Birthday Blowout - A Recap

Birthday Portrait by Jordana

Typically, my birthday celebrations consist of a quiet dinner with Rob and one or two friends. This year I decided to turn my birthday into an two-part Extravaganza.

The first part was on Thursday, my actual birthday. I had invited a few of my closest girlfriends to meet me for dinner and drinks. I haven't had an all-girl birthday since I was 6.

We started the evening at Camilo's California Bistro, which is in my 'hood. Service was unbelievably slow, but the fantastic company more than made up for it. I ordered one of the specials - Grouper with prawns. It was delectable.

My yummy dinner

Here are my lovely dinner companions.

Joellaann & Natalie

Paola & Janice

Keren & Marisa

Jenny & Jeannette

Wendy, Ali, & Jordana

As if dinner and fantastic conversation weren't enough, these marvelous ladies presented me with a cake, a card, and a gift.

photo by Jordana Hazel

Although not aesthetically pleasing, the cake was delicious. Jordana baked the cake. The buttercream frosting was delish although not "built for the heat" and melted en route to dinner. The fact that the cake was imperfect and a hilarious story to go with, made it the perfect cake for me.

I loved the card. It was hilarious and fitting.

Here is my birthday gift. A Craft Robo - custom die-cutter!


These unbelievable ladies got together to purchase my gift. Sneaky Wendy had asked me a few weeks prior what I was planning to purchase next for my design business. I had no idea that she was stealthily gathering intel. I was so surprised that I started to tear a little. As an added bonus and inside joke, Jeannette gave me a plethora of accessories. Rob will be pleased.

After dinner and cake, we headed over to Colorado Wine Company.

Paola, Jordana, Ali, & Keren

Natalie, Janice, Wendy & Jeannette

We got there a little later than I had planned. Thankfully, Jen the owner took care of us. We gabbed and drank until nearly midnight. The only reason why we didn't stay out later is that poor Jen had to close up shop and go home. We had kept the place open a half hour past closing time.

This is one of the best birthdays I've had in years. The celebration was better than any that I could have imagined. Thanks again, ladies.

Embarrasing Five

I was tagged by Lizy.... over a week ago. I was unbelievably busy and just now got a chance to think about this. Lizy, I didn't forget about you. I just had to really think about this list. I think some of my explanations are more embarrassing than the songs themselves.

The rules of my most recent tag!
1. Link to the person that tagged you and post the rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 songs you are embarrassed to admit to others you like and tell why.
3. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs.
4. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. Suddenly - Olivia Newton John from the Xanadu Motion Picture Soundtrack

Extra bonus points for anyone who has actually heard of this song. I saw this movie when I was 6. I loved it. I was obsessed with becoming a professional roller skater. Ah... The delusions of childhood. This was one of the first albums my parents ever bought me.

2. Freedom - George Michael
[click on song title to see Video]
I was in love with George Michael from his Wham! days. Then, he announced he was gay. It killed the crush, but not the love of his music. This song came out when I was 15. The video featured every 90s Supermodel. My best friend Mia and I used to "model" our clothes to this song. Corny, but true. To this day, when I hear this song I feel the urge to put on a "Anne Fashion Show". Ask Cicely or Rob what an "Anne Fashion Show" is.

3. Come and Talk to Me - Jodeci


I was in high school and socially awkward. I had a crush on boys and they thought of me as their cute very little sister. I didn't realize then that no boobies = no dates. This did not stop me from daydreaming about the prom. I had decided that my first REAL slow dance would be to this song. I eventually slow danced to this song and it was terrible. My date was stiff and his friend came leaning over and singing the song in our ears. Despite the painfully awkward circumstance, I still like this song.

4. One Minute Man - Missy Elliot Ft. Ludacris, Trina


Many years ago while I still lived in VA, I was involved with a guy who I shall call the Animator. Our involvement moved quickly and with great intensity. We IM'ed and called one another all day everyday. We played a very calculated cat and mouse game where neither of us would fully admit our attraction to the other. We were supposedly just friends. This went on for months. We decided to go on a roadtrip. The Animator and I spent several days together camping with little to no physical contact. Then finally, we broke the ice. I was grossly disappointed. Let's just say our fun was "short-lived".

To make matters worse, I was Scorpio'ed (a term I created just for him.) He went from calling me every day to not taking my calls. All in the span of a day. He went so far as changing his IM username and phone number. I was heartbroken. As consolation, Cicely took me for a girls' night out. This song came on. In my drunken stupor, I dedicated the song to the Animator. After that, it became a running joke between the two of us and our theme song for that summer. When I hear this song, I can't help but giggle.

