Date Night

Bag: Foldover Clutch in Blue Turquoise

Dress: Banana Republic

Earrings: I forgot. :(

Date night last night!  We were adventurous and tried a new sushi place. We usually dine at Plum, but felt like we needed to give other places a try, especially if they're so highly rated on Yelp.

I'm lying. You know me --I love routine. When I find a good restaurant, I stick to it. When I find a good dish at said restaurant, I stick to it.

BECAUSE!!  It minimizes disappointment.  Disappointment != Fun.*

The adventurous side comes from my other half. :)

If you're wondering what adventure gets you, the answer is disappointment.**

I hate winning every debate (no, I don't), but we will continue to visit our go-to sushi place from now on.

Good news!!

I finally wore the dress Boy bought for me for my birthday in June.  Boy is good at this -- picking out really great pieces that I would never choose myself and they end up being my favorites. This is my new favorite dress; it's bright, flouncy, soft and from Banana Republic (which is kind of my favorite store).

I paired it with turquoise earrings, which made me realize I should probably take this opportunity of having my hair did, make-up done, and being all dolled up to model a picture with one of my favorite bags in the shop, Foldover Clutch in Blue Turquoise.

I think it makes the outfit.

Sadly, I didn't keep it. I placed it back onto the Ready to Ship shelf after Boy snapped some photos. I wore one of my reject/mess-up Clutches instead. :(

Happy weekend! :)

Love,
Jenny


* != translates to "does not equal" for non-nerds.
** Overpriced sushi. Muddy crawfish tasting tempura softshell crab. Under-miso'd misoshiru. A bajillion bones in my unagi kabayaki. In their defense, I'm pretty sure eel always has a billion bones and you're supposed to eat them, but I didn't enjoy it. I spent the entire night practicing my awesome chopstick skills in removing pin bones.

Fall 2011

If you've been keeping up with me on Facebook, these bags will look familiar.

These beauties are available (and ready to ship) in the shop.

The Packet in leather, coming soony soon soon!

Painting: Austin Memorabilia

The Boy wanted some colorful art above our newly-installed floating bar (BESTA BURS wall shelf) that we got for half-price because it was in the as-is section at IKEA. It's previous life was a display piece in a living room showroom. This is typically used to store media above an entertainment set, but since we don't own a TV, our second thought was a bar. Naturally?

I haven't painted anything in years. Many years. Like, high school years I am pretty sure. Wow, really? Nine years? Time flies.

I had some canvases that I purchased to paint some simple pieces for our headboard alternative, but that never panned out (see above statement).

Boy and I decided that we should have some art to reflect our previous life in Austin, TX.  Cute, huh? Sadly, it's not a gushy goopy story. Many of our weekends were spent with amazing friends on 4th-6th streets. If you've lived in/visited Austin, you'll know what I mean.

I should mentioned that I lied earlier. I was not a part of this idea for the art. It was just him.  But, since we're getting married, I figured it would be nice to consider all his ideas my own as well. :)

I actually wanted to make life easy and mount a $10 mirror from Walmart and call it a day. That was quickly vetoed.

He suggested painting the memorable drinks of Austin. I didn't like the idea of having the actual representations of drinks (too difficult for my skill-level), so I suggested making abstractions of those drinks. We came to an agreement.



I started with mini drafts with ink and marker and texted the drafts to Boy until I got the final approval. I cut the drafts out, taped them together and tested the colors and placement.



I then penciled on the canvas, mixed colors and painted each color at a time, from lightest color to darkest, to save myself trips to wash my brushes. Efficiency is key here.



The end result: See first image.

So now, a quiz for you. Can you figure out the three drinks?

If you've lived in Austin, it may be a little more obvious. If you know us personally, you will probably be able to figure it out pretty easily based on our favorite places to visit in Austin.

Yes, I took a (time-away-from-the-sewing-machine-to-stay-sane) day-off yesterday to do this project. I'm rejuvenated now and continue getting back to the daily grind.

