I love Flickr!  I’ve also discovered Flickr Toys.  It’s soo fun! 

Name Tags, Photo Badges


 


Mosaics

I used to spend so much time trying to create mosaics in PowerPoint.  This one took me less than a minute!

 

Motivator

You know…you’ve seen these before, right?  Cheesy but I used to love them.   



Captioner



Billboards




Other toys:

- Slideshows

- Calendars

- Wallpapers

- Photo Cubes

- Frames

- Andy Warholizer

- CD Covers

- Magazine Covers

- Palette Generator — this one is cool…it’ll give you a color palette that goes with your photo

- And much more!

So now…go make something and show me please!   

“I believe there is no sickness of the heart too great it cannot be cured by a dose of Africa.  Families must go there to learn why they belong together on this earth, adolescents to discover humility, lovers to plumb old but untried wells of passion, honeymooners to seal marriages with a shared sense of bafflement, those shopworn with life to find a tonic for futility, the aged to recognize a symmetry to twilight.”

John Hemingway, African Journeys

It has always been a dream of mine to go on a safari in South Africa.  We had planned on going this year but we got lazy after getting back from Asia.  We almost pushed it off for another year until I saw my Xanga bud’s amazing South Africa photos.  That gave me the nudge I needed to get crackin’ and plan!  Thanks J.!!  I can’t thank you enough for inspiring us! 

The Singita Game Reserve received some notable distinctions in Travel & Leisure’s 2007 World’s Best Awards - #1 in Top 25 Hotels in Africa and the Middle East, #2 in Top 100 Hotels Overall and #2 in Top 15 Small Hotels.

Singita Boulders Lodge

Singita Lebombo Lodge

Our travel agent (Classic Africa) is awesome!  He’s actually a South African Rhodes Scholar, veterinarian and Oxford PhD.  Wow!    He helped us plan our whole trip and even made us our own personal website.

One really helpful site has been the Fodor’s message boards.  The people on there are so knowledgeable and helpful.  You should check this site out if you want to get more info on any future trips!

Books I want to read before the trip:

The Safari Companion: A Guide to Watching African Mammals

Chris and Tilde Stuart’s Field Guide to the Mammals of Southern Africa

Journey Through South Africa

A History of South Africa (2001)

Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela

South Africa Photo Safari Companion

Dead Men Don’t Leave Tips: Adventures X Africa

A Traveller’s History of South Africa (2003)

South Africa - Culture Smart!: A quick guide to customs and etiquette

Frommer’s South Africa (2005)

*Edit*

Thanks so much buddies!  I was feeling pretty crummy yesterday but now I feel so much better after reading your comments/messages.  I was sorta scared though while I was reading…thinking someone else might say stuff.  Silly, huh?  This all got me to thinking about how much I’ve really come to love my Xanga buddies…and how much I truly appreciate you all.

I think about you a lot. 

I ordered some Juicy frames and thought…this buddy likes Juicy too and it would be so cute for her new baby-to-be.

I got these really cute pink puppy beds and thought…this would be great for my buddies with little girl dogs…this buddy’s birthday puppy, Yuki, Coco, Lola, Zoe, Belle, etc.

I think about my Xanga mommies…how adorable their kids are…how I’m inspired and learning so much from their amazing parenting.

I think about my single Xanga buddies…it’s so fun reading about your escapades – finding love, traveling to faraway places, partying it up.

I think about my Xanga brides…I love seeing your weddings come together, hearing about your honeymoons and newlywed lives.  We’re all at the same stage of our lives~ just married and not ready for the preggers boat yet.

To all my dog-loving, photography junkie, craft making, bargain hunting, travel-loving and just generally awesome buddies out there…I’m so thankful to have found you~!  Anyways~ check your protected posts!  And let me know if I missed ya somehow…I was sleepy & trying to put the list together.   

————————–

I know there are mean people out there but I was pretty shocked at a comment someone wrote on one of my posts today.    Sheesh!  I don’t think I did anything wrong…I just wanted share my travel photos with friends.  This person wrote an essay on how awful I am…that I’m just a “stupid clueless tourist”…that I feel that I’m “entitled to such opulence”…basically that I’m evil for staying at nice places and traveling to interesting locations.  *sigh*    If you’re so offended by my travel posts then just don’t look at my photos and please don’t say mean things. 