5. These Words (I Love You, I Love You) - Natasha Bedingfield
[click on song title to see Video]
I had bought Rob an ipod shuffle as a gift. Because he was unfamiliar with itunes, he asked me to fill his ipod with some of his favorite songs. I thought, "Here's my chance!". I placed this song on his ipod multiple times. I thought he'd find it cute whenever the song would pop up on shuffle play. According to Rob, the song came up 10 times a day while I was gone. I find this a bit hard to believe since Rob has a tendency for gross exaggeration. Either way, the sound of Natasha Bedingfield's voice makes him cringe. I still find the bubblegum lyrics cute and sickly sweet. Plus, it's a reminder of the early days of our relationship.

I have no idea who to tag. If anyone wants to play, please leave me a comment to let me know you've played.

A wife deserted

A week ago my Rob abandoned me.

I kid. Actually, as a caterer he was presented with an amazing opportunity. He was offered a position as a sous chef for a movie that is filming in Chicago. He got offered the spot on Wednesday and had to fly out on Friday. I arrived from VA just in time to drop off at the airport. We were like ships passing in the night. It's tough work, but I'm proud of him for doing it. He loves it... most of the time. He makes me laugh because by the time the movie wraps up he is on a first name basis with A-list directors and actors. If only, he could translate those connections to $$$.

I miss him, but I do enjoy my alone time. I hate that some people act as though I will wither away and die because Rob is not home. While I miss him while he's gone, our time apart keeps our relationship fresh. He'll be back in a few weeks. I may not wither way, but starvation is a whole other issue. I am a terrible cook. Microwave dinners and sandwiches here I come!

Wheeee.... I'm 33!

I can't believe it. Today's my birthday and I'm 33. It's so cliche, but I can't believe how quickly the year flew by.

I spend a little time on every birthday assessing my life. I look at my goals. I pat myself on the back for what I've achieved and figure out what my next moves are. Most importantly, I count my blessings. I am happy.

My life is nowhere near perfect, but I am very grateful for all that I have. I have husband whom I love very much (even if he does get on my nerves from time to time). In the stress of wedding planning and wedding day chaos, I was reminded that my two oldest (as in length of friendship) friends really did have my back. I don't know what I would have done without Cicely & Neleh. My family reminded me in oh-so-many ways why I love them so very much. They drive me crazy, but it's the crazy part that keeps life interesting. I am also very grateful for rediscovering the value of female friendships. I have an amazing group of friends that are better than I could have wished for. I lost a job that I never really wanted and discovered I was much happier being my own boss. I really am a lucky gal.

I hope that the coming year will be as wonderful as the last. I have birthday festivities that I will blog about tomorrow... if I'm not too hungover;)

More invitation love...

Aside from Michael's and Frances' wedding invitation, I have been feverishly working on Daniella's and Josue's wedding invitation.

Daniella is another person that I have meet through the knot. She has always been very sweet and genuine. In order to include as much of their family and friends in their celebration, Daniella and Josue have opted to put themselves on a very strict budget to ensure they could afford to include everyone. Because of this, Daniella had considered DIYing her invitations. I got that sense that she and Josue had their hearts in the right place. Did I mention they met while working at a retirement home? I felt inspired to do something nice for them. I offered to design and assemble her invites for her.

photo by Square Eye Photography

When I first spoke to Daniella about her invitations, she had a few small requests. She wanted me to use her existing monogram, her color scheme of red & black, and a damask pattern.

Here is what I designed for her.



I hope that Daniella & Josue like them as much as I enjoyed making them.

A Return to Photography

As I have mentioned in a previous post, I was a photographer long before I was a graphic designer. I got my first SLR when I was 15. My first camera was a Canon Ftb that my father had purchased when I was born and kept in storage. I was a photographer for my high school and college newspapers. Pictures were my life. It feels as though I have every moment of my life captured on film or in pixels.

I had an a Nikon D70 and matching lenses that I was in love with. They were among my prized possessions. Rob brought it with him when he went to watch MotoGP at Laguna Seca in July 2006. It was all stolen from his tent. I was crushed. I took it as a sign that I wasn't meant to be a photographer anymore. I haven't taken a photograph in 2 years.

Don't get me wrong. I do take snapshots. This blog is filled with them. However, I have not taken a well-thought, composed photograph. In the last couple of months, I have thought about how much I miss photography. I have absolutely no desire to photograph anything professionally. I just want to take photos for me. I still have a [gasp!] film camera and am seriously considering using it. To help inspire myself, I played with polyvore.com. Below is my dream setup.

A design challenge

This is Michael & Frances.Photo by Louis Palos

Frances is another person I have met through the knot, where she is known as PinkCheese. She contacted me a few weeks ago to design her invites. She had initially planned to DIY her invites and purchased all the materials to create them. However, after careful consideration she decided that it was more work than she had time for. At present, she is juggling a full-time job and graduate school.

