Christmas Highlights

*Chung Family Christmas Eve* We crammed 18 people into our 1200 square foot house for a Korean BBQ feast.  I purchased 35 pounds of beef short ribs, and we only ate half of it.  Anyone want to come over and help us eat it all?

Here I am making Pajeon, a traditional seafood and vegetable pancake.  Flipping these over was a challange!

I got to use my new favorite tool:  The Candle Carver.  I won this at a gift exchange and can’t wait to put this to work at a wedding!

We decorated simply (and cheaply), using green water goblets filled with daisies, mums and evergreen boughs scattered all over the house.

I even put my old sake bottles to use!

Pesto’s present confused him:

It took Basil 5 minutes to destroy hers!

By the end of the night, they were totally pooped…

I have to admit, the presents and Christmas lights don’t hold quite as much wonder for me as they did when I was a child.  But the wonder of my Savior’s birth, who humbly came down to earth and died to take away the sins of the world grows dearer to me each year.

Merry Christmas, and warm wishes for the new year!

Oh husband of mine!

Last month, Joe came to do a job that none of us gals wanted to do.  I felt like this was a man’s job, so I called on the best guy I know.

Here he is in action, placing three floating floral rafts in their designated spots.

The shallow end was no biggie…

But the deep end is where it got a little exhausting for him.

He had to dive to the bottom of this ten foot deep pool over and over to set the weights in the perfect place so the rafts wouldn’t budge.  A fountain spills into the pool, creating some turbulence which would have otherwise pushed these rafts to the edge of the pool and out of the center of attention.  He spent about an hour in there!  Thanks for being such a trooper, Joe!

These rafts are tricky to build and tricky to set up, but they are showstoppers!  So worth the effort, don’t you think?

*A floral raft how-to is coming!*

Happy Halloween to all!  The Brancaleone’s will be keeping it chill- watching scary movies and passing out candy to kids.  Pesto will be dressing up as Pocahontas (for the 3rd year straight), and Basil will be a candy corn.

A little break!

This was a crazy but wonderful month!  I had 5 beautiful weddings in 3 short weeks.  Lots of running around and early morning trips to  L.A.  As wedding season calms down and I have a chance to breathe, I am making it a priority to fit in some extracurriculars.

• I am now enrolled in a dance school, taking adult hip hop and ballet classes
• In an attempt to declutter and spiff up my home, I’ll be signing up for emails from Fly Lady (thanks Angel for the tip!).
• Oh yeah, after much resistance, I finally joined facebook!  Guess what, it’s fun!  Don’t know why I held out so long!
• I’m also making more lunch and dinner dates with my best buddies.

This afternoon I spent some quality time with  my girls Angel Swanson and Trista Lerit at the incredible Vietnamese restaurant Brodard Chateau.  You MUST try their Vietnamese Crepe (crispity, crunchity, savory and sweet) and their famous spring rolls.  Angel nailed it when she said, “Why does any other restaurant even attempt to make spring rolls?”

Thanks girls for being such sweet friends!  I always look forward to our chats where I know I’ll get a good dose of belly laughs, encouragement and total craziness.

 

We're all rocking the boots- must be Fall!

My sister is married :)

My big sis Jenny-lyn married James in Hemet, CA last month.   James is a pastor in Hemet, a little town near Temecula, in the middle of the desert.  In August, temps reach over 100 degrees easily, and it’s dry as a bone.  You can imagine that this influenced my flower choices greatly.

The task before me: to create fun, funky, flirty arrangements that would hold up in the desert, for a wedding of over 350 people, on a very modest budget. Also, I was to be the matron of honor, and deliver a witty toast, at that!

Jenny-lyn is always adorable, but was positively radiant on her wedding day.  Those earrings were her “something borrowed”- I wore them on my wedding day, too!

She always claimed she’d recycle my wedding dress on her wedding day, which was an airy Liancarlo gown with subtle beading and ruffled train.  But in my heart I knew she needed a dress of her own, something over the top and dramatic to match her personality.   Her Reem Acra gown was so perfect for her.

I adore the intricate embroidery and the sweet satin bow.

Jenny-lyn’s bouquet was a sweet mix of pinks and whites, including nerine lilies,  roses, and feathery astilbe, wrapped with fuchsia satin and black lace.  Oo la la!  She demanded that I make her bouquet small and easy to carry.  She still has horrible memories of holding my two ton bridal bouquet AND her bridesmaid bouquet during my ceremony.

Notice the unexpected touch of black: we hand painted each billy ball/craspedia!

