Bridal Shower

My dear friend and college roommate of 3 years, Shinie, is getting married this coming weekend. I have the honor and privilege of participating in the wedding as a bridesmaid. One responsibility of a bridesmaid is to plan and hold a bridal shower for the lucky girl. Naturally, I signed up to take care of favors and shower decor.

Favors: The shower was loosely following a kitchen/cooking theme. I wanted the favors to reflect that theme as well as be practical and useful. I decided on making dish towels - two for each guest. Kevin, Shinie's fiancé and my good friend, helped me think up the catch phrase for the tag:... because love can be messy... sometimes.

Decor: I wanted to keep the decor simple. I made some simple heart garland to be hung over the kitchen counter/bar area. In addition, I made a few tags for one of our bridal shower games. For the game, each guest was to bring a panty for Shinie, and Shinie had to guess who brought each panty. The panties started off on a dish rack that was lovingly labeled the "Spice Rack". After the game ended, we stuck the panties into glass container, slapped a bow on it, and tagged it "Kevin's Treats."

Present: I gifted Shinie a cute little nightie set from Anthropologie (Jess helped me find it - thanks Jess!) and a mortar and pestle from Sur La Table. I'm pretty bummed that I forgot to take pictures of the present before and after it was wrapped. Thankfully, Kathy snapped a picture of the gifts (mine is the one wrapped in brown paper secured with off-white/pink/yellow accent paper).

All photos courtesy of Kathy Chong

I will post more photos if/when I get my hands on more.

T&K Wedding Candy Bar Wrappers & Candy Table Pt. II

I have a few more pictures from Tinwin and Kevin's wedding. The center picture captures the "lovely" job I did with the meringue cookies - you can't even tell I tossed them in... =)

All photos courtesy of Jen Huang Photography

Mother's Day Boarding Passes

This year, in lieu of a present, I took my mom out for yummy Korean food. Jess and her siblings, however, opted to give their mom a very cool present. Because she her brothers will all be in the bay area soon, they wanted to fly their mom (and dad) to San Francisco for a visit.

Jess asked if I could help design some boarding passes that she could mail along with her Mother's Day card.

T&K Wedding Candy Bar Wrappers & Candy Table Pt. I

I had the honor and pleasure of helping with another wedding of my friends - Tinwin and Kevin (I've known Kevin since we were six or seven!!!). Tinwin recruited me to help with candy bar wrapper patterns for her candy/dessert table.

I had a little too much fun with this project and went overboard giving the bride 20+ different patterns to choose from.  Because I needed to tweak the color palette from the original green/gray/white color scheme to include new colors pink/peach/taupe/yellow, Tinwin decided to narrow down the pattern selection to six. The overachiever in me responded by making multiple versions of each pattern. Perhaps I should consider a future in textiles or paper design? Just a thought. =)

Here are the patterns we settled with (I included the pattern in the original color scheme):

This time around, my "partner in crime" Miss Kathy took charge of the styling details of the table. I played the obedient assistant that answered every "Grace, work your magic!!" request. Hehe. Actually, the only thing I will take credit for is figuring out how to get the meringue cookies to fit in the glassware without looking like they was dumped in (even though they really were....). Of course, the final table looked lovely.

Photos courtesy of Kathy Chong

Padded Laptop Case (Project 18)

The moment Sunny saw "Laptop Case" on my class projects list, she asked if I could make one for her laptop, and of course, I couldn't say no. It's always more fun making things for my friends than for myself. =)

I made a couple changes to original design:

• Made a zipper closure instead of a loop/button closure
• Hid the seams inside the case instead of sewing up the sides on the outside

The project calls for 1/2 inch thick foam, and Sunny's laptop is on the bigger end. That deadly combination made the case look a little bit bulky. I jokingly called it a sleeping bag for her laptop. At the end of the day, I'm pleased with how it turned out.

A couple things other things I want to try the next time around:

• Use neoprene
• Fill the case with a thinner, denser foam
• Line the inside with high-quality fleece
• Experiment with other ways to close the case

By the way, this is the second to last of the class projects I definitely wanted to finish. The Flying Geese Quilt is next in queue, and I'm waiting for my friend to find time to go fabric shopping with me. After that, there are three projects remaining (Curtains, Drafting & Creating A Pattern, and How To Read a Commercial Pattern) that I plan to get around to when I have time, but they are not high priority. I can't believe the end is finally in sight.