This turned out to be a challenging project. Not because my client was difficult, but because I inadvertently put too much pressure on myself. Frances had provided me a blueprint of how she would like her invites assembled. This should have made the job a piece of cake, but in a twisted way ended up being more difficult. I ran into a bit of designer's block. I was afraid that I would not be able to produce a design that would work with Frances' blueprint or live up to what she had envisioned.

Frances' Blueprint - Part 1

Frances' Blueprint - Part 2

After a few sleepless nights, I was able to come up with a design that she liked. Here are photos of the finished product.

Front of the Invitation

Gocco'ed Envelope & Invitation Interior


Custom Map


Gocco'ed RSVP Envelope and RSVP Card

I'm a dork related to dorks

Recap - June 11, 2008

Warning: This post contains absolutely silly and ridiculous behavior. This is not for those lacking a sense of humor. No model home furniture was damaged in the taking of these photographs. View at your own risk.

After my grandma's birthday lunch, my cousins Janine & Jo, my brother Nate, and I decide to go out and run some simple errands. On the way to Michael's, we decided to check out my sister Cathee's house that is under construction. It started out innocent enough. Then we got silly and each person felt the need to be progressively more ridiculous than the last. Here are the photos from the silliness that ensued.

101 Years

I am the proud daughter of a working mom and the very fortunate granddaughter of a stay-at-home grandma. My grandma is my second mom. She took care of my siblings and me while our mom and dad were at work. She has always been my number one supporter. I attribute my sense of adventure and wanderlust from her. More importantly, she taught me how to be an independent woman with thoughts and ideals of my own. When I was a little girl, I told her that I wished that she could live to be 100 so that she would be around for a looooong time. Today, my wish was granted plus 1. Today, my grandma turned 101.


Doesn't she look great for 101? At 101, she still has her wits about her. She remember every last family member's birthday and can crack jokes with the best of them. Her only complaint would probably be that she doesn't hear or see as well as she used to and that she tires easily. I told her that her impairments give her an automatic b.s. filter and that if it were REALLY important she'd hear it or see it. I also told her that her body was finally slowing her down. Up until 2 years ago, my Grandma was still jet setting.

The Cake and Candle Carnage

Today's celebration was simple and small with just immediate family at my parent's house in Virginia. (I've been hanging out with my family since Saturday.) My cousins Jo and Janine flew from O.C. with Janine's daughter Bella and Janine's boyfriend Joe in tow. We had Filipino food and cake per Grandma's request. The birthday girl had a good time and was able to blow out all her candles in one pass. I hope she gets her wish. I am very happy to have gotten mine.

The Birthday Lunch Spread

Blowing out the candles

Me & the Birthday Girl

The envelope please....

So now that these little envelopes have arrived at their destinations, I will blog their content.I designed my birthday invites. It's not a swanky affair, but I think I would be remiss if I didn't make and mail invites.

Here they are:

The front

Removing the ribbon band...

The Big Reveal

First panel

The full invite

I had purchased the art previously for my Wedding Save-the-Dates and didn't end up using it. I was hoping for an opportunity to use it and here it is. The colors were chosen as a personal design challenge. I have not worked with purple and plum yet. I am always asked to work with bright tropical colors or traditional, classic colors. I really wanted to move outside of my box. I also designed and assembled the enclosure the invite is attached to. I had fun putting these together and I think my recipients enjoyed receiving them.

Not so loco for Gocco

I'm still Gocco'ing envelopes. Rob has also been busy with work. So, Dottie is not happy. She hasn't gone out for her usual long walk. I think she blames the Gocco.

This photo illustrates how she feels.

She's given up hope.

We are THOSE people

It's official. Rob and I are those people. You know the ones, the crazy pet people. As evidenced by some of my posts, we love our dog Dottie. She is spoiled. I admit it. She is fed premium (read:expensive) dog food and has an accessory collection (read: collars and bandannas) that rivals my own. In the winter, Dottie has sweaters. Her most recent acquisition is her very own hiking pack.


It's bad, but I make no apologies. I will take offense to people implying that our love for our dog equates to us wanting children. I can honestly say we are no where near ready to have a "little Anne" or "little Rob" running around.

We decided to do family pictures. Since Dottie is considered family, our photos had to include her. I set about trying to find a photographer that would take photos of us with Dottie. Most said they would love to take pictures of us with our dog. Of course, the their tone changed when I mentioned that Dottie was an American Staffordshire Terrier/Pitbull. I guess they expected us to have the standard L.A. purse-sized canine. I was frustrated. I thought it was either going to cost us a fortune or we were going to have to become master at taking photos with a tripod and timer. Thankfully, I stumbled upon an Apartment Therapy - LA article about Grace Chon of Shine Pet Photos. I emailed her immediately. We conversed through e-mail and scheduled our shoot.

