"DESK ART"

…well, they are actually desk accessories, but they are a bit more fun than just those ones you find at Staples or Office Depot.

Did I mention that I am now back working in an office?  I gave up my lovely home office with a nice bright window for a corporate 9-5 job in a tall (and somewhat dark) building.  To make my day a bit more bearable since I’m rarely exposed to sunshine all day, I want to find some interesting desk accessories that will also double as interesting art pieces.  Where else would you go find art, but at MoMA store.  All kind of fun things there…

These are magnets!  They look like paint splatters.  How fun!

Magnetic paper clips holder

This pen holder totally reminds me of those barbicide jars you see at the nail salons.  And these bookends are pretty interesting…

And who wouldn’t love a cool looking paper weight like one of these…

This one is a tax form.  That’s what I feel like doing to it every April…hehehe.  In fact, I would crumple then step on it for good measure.  

And these two jars are definitely my faves!  I love them.  So glossy and pretty…

I also found some cool stuff on Alessi.com

Pretty sleek for a pen holder, right?

And with these trays stacked on your desk, you’ll have the coolest inbox ever!

These ones below from zuzafun.com are not exactly my style…a bit scary really, but they are worth mentioning as they are pretty interesting…

I also found this dainty, adorable pencil cup on lifestylebazaar.com.

And Overstock.com also have some quirky desk accessories.  I think they are quite humorous espcially the voo doo doll pen holder.  It’s called the “Ex” pen holder.  It’s probably what you wish you could do to your ex hahaha!

And this little guy is exactly how I feel on some day at work…

Your desk will look so cool with these so called desk “art” that your co-workers may try to swipe them from you desk. 

Watch out for that.

"PLUM’S CAFE"

…my search for the next awesome brunch place landed me at Plum’s Cafe this past Sunday, and all I can say is, where have I been living in the OC and not knowing about this place until now???

I don’t ask for much for a “perfect” or should I say “ideal” brunch spot.  Tasty food…not your typical, standard brunch fares (egg beny, waffles, pancakes…stuff you can get at IHOP or Denny’s…bleh).  MIMOSAs (umm…hello?  Need I say more?).  Great ambiance…bonus point for outdoor seating since we are in beautiful So Cal after all. And Plum’s has them all!  I totally heart this place.

A little secret…you can call ahead and make a reservation.  I got up at 11ish, called them at 11:45, made it there by 12:30 (our reservation time), and was seated and ready to chow by 12:45.  No waiting necessary.  Awesome.  The menu selections were so great, E and I couldn’t pick just 2 items so we ordered 3.  Needless to say, we had to pack stuff to go.  As much as I enjoy eating, I do have an Amsale dress to fit into in about 7 weeks.

I started off with what else but something sparkly.  The Oregon Berry Bellini.

To be honest, the portion could be a little bigger.  That glass is just little bigger than a shot glass.  I was sad at how little it was, but then I felt better after I tasted it.  I would recommend ordering 2.  No, you won’t look like an alcoholic.  It’s tiny.  I then ordered the Smoked Salmon Hash.  They overcooked my poached eggs.  I like my eggs runny, and they were a bit too cooked :-(.  Aside from the eggs, the dish was great.

E ordered the Campfire Trout (per my suggestion, by the way), which is this cornmeal breaded and fried trout, and it is served with 2 eggs of your choice and 2 strips of Peppered Bacon – did I mention I’m obssessed with anything peppered?  He picked the eggs to be scrambled, which is not my preference, but it’s his food so I won’t complain.  I did ask for the waitress to order the trout extra crispy despite E’s protest that it will be burnt.  I like burnt stuff.  Crispy!

I think I liked his food more.  I ended up eating most of the trout and not very much of my salmon.  And we both agreed that we wanted something sweet, and I HEART HEART HEART hazelnut, and they just happened to have the Hazelnut Pancakes with Berry Compote.  Oooohhh, it was delicious.  

I would definitely be visiting Plum’s again in a very near future to try out the rest of the awesome dishes on the menu.  If you’re in Costa Mesa area, be sure to check this place out.  

Happy Brunching~

"BOY-ISH BOOTS"

…for lack of a better term.  I don’t know how else to call these boots.  I was just at Barney’s CO-OP recently, and I have to say…I’m majorly OBSESSED with their boots…especially, these boyish riding or motorcycle boots from Golden Goose.  Love.

But at about $1300 a pair…I have to re-consider…

This one from Fiorentini + Baker is a bit more manageable and definitely is not $1300.