Love,
Jenny

p.s. We got those two bright bar chairs at the Pittsburgh Flea (a block from our apt!) for $25. For both! I know, right?
p.p.s. What's on the shelf? Vintage ice bucket, Graffiti Cocktail Shaker, glasses, empty bottles for mixers, gin, Maker's and Glenlivet.

My New Knives

My mom called me and asked where I got my knives. We don't talk regularly on the phone. I don't like talking on the phone --I can't sew at the same time, or multitask. Instead, we text and gchat, which took some heavy influencing and teaching on my part, but she's a quick learner. She just calls when she's reacting to something I wrote on my blog, like,

"You're getting a tattoo?!"

Just kidding. She didn't call about the [fake] tattoo.

She called about my knives! My mom loves kitchen gadgets just as much as I do. But she loves the old fashion things, like antique crank coffee grinders and pepper grinders and things that involve a lot of manual labor. I like food processors and electric things that involve little manual labor. So I was a little surprised she inquired about my new sleek knives.

Maybe my dad was more curious about them and asked my mom. He loves knives. His appreciation strongly influenced me to love knives, too.  Kitchen knives and pocket knives, mostly.  We both share a great appreciation for those sharp guys.

I still feel guilty that the pocket knife that he gave me for my 18th birthday got confiscated at airport security on my way to Boston (for a summer internship at MIT). I forgot to take it out of my purse before I left (oops). Security asked me why I would have a knife in my purse. I told them I use it as a box cutter because I order a lot of packages online (would it have been weird to tell them that I use it to peel oranges and sharpen my eyeliner pencil?). They then searched all my bags and scanned me for metal stuff.

After that summer, on the way back from Boston back to Austin, I got my pepper spray confiscated and got written up for carrying a fire arm without a license. I joked with the policeman that pepper spray is one of those essentials, like lipstick for a girl to carry in her purse. He wasn't amused and then threatened that I may get arrested when I get back in Texas. I cried. But then realized he was full of bull.

Anyway, my dad was a little heart broken that he couldn't find that same knife again, but he bought me an even cooler knife later. I still have it --I do use it as a box cutter since I do order online all the time. I don't use eyeliner pencils anymore, so no sharpening needed.



Am I now just getting back to talking about these kitchen knives?

I get off track easily.

I got these Kai Pure Komachi 2 knives on sale at Rue La La, but they are on sale at Amazon now!

Pros:
1. They are super sharp, like razor-blade sharp.  Filleting and thin slicing are super easy with these!
2. They are colorful, which adds a great pop of color in the kitchen.
3. They are conversation starters, which is great when you have guests over and haven't finished cooking yet.

Cons:
1. They are really light weight. It's not really a con. It's just weird to experience. The intention of the design was to have a really light weight knife so your hands don't fatigue if you're doing a lot of cutting. Very true. I can cut vegetables for hours with these guys. It just feels a little strange when you're used to heavy knives. So rather than this being a con, it's more like a "something to get used to".
2. Cutting quickly is a little difficult. No dimples on the blade and the blades are so thin and straight that vegetables don't get pushed off like when using knives with the thicker spine. Vegetables get stuck easily. Kinda sucks, but maybe I have to work with them more to get into a groove.

I really do love the, though!

The knife rack is from IKEA.

So if you're like my mom and read last week's post and wondered where I got my rainbow knives, you've got all the info to get yourself a set!

Love,
Jenny

Dear Rainbows

I'm re-obsessed with rainbows. Or maybe the love never left.  I'd like to think that this love started from my childhood love of My Little Pony, Rainbow Brite, and Care Bears, all featuring plenty of rainbows. OR. We humans are just intrinsically drawn to the pretty colors.

My order of the Tattly temporary tattoos came in early this week and I could not contain my excitement. I'll admit. These things gave me a sense of badassness for an entire week, even if they are rainbowy.