This past Saturday we got up at the crack of dawn to meet Grace in Venice Beach. We decided to go early to avoid the crowds and because Dottie is not a morning doggie. Not a morning doggie equates to her being sleepy and less energetic. The 2 hours we spent with Grace flew by. We had a blast. Dottie, of course, was a rockstar and loved the attention. If she hadn't had another event to attend, we would have invited her to join us for breakfast. We all got along that well.

Here are a few of our favorite pics from her blog.

© Grace Chon / Shine Pet Photos

© Grace Chon / Shine Pet Photos


© Grace Chon / Shine Pet Photos

You can see all the teaser pics on her blog. I love the photos. I really think she captured us and the love we have for Dottie. These are only a few pics, but I have no doubt we will love the rest of them.

I'm a slave

I'm still alive. I have lots to blog about, but I also have a lot of work to finish. As previously noted, I am a design slave for Daniella & Frances.

Here are a sample of what I've been working on.
These envelopes were no small task. I've learned the hard way that black gocco ink is much thicker and more difficult to work with than other ink. It's a mess. I am covered in black gocco ink. I might as well have gotten tattooed.
In between all the client projects, I squeezed in a personal project. Coming soon to some mailboxes near me and not-so-near me.
I just mailed these bad boys. So, I won't blog their contents for another couple of days.
I love these stamps. They're postcard stamps. I ended up overpaying $0.12 per envelope, but I think they are worth it for the aesthetics. I guess I'm just nerdy like that.

I gotta get back to my work. My gocco calls yet again.

Details, details

Since this is my blog, I'm going to take a moment to gush. The other reason I was excited about Wendy and Lior's wedding is that theirs is the first to prominently feature my design work. All of the wedding stationery was a collaborative effort between Wendy and myself. I did the design work and Wendy did the dirty work (read: print & assemble). However, I cannot take all the credit. Wendy did an amazing job of incorporating and executing the designs.

Programs
I designed the monogram on the front cover and created the layout for the interior. Sadly, I don't have any photos of the interior.
Wendy created the cover and interior vellum insert, and carefully assembled each program.

photo by Jordana Taylor Hazel

Table Numbers
When Wendy's original table number concept proved to be too wordy, she decided to name the tables after hers and Lior's favorite bands. To add a personal touch, I incorporated a lyric from their favorite songs by said bands and indicated the song title and album.
Wendy printed each number, added matting, and carefully add crystal accents.

Escort Cards
I provided Wendy a template to use in Microsoft Word. She then printed each name and mounted them on beautiful stardream paper.

photo by Jordana Taylor Hazel

Bar Menu

Dinner Menu

Cocktail Napkins
I designed the monogram which Wendy painstakingly gocco'ed onto napkins

Photobooth Banner

It was really fun to see my designs at a wedding other than my own. It really was fun working with Wendy even though I teased her and said I was her design slave. I hope that my future DIY clients are as easy to work with as Wendy.

A week ago today...

Wendy & Lior got married! Here's my recap for Sunday May 25th.

After the fun of Vegas, we were treated to unCalifornia-like weather. It was cool and rainy. There was a 30% chance of rain and Wendy and Lior's Wedding was scheduled for the outdoors. All of us who knew and loved Wendy were in a bit of a panic. On the morning of the wedding, the skies looked incredibly ominous. On the drive to their venue, the clouds were intermittent. We held out hope that it would clear by the time we got to the venue. We had arrived early for once. The clouds cleared an hour before the ceremony. Everyone breathed a collective sigh of relief.

The ceremony is the first Jewish ceremony Rob & I had ever attended. It was beautiful. Wendy & Lior's Rabbi did a wonderful job explaining all the rituals to all of us Gentiles. This non-crier actual shed a few tears. I looked around and everyone was misty-eyed, even my own tough guy. I guess that's a bit of testament to how moving the ceremony was.

After the ceremony, the party began. Cocktail hour was in the back patio of the Villa. The views were magnificent. Everyone was snapping photos left and right. There wasn't a bad backdrop to be found. The cocktails were delicious and abundant, as was the hors d'oeuvres. With 75 guests, it was a intimate celebration.

Some of the highlights of the reception were their dessert bar and their photobooth. Who can resist chocolate fountains and trays and trays of mini-desserts? It was so decadent. I thoroughly enjoyed their photo booth. I have way too many photobooth pics. (Once I get a scanner, I'll add them in.) I really wish I had gotten one for my own wedding. I guess now I'll just have to throw a party so that I have an excuse to have one.

We had an amazing time. More than anything it was evident that there was a lot of love abound. Congrats to Lior & Wendy!

Here are my photos from the event.