a REALLY good day

I'm turning the blog over to Emi Ink intern, Jessica, for her take on a "grueling" day of work this week...

How can you not LOVE this little guy?

I consider myself lucky to be an intern for Emi Ink. What other company has an internship work day located at a chocolate factory?! Stacey and I went to Menehune Mac to package favors. Of course, we went straight to the samples around the store! After that serious business was taken care of, we got to work. 

Pineapple snow and milk chocolate macadamia nut

We encased the chocolates with beautifully patterned sunflower wrappers that Stacey designed.The bright and vibrant shades of yellow will catch the eyes of all the guests at the wedding, and the strawberry, pineapple snow and milk chocolate mac nut will definitely be a satisfying treat!

Strawberry and milk chocolate macadamia nut

Stacey's note: After we finished wrapping the chocolates, Jana from Menehune Mac still had to add the finishing touch by tying and gluing a tiny chocolate brown organza bow to each wrapper! Lots of steps involved, but I think presentation is key, especially for wedding favors. It's so worth it to have the perfect packaging to enhance your sweet treat!

Randomness

This came in the mail...sadly, it wasn't for me:

If only every company modeled their customer service after Zappos...

Finding this in the dish rack, means someone had a bad day yesterday:

At least he washed the shot glass

Feeling a bit like my breakfast this morning:

Burnt toast = burned out Stacey

But a great consultation with a nice couple, beating the Friday rush-hour traffic on the drive home, and a table full of bright, cheery sunflowers was just enough to turn this day around. Happy weekend everyone!

inspiration anywhere: in full bloom

I purchased this huge flower pin from The Wedding Cafe a few years back. It's big, it's brown, it's fuzzy...it's totally impractical and that's why I love it. This flower has adorned everything from my tote bags, to my clipboards, to the wire shelving in my office. I often stare at this flower and wonder what spot it will inhabit next.

Today, it finds a home here, as my "inspiration anywhere" muse:

Decided to design a place card today, with the flower hanging off the left edge to leave room for the guest name. I chose a romantic script font with fun flourishes (oh, how I love fonts):

 

The elephant in the room

While wedding stationery is our main bag, every now and then we get to produce stationery for life's other special occasions. This little guy (and a bunch of his friends) will be heading east to celebrate the birth of a special little boy soon, and he'll be sorely missed around here. Nothing better than seeing a pack of sweet blue elephants in the midst of our summer wedding blitz!

Daddy-o

Regular readers of this blog may notice that I rarely post photos of myself. I think I can count the number on one hand, actually: my first wedding here, and my second wedding here. Well, my little blogsters...I'm going to take that running total up a couple notches today in honor of Father's Day.

This is my all-time favorite photo of me and my dad:

My dad with his 6-string Kamaka ukulele, me with my smaller 4-string (and Bert & Ernie denim shorts).

My love of music comes from my dad and I can remember many jam sessions in my childhood with me on the uke or piano and my dad sitting beside me strumming along. He always said that he wished he could read music, but the truth is he didn't need to. He played everything by ear...brilliantly. His rendition of Stars and Stripes Forever was always a crowd pleaser and when he taught me how to play it, we took our act on the road. Yes, back in the day we were the headlining act during a family vacation as we toured the east coast. We played every inn, motel, and hotel that we stayed at and sometimes performed for the rest of our little tour group in our Greyhound bus.

Like a snake charmer with his trusty flute, I had two songs in my arsenal that would always get my dad's attention. On the ukulele, it was Frank Sinatra's "My Way," and on the piano, it was Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life." My dad would hear me playing those songs, stop whatever he was doing, and say, "Wait, wait, wait..." Next thing I know, he'd be disappearing into his bedroom to fetch his ukulele. He tuned his ukulele while walking back to the living room, ready to give his best ol' blue eyes impersonation. Shockingly, Frank Sinatra and Debby Boone weren't that popular among kids my age, but I knew my dad loved them. I played those songs for him.

Fast forward 25 years or so and we come to my second most favorite photo of me and my dad. Now, I debated long and hard whether to actually post this photo (you'll see why), but I guess I'm just going all in.

In 2004, we took a family trip to Japan. My oldest brother was the tour guide, mapping out the cities we'd be visiting, arranging our lodging, even noting the trains we would catch (down the to minute!) in each leg of our travels. It was such a treat to be going on a trip that I didn't have to organize myself! But the planner in me couldn't help but research some fun things to do along the way. For our stay in Kyoto, I read about a place in Gion that you could dress up as a maiko (an appretice geisha) in full make-up and kimono. Seemed like a fun, touristy thing to do so my family indulged me as we added this to our itinerary.

We found the Gion studio with no trouble at all, but quickly realized that we were the only English-speaking people there. No other wide-eyed tourists sitting in the waiting room, just us. I hesitated for a moment and asked my brother if he wanted to dress up, too. Yeah, he turned me down even before I finished asking the question. But then my dad piped in and said, "Maybe I'll do it!" Really? My dad wanted to play dress up with me in Japan? Then we all looked over at my mom and she said, "No way! Not me!" So, it was just me and my dad on our way to the back room where all the magic happened.