The little one on my forearm I took off after a day and replaced it with the one on my shoulder. Oh, I love this one. After a shower, the glossiness goes away and it looks a little worn and super cool. The last one I have will go on my shoulder blade, because there's where I've always wanted a tattoo if I were to ever have the courage and commitment to get one. Which I don't.

Mom, relax. I won't get a real tattoo (yet). But I think I found something that will appease me for many years, if not my entire life time.

In other news, I found my latest daily addiction: Dear blank, please blank. It goes along really nicely with my other daily read, Dear Photograph. 

The draw may be the nostalgia of formal letters... or I just like crowdsourced content. 




Happy Weekend!

Love,
Jenny

p.s. Did you see? There are new Packets in the shop! :)

Introducing: The Packet

The Packet is the newest addition to the bag family. Little brother to The Briefcase, this little guy carries all your reading material.



Wear him crossbody, on one shoulder or carry him by the handles.



E-reader in the front, magazines/notebooks/files plus essentials in the main compartment.



He closes with two metal snaps on the top.

He's a cutie.

Man-friendly, too.

p.s. More colors and leather options coming soon. Can't wait? Convo me on Etsy for a custom listing.

Sneak Peek

I've heard all of your requests for a smaller one.  Here's a sneak peek of the new little guy.

What's his name?

Check back on Monday; he'll be available in the shop!

Happy Weekend!

Love,
Jenny

p.s. In the meantime, please enjoy a discount on ready to ship bags!

San Francisco: In Words

Since SF was a new place to visit for us, we flew in three days early so we could make a mini-vacation out of it. We stayed for a total of 5 nights and 6 days.

Here's the breakdown of the pros, cons and lessons learned from Chicago that I applied to our trip to San Francisco.


Lessons Learned 

1. Overweight luggage sucks. Last year traveling to Chicago from Austin, I faced overage fees because I vacuum-packed my merchandise, making it impossible to redistribute the weight. This year, we weighed each suitcase before zipping it closed.

Extras: Continental/United allowed us TWO check-in bags each for free! I had three suit cases of merchandise (2 large, 1 good for overhead) and one overhead bag for our clothing/toiletries. Heck yes I checked in all my merchandise. All I had to carry was my Mini Ruche with a book which I never read on the plane because I was too busy sleeping.

Extra Extra: Because this was an indoor event, we decided not to take the canopy (which feels like a 50lb rigid body bag on wheels), so that gave me that extra 50lbs for merchandise. Which I gladly used. Which paid off at the show.

2. Parking in [San Francisco] is expensive. Last year in Chicago, I paid nearly $200 in JUST PARKING because our hotel (in the financial district) didn't have free parking (I am from Texas...we have lots of land) and we rented a car, which added even more to our travel expenses.  Talk about cutting into profits...

This year, we skipped the car rental and chose a hotel walking distance to the venue. We took a taxi to and from the airport.  Totally worth it.  Carrying 200 lbs of luggage onto crowded buses for an hour to get to the hotel did not appeal to either of us.

Total ground transportation in San Francisco: 
$100 in cab rides (including tip) + $12 in Muni rides for both of us = Better investment than renting a car and paying for parking everywhere you go.


Cons

1. San Francisco is colder than Pittsburgh.  Oops. We did not learn our lesson from Chicago (from "Chicago is colder than Texas"). We've been living in Pittsburgh since November, where we experienced snow until March. It's been hot lately here and we just assumed California's got nicer weather. Nope. Not SF.  In our defense, we did check the weather for that week and some residents in our apartment used to live in SF and recommended that we take a light jacket. I figured that they were cold-weather wussies and that we could survive off of really thin cardigans. Plus, I already vacuum-packed ALL our jackets and stored them away. Jackets = more weight. More weight = less merchandise. I was gonna risk it.

We arrived and a lot of people were wearing winter jackets. Like, wool jackets. So yeah, we were pretty cold but we still looked summer-stylish!