So…I’m going to make most of my posts protected now.  I never wanted to do this because I love meeting new people and sharing things.  I’ve met so many amazing people already and I don’t think our paths would’ve crossed if my posts weren’t public.  I’ll miss all my would-be buddies out there…and I’ll miss being able to share with my friends who don’t have Xanga.

Let me know if you want me to add you to protected~ where we’ll be safe from mean and bitter people. 

We recently went on a charity walk called “Strut your Mutt” with Bella to raise money for homeless dogs.



I walked for 2 miles in flip flops! 



So did Andy…hehehe!



After the walk there were tons of homeless dogs up for adoption.  There…we found a little homeless dog who captured our hearts.

Introducing……………..Gracie!


This poor girl lived in a cage most of her life…had been abused, had an eye infection, kennel cough, fur so matted it was ripping up her skin, and had just been crapped on by her cellmate….yet she had such a sweet and gentle spirit.  We fell in love. 

BEFORE….
AFTER…….

Bella:  “Don’t worry Gracie…I’ll always protect you.”


The Giant and The Little One.



It looks like they’re friends, huh?  They’ve been fighting like crazy though.  I have hope that it’ll pass and they’ll really love each other one day. 

 
Hey budskies!  I finally had a minute to share some of our Asia trip photos!

KOH SAMUI, THAILAND


Koh Samui is a small island off the eastern coast of Thailand.  The only things I knew about Koh Samui before we went there was that it was one of the islands shown in the movie “The Beach” with Leonardo DiCaprio.  We decided to go since the Four Seasons had just opened a new resort and we love the Four Seasons!  We had so much fun - partly because we didn’t have any expectations as to what it would be like.  It was just a vacation on a whim.

The Four Seasons Koh Samui opened in Feb. 2007.  They built all of the villas into the landscape and left almost all of the vegetation and trees intact.  I loved our villa…it was really huge, private and clean!





We just relaxed most of the time – sleeping, eating and lounging all day.  The days we got out we got massages, rode an elephant, visited a waterfall and explored the town.  That’s it!

Our mahout (elephant driver) was like my brother from another mother~ he loved taking photos!!  Not only did we have an amazing time with our elephant (Domboon)…we got tons of photos and videos!

                    


I love this photo~ it reminds me of how magical everything was! 

HONG KONG

I’ve been to Hong Kong before but this time around I was really interested in learning more about the people, the culture and the history.  I liked learning about the complexities of how Hong Kong operates as a special administrative region of China – the overlap of communism and British influences.  Hmmm…sounds sorta dorky.  I got to meet a lot of interesting people though and I loved exploring!  We loved it so much we were thinking of ways to move there for a bit…

Hong Kong was all about eating and shopping!  Thanks for your suggestions~ I got to eat lobster with cheesy sauce & garlic shrimp and lots of random street food…I got to shop at nice dept. stores and not so nice street vendors…we got a bunch of tailor-made suits & shirts…all fun! 

My trip to Hong Kong wouldn’t have been the same without my new awesome friend, Linnet.  We actually met through Xanga when she responded to a question I posted about Hong Kong.  We started writing each other and she so graciously offered to show me around since she lives there.  We ended up hanging out almost every single day -  it was that fun!  Although we had never known each other before…when we met I felt like I was just meeting up with an old friend.  It turns out that Linnet’s hubby actually went to b-school with Andy and they knew each other~ what a small world!  Linnet is amazing~ there were so many things I admired about her – her language skills, her beauty, her kindness – but the thing I admired most was her faith.  I feel that because she’s such a blessed person she has the gift of inspiring others.  Thanks so much to Linnet – for showing me the real Hong Kong, for the cute gifts (esp. the Havainas flip flops), for helping me shop, and for inspiring me in my faith.



Another stop on our Four Seasons tour!  We got upgraded to one of the top suites…but then we actually liked the suite we were in before better so we downgraded! 

