It's been two years (part two).

I played karate with some of my fave kiddos.

This is the lawn in front of the class photo.

I held hands with the dean. 

#nobigdeal

I did a photo shoot for a friend.

Peals of laughter.


We gave Lianne a ride home.

She'll be in Seattle with us!

Then we had a nice meal at home:

I recreated our wedding meal with help from our wedding caterer. 

Thanks @mattpoley for shipping us lasagne cupcakes on dry ice!

In honor of the Royal Wedding.

 Almost a year ago, we did some wedding related celebrations of our own in London (honeymoon).

Our hotel and home for 2 weeks was right in Trafalgar Square.

NBC's Today Show's home this week.

We were not aware that in ~1year, NBC's Matt Lauer would be camped out here,

wondering about what knickers a future princess would wear to her wedding.

Trinket market was gorgeously hardcore...I wanted it all.

I neeeed it, Jamie.

Lovely.

I'd bet these were replaced with throngs of paparazzi.

 Hopefully Kate and William had better photographers than us.

(snippet of Tower of London behind our big heads)

But I bet their photographers wouldn't take "intricate sword photos" (read: crotch shots) of the guards.

Maybe they'd charge extra....I just talked my way through it.

"don't worry, guard, i'm not taking a shot of your crotch, just your fancy/shiny belt...promise!!

oops....no need for alarm, i'm just gonna take a few more....aw, man....the flash was too strong on that one.....shoot, i'm going to be here awhile...."

awkward.

And by today, England will surely have sprung for more consistent uniforming of their guards.

And more training of guard-horses to head-butt.

Everyday at 11:30am, this happened:

Right into Buckingham Palace.

Turns out, the exact opposite path the wedding procession made this morning.

These guards did a fancy routine in there.

What did Kate & W do? Just wave?

Sheesh.

Watching the hoopla transpire over the last week, I starting to think someone ought to schedule a royal-wedding-intervention for the Today Show. "Matt, Meredith, Al...we're here because we love you."

But it's nice of them to showcase our honeymoon location with such vigor!

maybe we can sneak in this way and stick around for a year.

wedding crashers...yes!

Product Alert: Woolies!

Hey, remember when I posted about the Wooly Pockets heavily featured at our wedding venue?

They're now available at your local CB2 (crate&barrel brand): click here

Bam.

Someday...

In what seems to be a ridiculous way to spend my Sunday morning, I'm cleaning out my gmail inbox for the first time in 5 years and had to share this gem:

MARCH '05 (email from me to Lauren)

....I started interviewing after some recruiters got a hold of my PB voicemail box (i do not know how) and once I met my new boss, I felt like I could really enjoy the job.  Ok, so I have the biggest crush on him and I know it's not reciprocated by any means, but....man.  :)  I have six weeks of "at-home" training, three weeks of training in NJ and then I'm off in the San Mateo territory (from the south part of SF, down to Palo Alto)!!!  And someday I'd love to marry J. Kanter.  ha ha!

Guess what, 2005-leslie?  The crush was definitely reciprocated and you TOTALLY married him. Ain't life grand?

Lush Greenery (Woolly Pockets)

Have you noticed the crazy amount of greenery adorning the walls of Marvimon House? We had hoped to get away with homemade & reusable flowers for our wedding so having built-in "different" greenery was a perfect backdrop for our plans!

So much greenery in unexpected places....

 Hmmm....someone is sure taking his sweet time writing something seemingly naughty in our guestbook. Scandalous! Terrific! Hilarious!

I figure it's about time I focus on the "secret" behind the permanent wallscapes, surrounding our wedding guests in all sorts of lush greenery.  Woolly Pockets! Yup, lined or unlined pockets of "wool" to hold all sorts of fun plants! Succulents! Herbs! Happiness! 

Woolly Pockets comes in two styles: ones for horizontal surfaces and others to be hung on walls for vertical gardening. They can be used indoors and outdoors and have built-in moisture barriers to help protect furniture, but are durable enough to holdup outside. They’re perfect adding green to areas that are short on real estate (like bathrooms, garden walls, etc.).

And best of all? They're made of felt made from recycled plastic bottles! Yes!

Add some greenery to your outdoor shed or independent garage.

 Narrow kitchen? No worries, throw a Woolly Pocket up there!