We were dressed in separate rooms and saw each other for the first time just moments before the photographer started snapping away. Me, the shy maiko, and my dad, the smiling samurai. I love that my dad was game for this. I love that for as much as my dad likes his simple pleasures and daily routines, he can surprise you with a youthful, silly, zest for life. And I think I've inherited that from him, too.

So, there you go, a 2-for-1 Father's Day pictorial post. Only for you, Dad. Happy Father's Day.

Randomness

Finally took this puppy for a spin on Saturday. Poor thing hasn't seen the light of day in years.

Sans rum, sans fresh lime, sans mint leaves...something tells me this won't measure up to the real thing.

 

Opened the doors to our storage closet and was flipped the bird by three gardening gloves. There's just no way to prepare yourself for something like that. I think it's obscene, my husband thinks it's a great way to hang up gloves.

Paradise is...

Just finished up an invitation order for a couple getting married this summer. Based on the photos that the bride showed me of their rental house in Kailua, the ceremony site will have a SPECTACULAR, unobstructed view of the Mokulua Islands off Lanikai Beach. It's the kind of scene that, even when viewed on an iPhone, makes you want to crawl into the screen and dip your toes in the water.

Because the Mokulua Islands will be making a cameo appearance at the wedding, the bride asked if we could incorporate them into my Palm Trees invitation design. She designed the graphic for the islands (complete with rising sun, birds and waves), and we completed it with layers of taupe and chocolate brown cardstock, and a couple of Swarovski crystals.

It was a fun collaboration and the perfect "teaser" for their beautiful oceanfront wedding!

Just say "omm"

Many of my close friends and family understand my passion for writing, but these days the extent of my writing is usually just answering emails and a blog entry here and there. But I found something recently that might change all that. My discovery is kind of geeky, kind of new age-ish, kind of unnecessary, and kind of totally awesome. I read about the OmmWriter in some random blog but couldn't really grasp what it was until I watched the video and downloaded the trial version for myself:

It took me about a minute a half on the trial version to convince me that I needed the full version. Immediately. As quickly as I could whip out my credit card.

It's hard to explain why I love this so much. It's not meant for hardcore word processing, but it does a few things that I really like. It fills the entire screen, the control buttons go away and stay hidden if you don't move your mouse, and you can turn on the clicky keyboard noises if you enjoy that kind of thing (and I do). But mostly, I totally dig the fact that I have my own soundtrack while I'm writing (I swear it's different than just opening my favorite playlist in iTunes). My husband doesn't understand what the fuss is about, claiming that watching me use OmmWriter is like watching Doogie Howser deep in thought, sitting in front of his computer at the end of every show. Yeah, so he doesn't understand the awesomeness of this program, and maybe you won't either. But that's ok, to each his own. Now, excuse me while I get my Doogie on.

inspiration anywhere: when you wish upon a star

I took a very roundabout way to arrive at today's design. Are you ready? I was reading a blog in which the writer had received a teapot charm for her birthday. The teapot reminded me of Mrs. Potts from Beauty and the Beast, which made me think about other Disney movies, the older ones especially, like Pinnochio. Once my thoughts turned to Pinnochio, "When You Wish Upon A Star" began playing in my head...and thus, this design took shape:

I think the stars were a much better inspiration than Pinnochio himself, don't you?

Love is in the air

So happy to feature Jessica (Emi Ink's fabulous intern) as a guest blogger today! If you stopped by my booth at the Hawaii Convention Center wedding expo in April, you may have spotted my beautiful new logo board. This is how it came to be...take it away, Jessica!

Ever since I've started working for Stacey at Emi Ink, my love has grown -- my love for paper, that is. I have been interning at Emi Ink for a little over seven months, and I am loving every second of it! Paper to me is what a football is to a quarterback, a pair of scissors is to a hairstylist, or a ladle to a chef. With that said, whatever paper-related task I receive, a warm and fuzzy feeling comes over me and a smile automatically switches on.

One of the projects Stacey had me do was her dream sign for her booth to display at the wedding expos. This task included cutting out Emi Ink's signature-styled cherry blossom flowers, sticking the flowers on letter blocks one by one, and a lot of patience. I was eager to start, but excitement was soon replaced by frustration as I put the cherry blossoms on the wrong side of the letter blocks twice! I have to admit that the fuzzy feeling dissipated. I'm glad it returned after the 2,000 metallic paper flowers, accented with crystal rhinestones, were glued onto the letters and the letters were positioned neatly on a canvas. When I first saw the completed sign displayed at the April wedding expo, I'm pretty sure my smile was as bright as the rhinestones that were studded in the middle of the cherry blossoms!

This marked the completion of my first big task for Emi Ink, and also the end of another successful wedding expo. To say the least, I am looking forward to many more to come!

inspiration anywhere: vera wang

I was wondering what I was going to pull for inspiration this week when inspiration came to me via Mona Hirata of Weddings by Grace and Mona. At the end of a brainstorming lunch meeting, Mona mentioned that she had just written a blog for The Knot about wedding cakes inspired by brides' gowns. What a perfect idea to piggyback on! First stop for me was the Vera Wang site where I spotted this lovely gown from their 2011 bridal collection:


Flora by Vera Wang

I was immediately drawn to the beaded/embroidered bodice of this strapless gown. My interpretation of the design on paper would feature layers of translucent blossoms accented with Swarovski crystals and a pale mauve ribbon that mimics the fabric sash on the gown.