My law school buddy, Dave, just moved to HK so I got to hang with him.  People mistake him for Hiro from Heroes…hehehehe!  He was so nice~ making time to meet up with me.  We went to Shenzen, China with Linnet.  It was fun!!! 

Got upgraded from business to first on Cathay~ yippee!

Back to reality.  At least Bella was waiting patiently for us!!

Video

We’re almost done!  We finally submitted all of our info today so our videographers can get started.  I stayed up until 4 in the morning finishing up yet another Skippee folder.  Now it is all out of my hands~ no more worrying about video.

Except…there is this one song I’ve been searching for.  I’d be soo happy and thankful if someone out there knew what it was.     

Click here >> Screening Room >> Sweet 16mm >> song at the beginning of the clip

Pink Puppy & Off the Leash

On our way to Rome we sat next to Kitten Sera & Miss Kisses.  They are on Lifetime’s “Off the Leash“ which is a reality show about a pet talent agency called Le Paws.



Le Paws

One day Andy & I were at the dog park with Bella and we were approached by a scout for Le Paws.  They wanted to interview Bella.  We went just for fun…

Here’s a clip of part of the interview:
 

Bella actually did pretty well so they contacted us again to say that they’d like to represent her!  Funny, huh?  We’re still thinking about it because it would mean getting professional training and we’re not sure if we have time for that right now.

Sky Bark

Have you ever wanted to take your dog to a bar?  We actually have a place like that in LA (and more locations have opened up nationwide).  Sky Bark is a dog friendly bar!  They host great events that benefit animal rescues.  I really want to go!  Maybe my next project will be hosting a fundraising party there for Xanga buddies & their dogs & just people in general who love dogs. 



 

Bella’s Birthday!

It was Bella’s birthday recently so I wanted to share just how big our little fluffmeister has gotten.

 

Bella had a crazy birthday weekend.  My mom & I took her out to dinner and Pinkberry.  The next day I had Teresa & Katherine over for a slumber party.  We went out to dinner and came back to discover Bella had gone through Teresa’s bag and chewed up her lemon soap!  Later we found that she ate 2 pieces of cake Katherine had bought earlier that night.  Then the little pooch snooped through my purse and took a piece of gum out of the package, unwrapped it and chewed it up.  Can you believe it?  Usually she is such a good girl…maybe she knew it was her birthday weekend? 

 

Leaving Soon

We’re leaving in just a few more days to Koh Samui & HK!  I’m so excited!  I really want to take nice photos while I’m out there.  I have a Canon Rebel XT.  Can anyone recommend a good lens I could buy for taking travel photos?  I’m a beginner but LOVE taking photos.  Thanks!      

*EDIT* – my , Gina just sent me this…soo funny!  She doesn’t do Xanga so she always sends me comments via e-mail. 

Hi again!  This will be boring but necessary to answer all your qs!  I’ve received a ton of questions about our invitations and shrink wrapping process.  Here are the most frequently asked questions. 

Q:  Where did you get the boxes? 
A:  Paper Source, A7 Box Mailer ($2.00-$2.25 per box - click me!)

Q:  How much was postage?
A:  $1.35 in July 2006 (prices have increased so you should go take a sample box to the post office & it’ll also depend on what you put in the box)

Q:  Which stamps did you use?  Where did you put the stamps?
A:  It was easy~ we just went to one of those automated machines at the post office and printed out $1.35 stamps.  We didn’t care if they were pretty or not because it went on the outside of the shrink wrap. 

Q:  Can you give me directions on how to shrink wrap something?
A: 

1 – First step is to determine the size of shrink wrap you need.  The shrink film bags come in 2 dimensions, width x length.  Depending on your package size, you’ll need a width x length shrink film bag larger than your package by a certain number of inches.  For example, if your box is 4 x 6 x 0.5, then you’ll probably need at least a 6 x 8.5 or even 6 x 11.  If the bag is too long on one side, you can always trim it off but if the bag’s too small you’re out of luck.  If you have about half inch of excess bag sticking out each side, you should be good (not counting the open end).  We got our bags off Uline (great site).  If you live near their warehouse, you can actually visit and ask for samples of different bags to see what fits plus you don’t have to pay for shipping.