I give James major props for being ok with all the pink!

Not surprisingly, I sobbed my way down that aisle; my second emotional meltdown that day.  The first was when my sis put that veil on.  That totally choked me up!

My sis’s style is bold, flirty, and feminine.  Everything has to be pink pink pink!  Black lace, satin, bows, feathers, and vintage buttons were used to spice up our simple arrangements.

My hubby Joe did a reading from the book of Romans.

My parents.

Enough delicious cupcakes to feed 350 guests, handmade with love by my floral assistant’s  mom, Cathy.   She’s a super star for delivering those babies all the way to Hemet, and displaying them so beautifully on tiers of glass!  Please email me for contact info if you’d like to taste her treats for yourself.

Some of the simple, creative decor elements included 1) tall vases filled with illuminated orchids, topped with pink florals and a lit lampshade.  2) patterned hatboxes in the wedding colors, girlified with feathers, bows, and flowers (such a fun DIY project!)  3) white ceramics filled with china mums and zinnias.  4) shiny black urns filled with various florals.

A view of the whole reception, with the floral lamps shining brightly in the background.

Thank you to the sweet and talented Chad of Chad Martin Photography in Hemet for so generously sharing these images!

Happy Arrangements, Happy Friday!

It’s been a bit of a challenging week (still recovering from my sister’s  wedding last weekend), but today has been wonderful so far.  The highlight?  A mockup with one of favorite brides and one of my favorite coordinators which ended in tears by the bride (HAPPY tears of course!)  I cannot wait for Aaron and Barbara’s fantastic flamenco inspired wedding coming up.  There will be tapas, flamenco dancing, flirty black lace, embroidered linens, espresso beans, and luscious red and wine florals.

To go with my good mood, here are a few happy arrangements captured by Jasmine Star during our Anytime shoot.  Thanks Jasmine!

lemons, campanula, leptospernum, china mums, parrot tulips, viburnum.

Hydrangea, viburnum, ranuncula, sweet peas, delphinium, lilac, anenomes, campanula, peony roses... Hmm, what's NOT in this arrangement?

Part of my good mood may be due to the fact that Pesto had his first in-home obedience training session last night. Since we got Basil, Pesto’s been acting up and snapping a lot.  His trainer gave us a good prognosis, and said we’d soon have the sweet, docile cavalier we’ve always wanted.  There’s hope!

Looks can be deceiving... Pesto can be a real brat.

Have a wonderful weekend!

Ode To Trader Joe’s

Warning: Random post ahead. Check back soon for a picture-filled  post from Leah and David’s spicy beach wedding!

Today at Trader Joe’s I bought a whole week’s groceries for 43.00, and it only took me 20 minutes to get in and out.  How can anyone NOT afford to shop there?  I pretty much buy my same favorite items each week, but today I splurged and bought some Beef Pizzle Sticks (you don’t EVEN want to know what they’re made of!!!) for my dogs, and some more Lara Bars (healthy and delicious- can’t get enough!)

Maybe I’m totally out of the loop and everyone has already seen this cute video, but it just cracks me up every time! I recognize almost every product mentioned (yes, even the Beef Pizzle Sticks). I too have noticed the yoga moms, 5 flavors of lemonade, and the overcrowded parking lots. I too have mourned discontinued items. Actually, my friend Rachel at Heart of Light has written a few posts about this phenomenon.

Enjoy!

A Simple Spring Shower

My sister is a breath of fresh Spring air- she’s adorable, outgoing, feminine, stylish, and my hero in many ways. As the matron of honor for her upcoming wedding, I was delighted to collaborate with the bridesmaids and throw a simple but lovely Spring shower for my big sis. I’m no stranger to weddings, but we all were CLUELESS about throwing a bridal shower. Planning a shower is not so intimidating once you break it down and delegate jobs according to each bridesmaid’s talents and gifts.

• We knew we needed a theme- Spring. Done.
• We knew we needed a color palette- fresh grass green, pure white and shades of girly pinks.
• Location- maid of honor’s beautiful home in Newport Beach.
• Food- Light, fresh, California fare. Everything I contributed was organic and all-natural (me and my sister are on an organic kick. Jenny has now surpassed me by making her own cleaning products. I’m not THAT hardcore!)
• Games- Not my forte, so we let the two elementary school teachers of the group come up with those!
• Decor- Lots of cheerful spring flowers in apothecary jars, including ranunculus, hydrangea, roses, viburnum and cutesy gerbera daisies scattered all over the house.

