stamped wedding favours (and a peace sign, courtesy of Jen).

These were the little favour bags that I spent the previous morning making – out of large lunch bags (cut down to small ones), some Ikea twine I picked up years before and the adorable Kikki.K stamp kit I received from Thomas – they were a hit and every bit of candy was consumed with fervour.

As much as we would of loved to invite ALL OF THE PEOPLE, we were constrained by the size of the place – we tried to keep our numbers down. We managed to squeeze seventeen of us into the restaurant’s back room, which turned out to be a pleasant number. Time between courses was spent eating sweets and joking about (oh and photo-spamming).

A few more of our lovelies: Joe and Kathy, Clifford Face and the ever-beautiful Jess Jess!

My dearest Kathy (and Joe) also bought us the sweetest engagement gift all the way from Taiwan! That’s right, little fluffy, alpaca bride and groom set! The girl alpaca is cotton-candy pink decked out with pears and a tiny little taira and veil while the man alpaca is actually a little stouter around the neck and legs and is proudly sporting a skinny tie! She’s insisted we incorporate them into the ceremony (I’m thinking that the rings can be attached to them somehow)!

Now on to the NOMS – which I think everyone wants to hear about more than everything else – the menu was quite decadent – and filled with all forms of intensely delicious and incredibly heavy food – quintessential European fare mixed with a handful of eclectic and seasonal meals – feel free to salivate.

Chilli-salt cuttlefish, wild rocket leaf salad, sesame dressing.

Risotto aux fruits de mer, roast tomato & garlic, local prawns,fish, mussels.

Spaghetti, prawns, baby spinach, smoked bacon, chilli, lemon.

Vincotto glazed turkey breast, sage and onion stuffing, peach and green bean salad, raw cranberry sauce.

Roasted vine-ripened tomatoes, put lentil ragout, chick peas, grilled haloumi.

A spoonful of Parisian fairy floss.

Sicilian cassata, marzipan coated sponge, liqueur, candied fruit.

And that was only a handful of the dishes that were available – so as you can see, pretty much everyone was happily stuffed by the end of the night (well, at least I hope they were)! To top everything off, we decided to indulge in some group photography – mind you the first shot was supposed to be “normal” and the second shot was supposed to be “like a boss”. Um, I’m not sure if we got it right or not – but at least we tried!

BE INVITED; MY WEDDING, IN PAPER.

Posted on by

7

A wedding post? I think it’s about time to heave-ho into the foggy word of manic decisions and throwing handfuls of tulle in the air and crying “FRANTIC CITY! FRANTIC CITY!”. Being of the typography-loving disposition, the idea of having a sub-par set of stationery to accompany by big day seems distasteful. Also, I would not be pleased. Not pleased in the least. So, i’ve been piling up a few ideas (with the assistance of Pinterest, many thanks to Jenn for the invitation) and staking wedding websites like 100 Layer Cake and Etsy to trigger some ideas.

For my own engagement shindig, I pulled together a few ideas, hours of Photoshop time and a shaky colour scheme to create a little invitation, utilising the lovely people at Vistaprint. It was only a trial printage, but it managed to help me get a gist of how the system works, the prices and the quality of the print – which wasn’t half bad.

See, not too shabby for a first effort at this thing – managed to get me some pretty fonts, and see the TINY LITTLE ALPACA? Yes, I managed to add a tiny little alpaca. Pretty awesome sauce!

So I’m planning to follow this very adorable little DIY tutorial from A Practical Wedding – time for me to get busy, once again, with Photoshop and plenty of blood, sweat and tears, to add to it all.

