THE CALIFORNIA COAST MAKES FOR A REAL GOOD ROAD TRIP

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my brother and sister-in-law recently moved to santa cruz (and gave birth to their beautiful baby girl on monday night!) so this means lots of road trips up the coast are in my future and i am very excited about this. i love road trips – especially up the coast of california. my love for this state continues to grow as i see more and do more and create memories with all of the different experiences it has to offer. california is so vast and diverse and unique and there are countless little nooks and crannies that i am dying to explore!

a few weekends ago on taylor’s due date, we drove up to santa cruz in hopes that we would get to meet our sweet little niece! parker babe was cozy in mama’s belly and didn’t make an appearance all weekend, but we had so much fun hanging out with the parents-to-be, seeing their life up there, and visiting their adorable cottage. we also got to spend time with laura, who lives only a few blocks away from my brother and taylor. this makes me really happy because 3 of my favorite people in the world now live within walking distance from each other! another perk of the weekend was driving into san francisco on saturday night to surprise one of my best friends and her fiancé at their engagement party. i’m so glad we got to be there for the special celebration and having a reunion with all of my college roommates was the best ever! love those girls so much. sidenote: i am completely fascinated by the fog situation in sf; seeing it roll in like a blanket on our drive into the city had me snapping a million and one photos. we cruised around the city in the morning and couldn’t leave without stuffing ourselves with burritos from la taqueria that are ohmygosh so good. we made our way back down the coast late sunday afternoon and stopped in beautiful big sur just as the sun was setting. we hadn’t been back since this trip and goodness gracious, that place is breathtaking! it’s definitely worth the extra driving time in my opinion! this weekend was one for the books for sureee and i’m thankful for many more trips up there real soon!

BEACH TOWN LIVING

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i’ve really enjoyed living in redondo beach the past several months. it’s mellow, not super sceney, and we can bike to all of the necessities (coffee + good brunch spots + trader joe’s + goodwill). honolulu wasn’t the most bike friendly city, so we’ve loved having the convenience of being able to ride our bikes directly from our house on mini adventures. for the sake of my sanity, i have to leave the house once a day and this often takes place in the form of a quick cruise on the strand. these breaks have been made even better by the recent purchase of my coffee cup holder! now i can get my caffeine fix via bike without the one handed struggle and high possibility of lots of spills. two thumbs up to beach town living.

WORK | TAYLOR’S BABY SHOWER INVITATIONS

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i had been wanting to print white on kraft for a while now and i used taylor’s baby shower as the perfect excuse to do so! i hand lettered “taylor + parker” and had the invitations screen printed by a local printer. i also created a simple envelope liner to add some pizazz and used tiny glassine bags to house the registry card. the more paper, the better! sorry trees. we packaged everything up with “snow” for an added effect (which i realize now might have looked semi questionable to our friends over at usps, whoops!). since there’s nothing i love more than cohesive design elements, i also had a stamp made using the hand lettered names to use on the treat bags. taylor also recycled the stamp post-shower and used an exacto knife to shave off the “cheers to” and “thanks for coming” to use as her signature on her thank you cards! it’s always neat when paper goods turn out how you envision and these were so much fun to create for such a special celebration!

FEATURED | TAYLOR’S WINTER BABY SHOWER

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per usual, i’m behind on posting and seeing that parker babe is almost here (could be any day! yip yip!), i figured now would be a good time to share photos from taylor’s baby shower. my sister and i had so much fun scheming up a winter-themed shower for our adorable sis-in-law and we are dying to meet the little peanut! we wanted the shower to have elements of wood, greenery, and lots of neutrals. since we didn’t have farm wood tables on hand, our dad made individual wooden placemats that really helped achieve the aesthetic we envisioned. i went to the flower mart the friday before and stocked up on a million bundles of eucalyptus to create overflowing table runners – and that they were! we even gave out multiple bunches of unused leftovers to friends and still ended up throwing a lot away! note to self: eucalyptus goes a long way. it made the room smell so dreamy, so it was win win situation. with lots of help from dear friends, we made a few yummy soups and salads for lunch and had a hot chocolate, coffee + sweets table for dessert. the shower turned out beautifully and most importantly, we got to celebrate our sweet little niece who is already loved by so many! can’t wait until she makes her arrival into the world – we’re all just waiting for the call!

taylor’s shower was featured on 100 layer cakelet last month – check out their post here!

CALIFORNIA PALMS

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i saw this photo on pinterest a few weeks ago and it totally caught my eye! these photos of death valley by the talented jordan sullivan are pretty incredible. i was going through the photos on my camera roll and was inspired to create my own version with these snaps of palm trees (i also realized that i take A LOT of photos of palm trees – i can’t get enough!). i might even print this out for my office!

MOOD BOARD | BOHO CHIC + WHIMSICAL

WHIMSY MOOD BOARD

today i’m sharing with you the mood board for a photographer i’m currently working with on a complete rebrand! she has an amazing aesthetic which totally shines through in her photographs. we are just finishing up her logo and are about ready to start designing her new website! so excited about this one and i can’t wait to share everything once we are done!