Our Wedding Registry Wish List

For our wedding, Ryan and I decided to forego a traditional registry, and created an Amazon wish list instead. That way we could register for all kinds of a fun things from a variety of sources. We have lots of Etsy items on our list as well as things from Modcloth, Restoration Hardware, Leif, Anthropologie, Terrain, and even the online printshop of a Swedish photographer I found through Instagram. 

Since we've been living together for four and a half years, we don't need a lot of traditional registry items, so, instead, we're asking for a few pretty odds and ends, and a lot of art.

01. Etsy (Banana Tree Studios), 02. Modcloth, 03. Restoration Hardware, 04. Annette Pehrsson, 05. Etsy (Clare Elsaesser, 06. Etsy (Flapper Doodle), 07. Etsy (Clare Elsaesser), 08. Etsy (Ashley Goldberg), 09. Etsy (Pretty Little Theives), 10. Etsy (Fifi Du Vie), 11. Etsy (Stone and Violet)

01. Amazon, 02. A Sunny Afternoon, 03. Leif, 04. Terrain, 05. Anthropologie, 06. Sears, 07. Amazon, 08. Reiko Kaneko, 09. A Sunny Afternoon, 10. Anthropologie 

Our Day Trip to Columbus, Indiana - in Photos

On Saturday, Ryan and I drove to Bloomington, Indiana to see one of our favorite comedians, James Adomian. We had a blast at the show, but an unexpected highlight of the trip was stopping for the afternoon in Columbus, Indiana.

Although from Indiana, Ryan hadn't been to Columbus before, but he'd head about its place as a top city to see architecture and public art. If you're interested in learning a bit about how this came to be, NPR does a great story on it here.

Anyway, since our main thrill in life is walking around a new city, we were excited to spend an afternoon taking in some unique sights in this charming small town.

In addition to seeing some incredible buildings, unique pieces of public art, and one of the most touching war memorials either of us has ever beheld, we also had lunch an Zaharako's, an adorable soda shop that's been there since 1900. Their cinnamon ice-cream soda was to die for, and their player organ was really something to behold.

If you live anywhere near Columbus, Indiana, I cannot recommend it enough as a day-trip destination.

I made a video of our trip, as well as taking photos, so stay tuned for that!

Adventures in Freelensing

Lately I've been experimenting with freelensing. It's a really cool photography technique that anyone who has a detachable lens can try. It's a fun way to "hack" your camera, and it creates the tilt-shift effect you may be familiar with from Instagram. (Only, manually, the effect is way more dramatic and cool looking!)

Basically, you take photos by holding the detached lens close to the camera and tilting it at different angles to change the focus. Whereas, normally what's in focus depends on depth (i.e. the foreground is sharp and the background is blurry), with freelensing you can change the focus between objects that are the same distance away.

I started with this great tutorial, which I'd recommend as a good jumping off point for anyone interested in trying the technique themselves.

It's one of those things that's a bit unwieldy and difficult to control at first. But that's part of the fun. I think it's a really good creative practice to give up some control sometimes and just experiment and see what comes.

My Home Tour: the dining room

Each day this week I'm posting another room as part of a full home tour. See yesterday's here.

Our dining room is a small space connected to the living room by a wide doorway. I hung the same black-and-white-chevron living-room curtains in its window because it's really just a continuation of the same space. Meanwhile, the wine rack and my teapot collection help ease the transition into the kitchen.

This space, while simple, felt unfinished for a while after moving in because we were eating on a really horribly ugly and cheap table. My dream dining room would have a large wooden slab of a table, a rustic-looking thing with benches on both sides where at least 12 people could easily squeeze in beer-hall style. But we just don't have the space for that yet. So, for now, I'm quite please with this cute little glass kidney we found in the office section of IKEA. 

Shelves - IKEA
Table - IKEA
Chairs - IKEA
Teapots - Vintage
Menorah - Vintage
Animal figurines - vintage
Clipboards - Staples
Hangers - IKEA
Handbag - Lauren by Ralph Lauren 
Birdcage chandelier - made by me (tutorial here)
Artwork - all done by me (except Marie Antoinette which is a magazine page and "Things Change print" which is by a local artist)

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My giftwrap of choice: brown paper packages tied up with strings

The last few Christmases, I've had a lot of people to wrap gifts for. Therefor, I've tried to keep my wrapping style streamlined and elegant yet still handmade and rustic looking. My favorite technique is to use simple brown paper tied up with burlap string. To keep this classic look from being too dull, I like add a fun accent or decoration. Two years ago, I tied on pinecones and bundles of cinnamon sticks (as see here); this year, I added minty tie-on gift tags from Anthropologie. 

How are you wrapping gifts this year?

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