The Oops I Really Care Way

This morning, we posted the APW theory that really nice invitations have two elements, with everything else being extra: good design and good paper. If you’re using an APW printable invite sponsor, I’m pretty sure you’ve already got good design in the bag. But perhaps you also want good paper, and you want to print at home. Well, here is the thing. People will tell you this can’t be done. But it can. We did it. David and I printed part of our wedding invitations on our home printer, using 100% cotton paper. And they looked so good that I wondered why I’d also effed around with Gocco (well, actually, I did that because it was fun). So it can be done, and here are my tips:

  • Order a design that isn’t super ink heavy. Don’t make me say that again.
  • Order 100% cotton paper. Go somewhere with a heavy duty paper cutter to cut your paper down to size. Normally you can go to a Kinkos, or other print shop, offer to pay to use the printer cutter, and have them offer to just let you use it. Score.
  • Cut extra paper because your printer will inevitably eat some of them, leaving you yelling profanities if you didn’t cut enough.
  • Get a cheap-o paper cutter for your house, to handle the part when you inevitably didn’t cut enough. These work well, and will come in handy for years to come.
  • Buy envelopes in a complementary color.
  • Buy extra printer ink, because your printer will inevitably run out of color at the most inopportune time.
  • Go home, sit by the printer, feed your lovely cotton paper. Curse loudly as the printer yells at you about the paper. Tell the printer who is boss. Admire how professional your invitations look, and think about how cheap they are, and realize how little skill this took on your part.
  • Fin.

Read more: http://apracticalwedding.com/2011/04/how-to-print-your-own-wedding-invitations/#ixzz1sUBq1Ix4.

Now to accrue some ideas – here are a few that I’ve been eyeing off – and yes, I’ve noticed that they’re all pretty different from each other – but i’m planning to mish-mash ideas into a delicious soup of…er…invitations? One thing I’m certain of, though, and that is I’ll be using heavy weight (cotton/linen) paper. Oh yes. Yes indeed.

RAVISHING SCRIPT, PRETTY IDEAS: Swooshy calligraphy, simple, but modern. [ LINK ]

SIMPLE, ON AMAZING PAPER: The contrast colours are truly amazing. Customisable with a matching RSVP card. [ LINK ]

ILLUSTRATED, WATER COLOUR: Hand drawn wedding invitation, a sweet and simple watercolor invitation set. Personalised to perfection – but so pricey and impossible to create oneself (unless you’re particularly handy ay drawing). [ LINK ]

DIY, PRINTABLE: Instantly downloadable from Etsy, cheap and complete with invitation, RSVP and info card all together in one pack. Oh my. [ LINK ]

SELF INKING, ADDRESS STAMPS: Custom calligraphy style self inking address stamp – fabulous for the lazy people like me who hate writing my address over and over again. [ LINK ]

AIR MAIL, THE LOVELY THINGS IN THE MAIL: This has all the hallmarks of a lovely vintage invite – all the way down to the bakers twine (or which can be put together so easily, as well). [ LINK ]

CARNIVAL WEDDING, ALL OF THE COLOURS: A printable suite pre-created – but this colour scheme is so lovely and perky. Love the perky! But maybe it’s a little…too perky? [ LINK ]

Yeah, so here’s to me scratching my head and cracking my knuckles in front of my trusty Mac and Photoshop (I’ve finally managed to re-install it). I’ve got so many ideas bustling around and not enough presence of mind to calm down and start prodding buttock. More ideas and inspiration to follow (and any other little suggestions are eagerly accepted)!

BABY, WELCOME TO NEW YORK.

Posted on by

4

The trip to New York was an education in it’s itself. Never have I been on a flight this long before – consider me, completely wiped out – absolutely exhausted, and for some inexplicable reason, my knit weave sweater unravelled and turned into a pile of beige yarn. Much like half-cooked Maggi noodles. Highly unappealing, not at all appetising. The whole apparel item gave me a haggard, homeless-bum look to my travel get-up. But not in a good way.

So after shipping off to Taiwan, then on to Osaka and then finally to New York – we arrived in the great land of the US – where the incoming Customs scan was practically non-existant and when released into the arrivals lounge, were almost instantaneously approached by a scammer asking us if we needed “transport anywheerrre” (rolling the “r’s” here) and, when he realized we understood English, he backed off right away. Also, security were eyeballing him. Also, a few seconds later, an announcement came over the PA system warning travellers not to accept such offers of apparent “generosity”. Go figure.