I’m also loving this one here also by Fiorentini + Baker.  These are definitely not your girly, posh boots.  They are a bit rugged, and that’s the beauty of them.

These three below are the house brand CO-OP.

They can a bit heavy to summer right now, but comes fall, they will be perfect with skinny jeans or jeggings tugged into them.  Or you can probably wear them with tights and flowy skirts or shorts for that unpolished, bohemian look.  I totally think these boots will be all the rage this fall…trust me.

So cool~

"JEGGINGS"

…jeans + leggings = my new favorite closet staples.  What’s not to love?  They have the best of both world.  They look and fit like body-hugging jeans but has the comfort of the leggings.  They are perfect with a pair of flats or platform pumps now, and they will look great tugged into boots later on in the fall and winter.  The best part, they cost about half of what a pair of jeans would normally cost.  Awesome.

These 2 are from American Rag.  I love the faded gray one.  I found these on sale at Macy’s at $29 each.  I totally need, like, 4 pairs of these.

This pair is from True Religion

And this one is by Rock & Republic

This one is from Hudson

Paige also makes a cool gray pair that I’m totally in love with right now…

This destroyed pair is from The Legging by Joe’s

These 2 below are from HUE (yes, the socks brand), and they are only $34 each.  

E bought me a pair for my birthday from A&F.  They fit amazingly.  Love.

And many of these jeggings have stretchy waistband.  You can wear them to all-you-can-eat Korean BBQ, and still be comfy.  Hehehe.  I’m sold.

So go get yourself a pair.  Trust me.  You may not know it yet, but you NEED the jeggings.  

Happy Shopping~

"BANGKOKSMITHS"

…well, it’s pretty self-explanatory really.  It’s a website that features metal (gold and silver jewelry)-makers aka smiths from Bangkok.  I’m pretty picky about jewelry.  I’m not a big fan of precious, fine jewelry because a. I can’t afford it (I’d rather buy shoes), b. I tend to break things or lose things all the time, and c. I like funky, odd pieces…which usually not the adjectives you’d use for fine jewelry.

I stumbled upon this website through Daily Candy, and I have to admit, I’m super excited to be supporting my fellow Thais!  There are four designers featured on this site, and the products average from $75-$200.  Check out their oh-so-cool stuff…

My favorite is Jogema.  The chunky, modern rings and quirky necklaces and earrings are totally my style…

But if you’re more into something girlie and whimsical, Martina Amanita, may appeal to you more…

And I totally love this next set of rings…they are definitely sweet…and a bit sour.

And if you’re a bit of a rocker chic, you’ll like Missile…

The last designer is TRIMODE.  Everything from them is very geometric.  Not exactly my style, but you might like it…

So stop by their website and check out some cool jewelry.  Happy shopping~

"D-I-Y BRIDAL SHOWER" (Part II)

…and then there were the food and drinks…which were somewhat D-I-Y too, but by we cheated a little by having them done by a restaurant chef (my poor E.  He has no choice but to say yes).

I’m so sad we do not have any picture of the salad because it was divine.  I hate ordering salads and having to tell the server to hold this or put that on the side since I don’t always like everything in a salad.  There’s something about only getting the ingredients I love in my salad that made it so special for me.  But we were all enjoying it so much, none of us bothered to take the photos.  Oh well.  Boo.

We, however, did get great shots of the Tofu Summer Rolls and the sliders…

�

Ooohh and I almost forgot about the cute flags for the sliders!  I also made those.  If you’ve seen my WEDDING INVITATIONS post, you may have seen the address labels.  I made those myself, and I added this cute heart graphic to the labels.  There were a lot of labels left over so instead of wasting perfectly good labels, I printed them with a bunch of these heart graphics I downloaded from weddingchicks.com and made them into flags using bamboo skewers.  I told you…I’m all about recycling.

And for the drinks…we don’t really have good (and pretty) photos, but they were splendid.  I HEART anything sparkling whether it be champagne, sparkling wine, or prosecco.  E created the Reverse Raspberry Bellini for me.  The bottom is the prosecco, and it has raspberry foam on top that E made himself using raspberry puree.  Raspberry is one of my favorite flavors, and red/pink happens to be our shower color scheme so it worked out so, so perfectly.  Oh how I love when everything just comes together so beautifully…

And for desserts…my lovely friend/pastry chef, Rachel made the cupcakes for me.  It’s my favorite recipe that was inspired by one of Giada De Laurentiis’ cupcake recipes.  It, of course, has RASPBERRY whipped cream filling and powder sugar on top, which makes it super light.  The presentation is all Rachel’s.  She made it soooo pretty it was hard to eat, but we all ate it anyways.