Thank you to Courtney of Joyful Weddings and Events for loaning me the Spring banner from her latest seasonal party! You are too sweet.

When the bride arrived, I gave her a fresh lei of pink spray roses. The bridesmaids all wore roses from my garden in our hair.

The beautiful bride, in white of course!

Petite jars of organic, all natural honey served as favors. Jenny and I love using honey and agave nectar in our recipes instead of processed sugar. One super yummy appetizer we served was fresh strawberries dipped in creme fraich sweetened with agave nectar. It is just delightful!

And it wouldn't be a shower without the obligatory favor puns! "Meant to BEE", "Love is sweeter than HONEY", and "the Birds and the BEES"!

Thank you bridesmaids for making it a super sweet day!

Let’s Catch-up!

Mondays are generally my catch-up days. I try to do as little business stuff as possible, and focus on cleaning my house, grocery shopping, paying bills, taking my dogs hiking, etc. Since I’m in a catching-up mood, there are a few things I promised to blog about and never did, so here it is in a condensed version!

1. I picked a bridesmaid dress for my sis’s wedding! Actually, I picked 2. Then I returned 1.

The elegant tadashi dress is gorgeous but needed to be taken in a little, which meant time and money to get it altered.

This Nichole Miller dress is a mini dress on the model, but it comes down to my knees! I really am a shrimp!

Even though the first dress is loads cuter, I went with the Nicole Miller for a few reasons- the price, the re-wearability factor (not sure when else I can pull off a tight lacy black dress), and the fact that it fit like a glove. I will be busy enough with flowers and matron of honor duties, I don’t want to worry about altering my dress.

2. My house is coming along! There is still much to be done, but here is an artsy fartsy look at the living room. You can just barely see the curtains I sewed and the beautiful botanical prints on the wall. Joe will be taking pictures of our favorite features in our new home, so I’ll get back to you with those.

3. DIY Hurricanes: Here are the DIY instructions I promised for the book page hurricanes I made for Julia and James’ wedding. Super easy!

• gather up some old books. Poetry books, old love stories, books that tie in with your theme or have special meaning to you as a couple. Picture books look especially sweet!
• choose some pages, and scan them onto your computer.
• resize them so that they will fill up the entire page in landscape when you print them.
• print them onto vellum paper (Joann’s has 50 page packs for less than 10.00).
• wrap around small cylinder vases (I used vases that were 8.5″ tall, or shorter, and 3.5″ in diameter). Use vellum tape, or clear double stick tape to secure.

An excerpt from Little Women.

These hurricanes are ideal if your venue forces you to use LED candles instead of real flames- the vellum paper camouflages the LED candle perfectly, and all you see is a warm glow illuminating the book pages. So romantic!

4. A sweet surprise: This morning as I was blending my signature smoothie (banana, ice cubes, splash of OJ, splash of soy, and agave nectar) my dogs started barking uncontrollably at someone outside. I looked out the peephole and saw a woman carrying 12 luscious cupcakes from Divine Desserts. For me? Thank you Kathy and Gregg! I had the moistest, creamiest chocolate cupcake with buttercream frosting for breakfast (I forced myself to drink the healthy smoothie first.) I had a sugar high the whole day!

5. Thanks Jasmine! I received a disc of all the images from my Anytime session with Jasmine Star. I will share my favorites soon, but this picture just cracked me up:

This picture shows that Pesto (left) and Basil (right) really do share the same goofy features.  Their floppy liver lips, googly eyes, black button noses, concerned expressions, slight double chin, even their facial markings.

Good, I feel all caught up now!

This week I’ll be working on an aqua and orange wedding in Pacific Palisades. The look is sleek, modern, and lush with subtle beachy details. Can’t wait!

Me, In My Oasis

One day I wrote a comment on Jasmine Star’s blog in response to a beautiful Anytime session she shot. I told her that I was so gaga over those cheerful, sassy shots that maybe sometime I would be brave enough to do an Anytime shoot of my own! Well, seriously 3 seconds later, I received an excited email from Jasmine saying something like “Just got your blog comment. Let’s do it! It’ll be ultra fab!” Despite the fact that I usually feel awkward and stiff in front of the camera, I trusted Jasmine to make me look ultra fab.