2 – Once you have the bags figured out, you’ll have to buy or borrow a sealer and a heat gun.  Uline used to sell these individually, but it looks like they’re selling it in a set now (click me!)…you don’t really need the film dispenser.

3 – Now that you have all the materials to start your shrink wrap project…here’s the easy part.  Place the item you intend to wrap into the shrink wrap bag.  It’s okay if there is room between the end of the bag and the end of your box…in fact, you’ll want some room for the bag to shrink.

4 – Once the item is set in the end of the bag, you’ll need to seal the open end.  Here’s where you plug in your sealer (directions may vary depending on the sealer you get).  Basically, you set the open end of the bag between the bottom base and the clamp of the sealer.  Leave about 1/2 to 1 inch of space between the apex point on the base of the sealer (that’s where the seal will form) and the end of the item in the bag.  Once the bag is in place, push down on the top clamp of the sealer and hold until either the light goes off or after 2 or 3 seconds (depending on the bag thickness).  It will vary but after you try a few you’ll get the hang of it.

5 – Depending on the sealer that you get, some will have a cutter to trim off the excess portion of the bag on the other side of the now sealed open end.  Or if your sealer isn’t that fancy, you can trim off the excess with either a paper cutter or good ol’ scissors.

6 – You should now have a fully sealed item inside the shrink film bag.  Here’s where you bust out the heat gun.  Usually, they need to warm up a bit…so plug it in and let it blow for until the heat is hot.  Be careful, because it can get really hot!  I shrunk all our invites on top of one of those trays I pulled out of our oven and used oven mitts to handle the tray if I had to move it around.

7 – The strategy for a nicely sealed and shrunk bag is an even and symmetric shrinking of the bag with your heat gun.  What I mean by this is…first start on the largest face and point the heat gun at the center of the item.  Keep the gun about 4 to 5 inches away and the heat will get to the bag eventually and shrink it.  As soon as the bag begins to shrink (it’ll be pretty fast)…shrink it until the plastic over the center of the face of the item that you’ve pointed at looks pretty much flat.  At that point, the edges will still be loose but don’t worry, we’ll clean that up later.  Once that face is partially shrunk, flip the item over and do the same to the other side so it has a symmetric shrink on the other side.  Flip the box back over and widen out that center circle a bit more, so it’s close to the edges, then flip and do the same until all you have left to shrink are the edges.

What we’re trying to do is to have the folded edges of the bag, once it’s shrunk end up in the middle of the side that they’re on.  You don’t want those edges sneaking over to the large flat side of the item and have them all uneven across the side.

8 – Once you reach the edges, you can just point and shrink away.  Careful here that you don’t point and shrink too long though, as sometimes you’ll melt right through the shrink wrap and it’s back to square one.  For any trouble areas or wrinkles, you can usually just repoint the gun at it a little longer and it will usually shrink down.  If it still does not shrink down, then you might have gotten a bag that’s too big and it had too much room to shrink.

I know, I know…this is super boring!  I don’t know how else to explain it though.  For those that asked…you’re getting what you asked for~ hehehehe! 

Q:  What size shrink bags did you use?
A:  6 x 8.5 from Uline.  It was like $20 for 500 bags!  The bags I got weren’t self-sealing but Uline might now offer some that are.

Q:  How did you decide to do shrink wrapping?
A:  I’m really happy to share because it took us soo long to figure this out ourselves.  All we started with was an idea that we wanted to send out these boxed invites but we didn’t want them to get dirty in the mail or put a bunch of stamps on them.  We spent an entire week going to so many different Office Depots, Staples, post offices, Party City’s, mailbox stores, etc.  We thought of mailing the box in another envelope, bubble mailers, ziploc bags, etc.  Nothing seemed like it would work.  Then a kind stranger who overheard our conversation told us about shrink wrapping. 

Anyways~ good luck!  I hope this answers all your questions! 