2. San Francisco is really hilly ridiculously mountainy.  Too bad our map did not have street incline. "Yeah, let's just walk down Lombard to Fisherman's Wharf!" After two climbs up Mt. Everest, you make it there all tired and winded and realize you're not setting your elliptical to a high enough resistance and incline at the gym to prepare for moments like this.

3. Vacation time before show time makes you really stingy.  Because I pre-paid a good fee to travel and lodge in San Francisco, spending three days on vacation before making any sales at the show was pretty tough. Pair stinginess with being a lazy traveler and you get 4 hours of watching Hoarders in the hotel, followed by a strong desire to clean your apartment when you get home, followed by a full night's sleep.

This is why we don't have cable TV in our apartment.


Pros

1. Sales were good! Even better since we were so frugal with the vacation section of our trip.

I didn't realize that Baby Ruche/Mini Ruche bags and Travelers would do so well compared to Chicago. In Chicago, Briefcases won. Hands down.  In SF, Travelers pretty much sold out. Compare to two Traveler sales in Chicago.

I do try to look through my historical sales to see what bag types appeal to which cities, but you can never be 100% prepared for the turnout.  Insight comes with experience, so next time will be better.

2. San Francisco loves Pittsburgh. I mentioned last year that Chicago loves Austin, so maybe every city loves every other city?

We actually met a LOT of ex-Pittsburghers, which was really nice! We love Pittsburgh, and it's so great to meet others who share the love. I can see why people end up living here for ever once they move here.

3. San Francisco is a great place to make connections.  I've never met so many people wanting to help my business/be a part of my business/have my products in their shop. Software developers, shop owners, marketing people, PR people, other small business owners who have been in your shoes. Lots of people want to find a way to help.

We got lots of advice, stories and tips for my shop. Of course, most of this I already know, but I don't have the time or manpower (by myself) to implement it all.  That may be the bottleneck of my business: I am the only one running it. But I'm a bit of a micro manager and perfectionist, and I'm not ready to deal with employees who hate me yet.

4. I Love Chinatown.  $0.79/lb ginger?? Lychee! Peking duck! Oh my god. I must move to Chinatown. The first day in SF, we did some touristy stuff and ate at touristy places which turned out to be a big tourists' disappointment. Once we discovered Chinatown, we were set. We ate Vietnamese food every day thereafter. No lie.


Overall, we had such a fun experience!
See pictures in yesterday's post, San Francisco: In Pictures.
You can see more pictures from our trip on my Flickr.

Now to prepare for Chicago in September.
Then for my wedding in October!
Oh dear.

San Francisco: In Pictures

We're back from San Francisco! I'm peeling from my sunburn (from the first day of touring), spending some time with Hubert after a long absence, and getting some items packed and shipped so that I can gather my thoughts together for a wordy recap of our vacation/show in SF. Stay tuned! :)

In the meantime, see last year's Chicago: In Pictures and Chicago: In Words.

San Francisco, Here I Come!

Orders shipped (ones due by July 12th if you're waiting on your bag). Check!
Inventory for Renegade SF (which ended up taking up some of The Boy's luggage space...). Check!
Packed and ready for a vacation. Check!

I'll be back on July 11th and will complete and ship all pending orders and then pass out. 

You can follow my trip on my Flickr.

Hope to see you in San Francisco, my friends!

Love,
Jenny

p.s. Thank you for all the great suggestions! We'll try to hit up all the obvious SF places and then check out those restaurants ya'll shared. :)

Salmon, Squash and String beans

Carb-rich weekends call for light low-carb lunches. Since I'm completely obsessed with my new little julienne tool....



I made squash noodles and cut string beans on a bias. Blanched them in salted boiling water with a few drops of sesame oil. Served it with my favorite preparation of salmon (get wild-caught, you'll taste the difference) --marinaded in soy sauce, orange juice, honey, chopped garlic, chopped ginger and pepper.  Sear and serve.

Simple and light.

You'll love it.

Blue Skies, Rainbows and Bricks?

Pictures outside and around the studio.

Happy Weekend!