Recipe Box

I recently picked up this simple but pretty recipe box from one of my absolutely favorite stores, Crate and Barrel. The box is made from bamboo and has a slot on the top for a clear stand that props up recipe cards while you are cooking.

For a long while, I have just been saving all my recipes in a Word doc on my computer and just printing it out everytime I wanted to use a particular recipe-- not exactly the greenest and most organized way. I have actually been wanting to start a recipe box for a while; in fact, our wedding favors were actually recipe cards and included one recipe from Will and one recipe from me, along with measuring spoons in the shape of hearts. It was meaningful and personal to us because:
1) We love to eat!
2) The recipes were designed, and hand-made by us with the help of our friends
3) The heart-shaped measuring spoons were simply adorable and it perfectly went along with our heart-themed wedding.

For my brand new recipe box, here's a round-up of pretty recipe cards I found on etsy:

Personalized Recipe Cards 20 for $12.00 via InvitaPaperStudio

Fancy letterpress recipe cards $46.00 for a set of 42 cards in 6 colors via 1canoe2

Rustic recipe cards $6.00 for set of 6 via ohHelloMagpie

Photograph recipe cards $16.00 for set of 8 via newivystyle

Graceful Lace

I love the beautiful lace details incorporated into this wedding inspiration shoot by Jose Villa. There is something just wonderfully romantic, girly, and timelessly elegant about lace. The challenge is to dress lace in way that isn't grandmotherly, old, or overdone without loosing its natural vintage charm. Often, there is a fine line between vintage and just plain frumpy, outdated, hand-me-downs. Not so with this beautiful photoshoot! Lace was styled by Jill La Fleur in a way that is bright, fresh, and still effortlessly romantic.

 

 

via stylemepretty and Josevilla

Even though I am no longer wedding planning, I still find great everyday inspiration from wedding design and wedding photography. 

Pinterest!

I've recently joined Pinterest, a virtual bulletin board where you can pin images for inspiration and ideas. It's been really fun pinning everything I love and keeping great finds all in one place-- a visual bookmark of sorts. I kind of wish I had discovered it sooner….it would have been a great resource for finding wedding inspiration. Now though, it has become my scrapbook for decorating and furnishing ideas for our new home! Much more organized than tearing pages out of catalogs and copying links into a word file!

A snippet from my pinterest boards~

Categories

Happy Home: filled with gorgeous homes and rooms
Look Book: fashion finds and outfit ideas

Sweet Nothings: for mouthwatering delectables and recipes

Fabulous Finds: my wishlist of adorable things

Inspiration: everything else I like~

 

 

sources all available at my pinterest 

Happy One Month!

I can't believe it's already been one month since our wedding!

It's been one month since...

I love being married! and I am so lucky to have such a wonderful husband! 

Adventure Book

One of my favorite movies is Pixar's Up! I especially love the scene near the end when Carl is looking through Ellie's old adventure book and finds the new pages she put together with pictures from their wedding day all through their life of growing old together.

I was inspired to also keep a scrapbook for Will and I-- afterall I do have the scraps. I'm pretty sentimental and I tend to keep useless things like ticket stubs and map brochures, but I have never quite found the time to paste them into an actual scrapbook. Recently I got an offer from Shutterfly for a free 20-page photobook and I thought it would be perfect for our recent Hawaii honeymoon photos.

The last two photobooks I deisgned and ordered from shutterfly all were for a very particular purpose: one was a coffee-table styled book with our Taiwan engagement pictures that I created as a gift to our parents, and the second was our photo-guestbook for our wedding so I kept the design fairly clean and simple with plenty of boarders and white space for people to sign and leave well-wishes. This photobook was the first that was more a fun style and "just for us: so I used all of the cute little graphics in the Shutterfly program to create a virtual-scrapbook. Here are a few of my favorite pages:

Happy Friday,

Goodbye 23...

Early this morning right after midnight when I was thinking about this past year, I posted a brief list on facebook of the reasons I loved being 23. I have now expanded those few points into a full and unabridged 23 reasons~

Twenty-three Reasons Why I Loved Being 23:
1) I learned deeper how much I am in need of God's love, grace, and mercy
2) I was able to visit my grandparents and family in Taiwan
3) Went to Disneyland and California Adventure all in one day
4) I got my first car
5) I drove by myself for the first time
6) Went to Hawaii for the first time
7) Went snorkeling for the first time
8) My dad said he was proud of me
9) I stressed out a lot but I was able to learn so much from it
10) Experienced so many answered prayers for roommates, friends, and family
11) Learned how to paint a house (the inside)
12) I watched my brother graduate from college
13) Went to a Chris Tomlin concert
14) Flew the most times in one year in my life thus far
15) Ate REALLY well but didn't gain any weight (I wonder how many more years I will be able to say this...)
16) I earned a full-time paycheck
17) I got to know Will even better and I love him even more
18) My last year as a "Chan"
19) My first year as a "Hsu"
20) Will proposed to me
21) We planned our dream wedding
22) We danced our hearts out that night and our friends surprised us by joining us too!
23) I married the love of my life

Day 13....of married life

We're back from our honeymoon in Hawaii!

After a whirlwind of two weeks we are so happy to be home. Home...that needs a lot of cleaning and organizing~

This is the mountainous task we are tackling at the moment...

Our gifts!...and this is only half of them, we are collecting the other half later this week. This is before~ 

...and this is after

This is only the beginning of a new adventure, a new journey, a new life together~

Happily Married with more to come,