The pockets were created by Miguel Nelson who owns Marvimon House and its sister property, The Smog Shoppe (bit larger than Marv). When we walked in and started talking to Miguel, I asked right away if those were woolly pockets on the wall because I recognized them from my fave SF greenery place, Flora Grubb. And guess what? That was his first installation outside of his own properties!

 I can see this hanging over a railing or even a towel rod in your shower.

Decorate your store front and advertise your coolness.

Miguel was pretty stoked that I recognized his brand spanking new product. And when I found out he went to the same Tucson high school as Jamie, I kinda flipped out. It was a lot of coincidence for me to handle.

Pretty awesome, right? And check it out. If you're at a school that could benefit from a garden of Woolly Pockets, click here for a terrific opportunity (ahem, Christine B., Holly M., Debi G., Brad S., and any other teacher readers!).

A Woolly School Garden is everything a school needs to create an outdoor garden classroom and begin teaching gardening and nutrition.

Beginning Fall 2010, our curriculum supplements will offer standards based K-12 lessons covering History, English, Math, Science and Health, all of which involve the Garden

How does it work?

Fast and simple. If your school has the budget, we send you your Woolly School Garden. If your school doesn't have the budget, we'll sign you up for donations, help raise the money for you and then send you your Woolly School Garden. Our goal is to grow 1000 school gardens by Fall 2010 and an additional 10,000 school gardens by Fall 2011. 

What does a school need to receive a garden?

• At least one teacher or school garden manager.
• A sunny wall or fence.
• $1,000 or a lil' patience while we raise the money.

How cool is that? I love companies that start thinking about giving back to communities and making socially conscious decisions right from the get go. It's something I strive to think about whenever I daydream of my own business and an area I'm really interested in learning more about.  So, if you're still reading and are involved in a school community interested and committed to trying to earn a Woolly School Garden, leave a comment and I'd love to contribute to your school.

Wanna read more? Click here for an interview with Miguel.

p.s. this is a non-sponsored product endorsement.

Fabric Flower Bouquet (the long of it).

It looks like some of you want to know how the fabric flowers came about?

For more pics, check here and here.

 we made fabric flowers for my hair, bouquets, boutonnieres, and tables.

It all started with this little guy...

I used my v.first fabric flower to ask devon to be my m-of-honor.

Click here for a fun way to ask someone to be in your wedding party.
And for better photos of the same thing, click here.

When Jamie and I first started thinking about hosting a wedding, we quickly realized it was imperative for us to identify areas to eliminate expenditure. While certain departments were difficult to play with (do we really need chairs? could guests stand the whole time?), flowers were easy to let go. "It'll be easy, Jamie! I'll just make them all!" He just looked at me and shook his head.

You see, for a few years, I had been fondling fabric flowers on shirts and headbands at Anthropologie, JCrew, Bloomies, etc. Do you do that? Walk around and touch things to figure out how you can make it yourself at home?

While bits of neutral material took shape in my fingers, I realized this would be actually be a feasible thing for me to create in multiples. Finally, a purpose for all those spare buttons that come with clothing!  I pleasantly sat through many Law & Order reruns, tucking and sewing petals as they came about organically. 

I even took the project with me to Chicago last year:

devon sneakily posted these pictures in september to let ya'll know what we were up to.

 

 

remember this post?

I picked up bits and pieces of fabric wherever I could, using those labeled recycled or eco-made as often as possible. Devon helped me pick out some upholstery samples from a going-out-of-business yard sale and Holly picked some unbleached cotton for me closer to the deadline. I already had wire,  thread, needles, my favorite adhesive, and loads of buttons. Loads of already existing web tutorials helped form each of the flowers (see links at end of this post).

started with fabric scraps

  

added recycled felt to finished flowers to make sturdier.

started out sewing the flowers onto felt circles, ended up just using E6000. 

MUCH FASTER.

added buttons and gems and rhinestones and beads for sparkle.

definitely used E6000 for this step.