Hi~!  First of all, thanks soo much for all your super sweet comments/messages/e-mails!  I’m so happy I get to share all these wedding details with you.  Finally~ my wedding folders got some love…hehehehe!  Anyways, so I’ve been trying to respond to everyone’s questions and realized that many of them were the same.  I thought I’d share info on the most commonly asked about items in case anyone else is interested.    Oh~ and to my subscribers who don’t give a hoot about wedding stuff…sorry~!

THE FOLDERS


I started off early on by subscribing to and buying  every single wedding I could get my hands on!  Martha Stewart, InStyle, Real Weddings, Los Angeles Weddings, Grace Ormonde, Brides, Bridal Guide, Modern Bride, etc.  Then I just started tearing out ideas and saving photos from the web - anything that sparked my interest.  This helped me sort out just the articles and photos I really liked minus the 10,000 ads.  I got a bunch of 3 ring binders and a ton of page protectors. 

 

Categories:
- Wedding Advice I (general advice)
- Wedding Advice II (health, budget, marriage)
- Wedding Attire (wedding gown, tux, bridesmaids, momma bear)
- Extras (accessories, makeup, hair)
- Reception I (general, favors, invites, music)
- Reception II (color schemes, cake, flowers, attendant gifts, websites, DJ/bank, misc.)
- Photography (picture poses/must takes, photography, videography)
- Honeymoon (articles, destinations)
- Checklists & Registries

THE SKETCHBOOK


When I started my vendor visits I realized that I needed to put all my ideas into one place.  I met my buddy Katherine one day and she had the neatest sketchbook filled with ideas.  The very next day I went over to the art store and got myself a sketchbook.  I filled the book with ribbon samples, decor photos, inspiration photos, “don’ts”, bridesmaid dress ideas, a photo of my gown, weddings I liked, and cool ideas.  The vendors loved it because they got to see exactly what I was looking for and what I wasn’t.  You don’t need to have an exact idea of what you want…just show them photos you love, things that inspire you, anything!  I think it’s also important to show them exactly what you don’t want.  I even included a photo of these random pillows I saw at Target…the colors were so pretty (pink & brown) that it inspired me to choose that color combo.  This stage of wedding organizing really helped me define and determine the theme and vision I had for the wedding.  Try it~ it really does help to get all your favorite ideas in one place. 





HAIR & MAKEUP FOLDER


After a bad hair & makeup trial I realized I needed to be able to really show a hair & makeup person what I was looking for.

Pages:
(1)  Recent photos of me
(2-3)  Photos I like from the past few years
(4-7)  My gown (with various photos of different veils & sashes)
(8-9)  Gorgeous people
(10-11)  Wedding hair & makeup
(12)  Wedding hair – other hair ideas
(13)  Wedding hair – bangs
(14-15)  Hair Don’ts
(16)  Make-up Don’ts
(17-18)  Me as a “don’t” – professional hair & makeup before & after (these photos were from my bad trial)
(19-20)  Engagement hair
(21-22)  Engagement hair – bangs
(23-25)  Hair & makeup trial
(26)  Photos comparing different trials
 




MAGAZINES & BOOKS!

I went through countless magazines trying to pull out the ideas I liked best.  After my wedding I ended up giving a few boxes worth of magazines to my friend.  I’ve been getting tons of new ones these days.  I felt too bad throwing out these brand new mags (~15) and thought maybe it would be helpful to someone.  They’re all very recent editions (Bridal Guide, Modern Bride, Brides).  I have tons of Martha Stewarts, InStyles & Real Weddings left but I still want to look through those!  Maybe one day I’ll be able to part with them.  Anyways, I also have a couple useful books - Complete Guide to Weddings in the Real World, On Site Weddings (guide to So Cal vendors) and Here Comes the Guide (So Cal).  



First person to comment gets them if – they can pick them up in West LA/Century City (preferably before the weekend).  We’re having lots of guests over starting Thursday so I’d love to pass these along.  If no one wants them then I’ll just donate them! 

 Hi~!  Guess what?  Our wedding is featured on Weddingbee! 

Please click me!