I ran into JD and Polo (Jasmine’s hubby and puppy) at the dog park one night, and I was asked him where I should do the shoot. JD said I should choose somewhere that is meaningful to me. Right away I remembered my favorite place to hang out as a kid- my childhood friend Julie’s backyard in Modjeska Canyon. Modjeska Canyon is a charming oasis in the middle of O.C. It is a small town and everyone knows each other. There are foothills, horses, creeks, trees and tire swings. There are hiking trails and old silver mines. This was my only taste of the great outdoors as a kid growing up in a manicured gated community in Orange. We used to play in the treehouse and send messages in a bottle down the creek. All that idyllic kid stuff.

Julie’s parents’ eco-friendly garden was named best garden of 2008 by Roger’s Garden and featured in the LA Times. When the wildfires hit the canyons last year, Julie’s parents had to evacuate and weren’t sure if their house would still be standing when they returned. They were more crushed by the idea of losing their garden than losing their house.

Here are some favorites from Jasmine’s teaser. Check out the full blog post here!

Delphinium, garden roses, and ranunculus. Shoes from target. Woot!

Lilacs, viburnum, anenomes.

Mums, leptospermum, parrot tulips, viburnum, and lemons from the garden. I felt very Martha Stewart in this pic.

Sibling rivalry caught on film.

Jasmine is truly an artist. When she arrived, she did a quick sprint around the garden and I could just see her wheels turning. She was imagining shots and planning how to best use our 1.5 hours of sunlight. She made me feel so comfortable in front of her lens, and she was always paying attention to the little details like my hair, the angle of my feet or showing off my earrings. She didn’t just tell me how to pose, she actually showed me! At one point she even built a little dam in the creek so she could shoot me on a bridge from the water. I thought she might fall in (she was wearing those red cowboy boots of hers!) but she stood tall! Basically, Jasmine rules. The end!

BTW, I had the hardest time finding cute springy outfits that weren’t mini skirts (I don’t do mini skirts. Actually I prefer not to do skirts above my knee!) The first outfit came from The Gap. (Thanks to Rachel for posting the skirt! You had the self-control not to buy it, but I didn’t!) The white bedazzled dress is by Beth Bowley, and the maxidress is from the Modern Romance boutique at Fashion Island.

Thanks a million to my spunky friend Loann of Let’s Get Beautified for doing my makeup. She was my wedding makeup artist, and I don’t trust my face to anyone else!

If you had to do an Anytime shoot, what location would you pick?

Feeling Domestic!

After reading my friend Trista’s blog post on her gorgeous home decor inspirations, I wanted to gab about mine, too! It was a bit of a struggle figuring out my home decor style. From week to week I find myself delving into so many completely different styles. My first wedding of ‘09 was soft, romantic, and traditional. Last week- black and white graphics and lime green florals. This week- sultry, over the top glam. Next week – cutesy grapefruit pink and mercury glass. And I can honestly say I get overly excited about each and every wedding I do! In that moment when I’m seeing it all come together, I feel like it IS my style. I really get into it, you know?

But my home is completely mine. I don’t have to worry if it suits anyone else’s style. I just want it to be absolutely, positively ME. (and Joe of course

After browsing through endless design blogs and mags, Joe and I decided we want our home decor to be:

Cozy. Eclectic. Welcoming. International. Detailed. Slightly worn. Antique. Exotic. Affordable. Nothing too trendy. Nothing that I’ll need to overhaul in a few years. I’m trying to buy most of my furniture and tchotchkes off of craigslist, ebay, and flea markets.

Although deep, Tuscan red is typically not my favorite color (I’m more of a pink girl) I just love how warm it makes a home feel. And for Joe a pink house was not an option. So we started with ruby red and other jewel tones against the preexisting yellow-beige walls and neutral travertine floors.

I found a few inspiration pics that seemed to call out to me right away via Desire To Inspire:

I adore everything about this living room. I especially love the tall ladder and bookshelves. Joe is trying to build a library in a loft area of our bedroom, complete with a tall ladder. That would be a dream come true!

Love the colors and the heavy, dramatic curtains. I actually sewed some heavy curtains for our living room which I will show off in an upcoming post!

That rug! That lantern! Could do without the square couches and funky oil painting though.

The following are via Habitually Chic:

That pic above is the exact shade of our walls.

These next two are via Style Court:

sI created something similar on the wall with framed botanical prints of my favorite flowers from an old book. Post to come!

This last one is via The Inspired Room:

All of these rooms are different but share a common thread- bold pops of color, interesting exotic furniture, and a little bit of mismatched charm. We’re not even close to settled in yet, but everyday a new picture gets hung or a new curtain installed. It’s really starting to feel like home! Can’t wait to show pics!