 

 i used this amazingly thick floral wire that comes covered in raffia.

it was nice and thick, but really easy to manipulate and work with.

sewed it on at first, but then i started cutting two holes in the felt, threading wire through, and twisting it shut. again, MUCH FASTER.

this one's fluffy and voluminous. 

good for creating big bouquets!

once i made about 5 flowers on wire, i started forming the bouquet.

this helped me identify what kind of flowers it still needed (more fluffy, more sparkle?).

note: Hudson is totally snoozing in the background.

i realized they needed a bit more oomph and remembered our mercury glass christmas ornaments.

while they look antique, they were on clearance at pottery barn about 5 years ago.

we store them in egg cartons (perfect-size).

i had picked up $0.99 porcelain cranes at Kamei Restaurant Supply in SF, but 

hadn't decided how to incorporate the Japanese element into our wedding.

in my mind, they were perfect for a subtle shout-out so i threw them onto some wire.

note: i used thinner wire here and regretted that decision immediately. THICKER WIRE = better.

see? anything can be twisted onto this thick wire.

tada! all done!

ok, fine. there were a couple more steps + tips that i never photographed:

• once the wire stems were gathered together and i fluffed the whole top into where i liked it, i wrapped floral tape (sticky) around and around. it secured the stems, but also made for a sticky base that the ribbon liked adhering to.
• then i wrapped yummy yellow ribbon around the base and secured with glue + a long pin. 
• GET E6000. It's an amazing adhesive that is so terrific to work with. No Hot Glue Gun. Too stringy and for me, too many opportunities for injury.
• GET PEOPLE TO HELP. I had a sewing entourage. Couldn't have done it without them.

Holly sat for 6 hours straight, sewing and slaving. 

She wouldn't even look up to smile for the camera.

when i said loads of people helped, i meant it.

patrick helped pick out buttons and ribbon; begrudgingly, but he did it.

For some tutorials on how to make the individual flowers (I used a variety of different shapes and fabrics to make for a more kitschy look), check out the following:

• Poppy&Leo - don't limit yourself to size
  
• KatieDid - most adorable little girls
  
• MarthaStewart - duh.
  
• SewMamaSew  - she uses much more delicate material. it's pretty.
• Google/youtube "fabric flower tutorial". New links come up almost daily.
• And feel free to contact me with questions or tips!

Hope that helps a little!

top four photos taken by devon.

We've been featured!

While we were on our honeymoon, I got this email from our lovely photographers:

Dear Leslie!

Mark and i would love to get your wedding published. Can you write up something about your wedding and the details: How you did it yourself, where you got the supplies, your favorite thing about the wedding etc... the vision.... Blogs love to hear about how the client thought and designed everything.

Candice

Have a RAD day!!!!

Obviously, I HAD to comply. During our planning process, we relied entirely on what we learned from the internet and friends, never picking up a single wedding planning book. Some may probably argue we could've done things better (certainly with more grace) had we invested in a wedding etiquette book, but eh...not our style. So much more information and fun trends are all over the internets, duh. And if our photographer thought our pics would be cool for others to see? So be it!

and candice (his cutie-patootie wife).

I had been waiting on pins and needles to see if anyone would even be interested in featuring us so imagine my delight when I saw Green Wedding Shoes this morning*!

For a complete look at the feature, CLICK HERE.  And be forewarned...it was still only a few days after the wedding and I was feeling a bit [read: a lot] wordy [read: superfluously typo-y].

*am i just SO dorky for getting so excited? 

Our wedding (details!)

We were inspired by the venue's existing decor and minimizing extravagant wedding expenditure.

We wanted loads of things to be handmade.  

Hmmmm...I should do some posts on the things we made, huh?

bouquets carried by the bridal party pulled together various fabric scraps, mercury glass christmas  ornaments, pearly buttons, yummy yellow ribbon, and mini porcelain origami cranes.  

most items were pre-owned and gathered from around the house.

We brought the personalized gifts we received from so many thoughtful friends to sprinkle around the wedding. If we purchased things for decor, we wanted to make sure we could use transfer those items into our home, post-wedding. In one way or another, everything will be reused.

 sock giraffe and eye chart from Jo.

fun art collage from Marissa and Brook.
jeweled giraffe from Kerensa.

plan is to convert the large blue jars into a big project once we live in a "grownup place".

smaller mason jars will help us learn how to preserve stuff this winter.

 our cake toppers are actually salt & pepper shakers that will look oh-so-chic on a dinner table. 

how will I be able to pick ONE re- purpose for this fab frame??

We wanted to focus on things we love: good photography, yummy food, drunk friends, and a casual/family atmosphere.

i worked with the caterer to surprise Jamie with some gourmet popcorn.

he's a complete sucker for popcorn.

family-style dining and shared menus on clipboards "forced" guests to share!
we really wanted our guests to get to know each other. :)

Most importantly, we wanted folks to feel comfortable and at home.

 Mission....accomplished?

-all photos from markbrooke.com