The trip into the Big Apple from JFK contained me ooh-ing and ahh-ing in semi-conciousness at the architecture styles of the US of A – apparently, eves on houses aren’t a thing for a large number of residential plots in the US? The houses appeared in uniform rows, only discernable by their paintwork (and possibly a discreetly placed property number) – the roads presented themselves beautifully, but most showed no form of sewerage gutter, the majority of trees were still recovering from Winter’s howl and waving at the blue sky with empty fronds. But the most astonishing thing? The huge, expanses of clean, uniform cemetery plots of the Cedar Grove Cemetery that seem to stretch as far as the eye could see, when we headed past Queens and into the belly of Manhattan.

For me, oogling from the back seat of a 4-wheel-drive taxi, the whole experience was not only mind-blowing, but also surreal – we travelled over bridges, in communter tunnels and were spat out in Brooklyn – the land of massive converted warehouses, imposing fume stacks and a ferociously devout community of Hasidic Jewish families living alongside a growing generation of skeptical hipsters – bristling in their skinny jeans and sullen expressions.

Hitting Manhattan, we were warmly greeted by hordes of drunk St. Patrick’s Day revelers – clad head to toe in green, their garish outfits – decked with shot necklaces, jangly shamrocks and flashing bobbly shamrocks donned upon headbands – our cabbie swore fluently as he attempted to wrangle his way around the inebriated masses – all of whom were practically dribbling down the sidewalks. If anything, the police force looked bewhildered with the sheer force of alcohol-induced frivolity that orbited them. The police horses appeared amusingly unfussed.

Then our cabbie hit a green-clad, beer swelling, buzz-cut-sporting, jay-walking pedestrian.

And swore again.

Baby, welcome to New York.

LC-FREAKING-A+, IN NEW YORK.

Posted on by

6

There are a handful of wonderful things that I managed to score whilst in New York – an “I <;3 NY" shirt, a collection of vintage postcards and a pile of adorable toast-shaped coasters. But, the best purchase (and the second most expensive item I bought) that equals with my new Marc by Marc Jacobs handbag, is this beauty – the LOMO LC-A+.

On just our second day in the Big Apple, we took our first subway trip downtown (okay, so, it was still Midtown, but slightly more downtown than Broadway, at least) to B&H. When reading up on this camera-mega-store in my trusty Lonely Planet handbook, they called the shop “an experience it itself”. I thought they were exaggerating for the sake of explanatory spice, but my, was I wrong. This store is not just absolutely massive, it is also crowded and bustling with black-clad (and knowledgeable) Hasidic Jewish salesmen. When you select an item, it gets bucketed and cranked up and overhead on a crazily intricate conveyor system to the purchase area – where you must once again, queue. The entire process is all very reminiscent of cattle prodding – but more orderly, and possibly with less faeces involved.

THE UN-BOXING: even the box is pretty. Decked it out in bubble wrap to keep it whole on our trip back down under.

For those who have been living in a pond, here’s the sell-spiel from the good people at Lomography.com -

Its legendary Minitar 1 lens gives you the same radiantly coloured and shadowy vignetted images as the original, while taking your Lomographic experience to soaring heights with cool new features like the multiple exposure switch, enhanced ASA settings and a cable- release- enabled button for long time exposures.

Adorable film canisters.

  • Minitar 1 32/2.8 lens – yielding the same radiant colors, the knockout contrast, the edge vignetting, the powerful multi-coating and sometimes surprising results.
  • Apertures: 2.8, 4, 5.6, 8, 11, 16
  • Shutter speeds: 1/500 to unlimited (via auto-exposure)
  • Multiple Exposure switch
  • Expanded film ASA/ISO setting to 1600
  • “Front grooves” which open up the world of image experimentation through LC-A+ customized accessories.
  • Cable release and tripod thread

Just a pointer – the Lomography.com website has the LC-A+ retailing for $280.00 – I bought mine from B&H for a measly $229.99 + New York’s sales tax (+$20) – and includes: Lomo LC-A+ Camera, Cable Release, Lomographiere hardcover book, Two 35mm Film Rolls, 3 1.5V Batteries, Wrist Strap and the LOMO LC-A Book.