And I’m not quite sure how it came about, but someone thought it would be a good idea for E to re-enact our proposal.  So this was when E “re-proposed” to me when the dessert was served.  We didn’t have anyone with us when he originally proposed so it was nice to have someone video’d and photographed it this time.

He was a great sport even though he probably was so embarassed to be on his knee in a room full of girls hooting and tooting him on.

So that was my awesome shower thanks to all these wonderful people in my life.  I totally heart my friends…and my bestest fiance ever.  XOXO.

"D-I-Y BRIDAL SHOWER" (Part I)

…I’m pretty sure most bridal showers are Do-It-Yourself, but I certainly think that you can turn it up a notch by creating an event with a pretty inspiration in mind as oppose to just throwing anything “bride-y” together.

I’m lucky to have wonderful friends who took time off from their busy lives to spend the day showering me with love, attention, and awesome gifts.  I’m lucky to have the best Maid of Honor and bridesmaids who ran around town getting things ready for me aka the bride.  I’m lucky to have an amazing fiance who not only custom-made my 3-course bridal shower meal AND my signature drink AND acted as the photographer for these awesome photos for my blog, he went along with the girls when they urged him to “re-propose” to me during the shower.  I had the best shower a girl could ever asked for.  Yes, I am a very lucky girl.

These are my girls who made this shower so fabulous…

The inspiration from the shower came from me wanting to have a very, very girly event.  We created our wedding knowing that we do not want it to be girly.  So when it comes time for my shower, it is my only chance to be super feminine.  We also had a strict budget as I did not want to overwhelm my friends with an expensive shower so we shopped carefully and scouted for deals.  We started off at IKEA just browsing to see what is reasonably priced yet chic.  And we found these adorable vases…

The white ones have Jonathan Adler-feel to them which I love since that sort of ties in to our wedding venue, the Parker.  The pink one is soft and feminine so we decided to group them for an eclectic look.  We picked out a couple different pattern papers from Michael’s scrapbook department as a base to give the table a bit more color since we could not find (nor did we have the budget for) a table runner.

For the flowers, I knew that I would want a single bloom in each white vase, and a bunch of baby’s breath in the pink vase.  I really wanted peonies, but they were not available.  We got the gerber daisies instead, and they turned out beautiful.  The butterflies were a last minute touch.  I had them left over from my cake decoration so I decided to use them (I’m all about recycling).  They added such whimsy to the centerpieces.  I love them!  Everyone wanted to know where I got them from, and they are from floraltrims.com

While we were at IKEA, we also found these mod-looking frame for a steal!  We bought a whole bunch wanting to give them away as favors.  I’m all about giving out favors that people can actually use so these are right up my alley.  But then we figured they can also double as place cards.  Score!

This project is SUPER easy.  I just downloaded a cute background that compliments our color scheme from the internet then I just inserted the jpeg file in Word and just added each girl’s name.  I then got an adorable pink ribbon from Michael’s and tied it to the base.  Voila!  So cute.

E helped me created the menu for what to be served at the shower.  He let me picked all my favorite things…(this is really when it pays off when the love of your life is an amazing chef).  Then my bridesmaid, Debi, came up with the catchy name for each items.  I chose pretty fonts for the menu and just printed them on plain cardstock papers.

Then there were a couple other DIY projects.  We had discount coupons for Michael’s and found these tissue papers that I used to make the poms, which really influenced the final color scheme for the shower.  (See my POM POMS post on how to make the poms).

We ordered red and pink flowers to coordinate with these poms.  Then I made these DIY bridal shower flag garlands.  (See my FLAG GARLAND post for instructions on how to make the garlands).

To further save more money – BORROW, BORROW, and BORROW.  I just borrowed a bunch of living room decorations from my bridesmaid, Debi, who graciously hauled over 2 big shopping bags full of her living room decor for me.  The tall vases, the books, the candle, and the cool silver owl are hers.  I then borrowed also from my own wedding decor – the butterflies wreaths and the chalkboards I made a while back for the photobooth.  I’ve been wanting to test how well they work so might as well put them to good use now.  (See my BUTTERFLIES and CHALKBOARD posts on how to make these items).

So there you have it with my DIY projects for the shower.  Up next is the fabulous food and drinks…

To be continued…