But okay, lets move away from all of these crazy specs and have a look at some pictures – my scanner is a bit loopy, so these images don’t exactly show off the true sharpness of the images – and for some strange reason, the second set that I developed in Oz came out FAR TOO SHARP. Ugh. Also, it’s important to note that the first roll of film was blown after the teeth of the loading spool munched up the notches in the film – the film didn’t progress and ALL of the images were lost. SUPER SAD PANDA. But, moving on from my innate depression, here are some highlights and I’ve put the rest in a handy album so your brains don’t explode from the image overload.

A) LIGHT POST: Bedecked with stickers in soho. B) LOVE ME: A building in lower China Town seeks appreciation and affection. C) SIGHTS WITH ASSISTANCE: From the heights of the Empire State Building. D) HOPE: Is found everywhere, at a small memorial/shrine at the foot of one of The High Line entrances on West 20th Street. E) ASTONISHING DISPLAYS OF LIGHT: And beauty in the Natural History Museum. F) POSTER BRIGHT: soho and noho, the home of lovely posters and hispter hangouts.






A LOT HAS HAPPENED.

Posted on by

2

So it’s been a while since … well, I’ve been lurking the Internet. I would love to blame “being busy”, “planning wedding things” or “travel”, but the plain, and somewhat glaringly pathetic truth is – I’ve been reading Hunger Games (yes, all three books, not just the lousy Movie Tie In). But, saying this, I have been out and about, I recently returned from my holiday in New York (awesome) and Taiwan (awesome), I have fainted in a major shopping centre and have subsequently relieved myself of my breakfast in a food court (not very awesome), I have spent the large part of a day in hospital (very not awesome at all) and have performed okay, albeit deliriously neurotic, in a job interview (not sure about the level of awesomeness, but it credits an allllllriiiiggghttt). So I guess I can actually hide behind the mysterious curtain of “busy”.

Now I would love to go right ahead and plunge into the awesomeness of my holiday in New York (and all of the wacky things going on around me), but I don’t feel like I’ve actually finished capping off my trip to Beijing – in that way, I have to come clean and apologise for being a lazy sod. Also, to apologise, for soon I plan to confuse you all with my convoluted timeline of photographs and memories. Yes, I’m going to Do An Evil and mix up my posts from Beijing with those from New York. I know, I know, you hate me.

Before I do start assailing you all with all forms of mental torture, just a few website updates:

  • The winner of the giveaway, Cindii, has recieved her giveaway things! Hooray!
  • I will be updating more frequently due to the sheer number of blog posts and crazy things I have to share with you all (we’ve all heard this before, but work with me here folks, it might just come to fruition).
  • I will be trying my hand at a few more arty-type things, so stay tuned for my adventures in Craft.
  • Wedding-orientated posts will become a more frequent apparition. I know right. Be scared. Be very scared.
PS. I now have an unhealthy addiction to Graniph shirts, especially since they’ve altered their “SS” cut to accommodate those of us with abnormally long abdomens. I didn’t buy as many as I wanted in Taiwan as the shop girl had freaky creeper-stalker eyes. Uuggghhh. Luckily you can buy them online.
Image

Andy Cheung vol.01 Colour splashed floral grenade – a vivid image of life and death from the artist, Andy.

World of Fantasy Vivid world of coloured balls. A fantastic graphic experience.


Christine Berrie vol.01 Retro camera madness from Christine Berrie. One for camera nerds worldwide.

Image

Heiko Windisch vol.02 Surreal mash-up courtesy of Heiko Windisch. 

Yeah, yeah, shameless capitalistic post. Tomorrow? On to the good stuff.