past couple of weeks

we must've been so stressed out about our open studio

being possibly rained out, we went into a hibernation mode

after. ok that's not really true. we've been up to

a few things, including:

patchwork

ken and alex working the table

our lovely customers

our friends kris&alan's wedding at ace hotel

in palm springs. it was our first time staying there and

the rumors are true, it's great.

morgan lounging in our room's patio

... and the bed

hello welcome to my establishment

cooper looking casually hip

:)

and then we had a little studio visit at our printshop

with the young people of AIGA USC.

thanks so much for coming out in the rain!!

this has been a super lazy update by shino.

packages

Got two packages in the mail yesterday. Two!! Both via

US Postal Service. Who says people don't send things from

post offices any more?

First one was from Mr. Drunken Master himself.

Yay! Got the new shirts. Beautiful silk screened artwork

on the back. yeah

Now I can pretend to be one of the cool kids.

The other one was from Ayumi, Ai, and Kathryn of

Handmade for Japan. This was so unexpected and SO pretty.

You can get your own on their Etsy site after Sept. 12.

Thank you girls!!

:)

a summer day

I stayed home today to work with our bookkeeper, and

saw outside the window:

Then in the evening, I went over to Carrie & Wally's where they

generously picked for us, along with beautiful blood oranges, giant:

(grapefruits)

Which of course we turned into:

Suuper yum.

Thank you Carrie! Nice meeting you mooki & odie!!

stuff

Speaking of Dwelly things, we also read and drool all over

sites like Remodelista and The Brick House.

So in our low budget way, we've been slooowly acquiring things

here and there to make our place more dwelly... at least in our minds.

This is very vain and self-indulgent. I know. So I would skip this post

entirely if I were you. We hate that 'things' make us as happy

as they do. but they do. sadly. so here we go.

We found these Dear Deer wall hooks during our last trip

to Japan and couldn't resist. They reminded us of our dog.

We've been wanting to do this "cactus garden in a big shallow pot" thing

forever, but couldn't find the right bowl anywhere, until we asked our

landscape designer friend Gavi - she sent us to Rolling Greens in

Culver City and there it was. Ken modified it a bit with some

concrete or something so it has a smooth rim.

Bullet planter from dwr. I think I got it for Ken as a Valentine's

day gift. The snake plant (Sansevieria) seemed to us like a

good fit. He drilled a drainage hole in the bottom.

Yeah yeah, of course the Nelson bubble lamp. It was a splurge.

Bought during their lighting sale at Room & Board.

Got these big soft pillows in felty material from Unison at Dwell

on Design over the weekend. Been looking for something like

that so I am super happy. Using it right now.

The knock-off Barcelona chair was a payment for a shoot that our

friend did at our place. I guess we take payments in furniture.

Teak dwr table and the knock-off eames chairs are both

craigslist finds. The big crazy ass palms in the backround (known to

some as "Kentia" or "Howea" palms, says Ken) are generous gifts from

some of Ken's students who moved away.

Oh and the edison bulbs.

Ok I'll stop now.

biz cards

I've been meaning to blog this, especially now that Chandra

has kindly mentioned it here.

I was so impressed with all the amazing business cards we

received from people at the stationery show, and here are just

a few of my favorites:

clock wise from top left:

pie bird press, wildhorse letterpress, heartfish press, erika firm

of delphine and creative socal, knock knock, Brandon's awesome

'professional jerk' card printed by power and light press,

a really pretty silk screened feather image one that i have

since misplaced and have no idea who it came from (aaaah

so sorry!!!), pulp creative paper, anemone letterpress,

metal mermaid, aisle candy, give-away card from wildhorse, and

lettered olive. All are letterpress printed except for

knock knock, the feather one, and pulp creative.

tangerine

so the previous owner of our house had planted a variety of citrus trees.

now that it's spring time, i finally picked all the tangerines that were

still left on our tree...

they are ok but not as meaty as it could be and full of seeds. I want to make

something out of them but not motivated enough to do anything fancy...

so I decided to juicit!!

took me about 10 min to juice 60 tangerines.

While I was doing this, Ken was reading about the amazingly fertile soil of Altadena. (note the goat in the front left hamming it up for the camera)

cheers.

saturday hike

Morgan takes me out for a hike. I'm trying out a slightly bigger size photos...

I think it looks better.

japan trip '10

I've been meaning to post the photos from our Japan trip over the
Thanksgiving.. it's been a crazy busy month! Unfortunately, many of photos were
lost due to computer issues, but here are some that survived.

we had to go and check out the only place that sells our cards in
Japan.. no not Bulgari..

No interior shots, but we spent quite a long time there
looking at all the cool stuff.

we flew to Oita-ken, where my dad is from. The place is
famous for its Shochu. mmm... we grabbed a couple of bottles.

the town of Yufuin.

one of the reasons of our visit - to pay respect to our ancestors.

Usa Jingu - one of the oldest shrines in Japan.

gotta have the sweet hot sake outside the shrine.

at the inn. happy ken.

aaand of course the food was amazing where ever we went.

it was a crazy trip, we took four plane rides within Japan to go to
Sapporo, Oita, then back to Tokyo, but we had an amazing time.
Thank you otosan and okasan!!!!

pink martini at hollywood bowl

pink martini + rufus wainwright + fireworks + friends
+ lots of wine.. :)
(we did not shoot this video)

style lounge

a couple of weeks ago, we had an opportunity
to participate in a gifting event organized by FMPR.
We designed and printed the invitation for
the event as well.

we had no idea what to expect, but we ended up
meeting many nice people. Big huge thank you to
Alex for helping me out all day, and Liz for
answering my questions!! Also thanks Alicia
for your sweet note :)

these days

we've been printing a bunch of new designs in preparation
for the up-coming stationery show..

.. and still hiking everyday with our dog Morgan.
Not very exciting, but hey, we like it that way!!

kinkan (kumquat)

we've been shipping a lot of valentine's day cards..

but yesterday i decided to attack our kumquat tree.
we've been watching the fruits ripen more and more,
and i've been thinking that i have to do something about it.

so i made kanro-ni (compote type of thing i think).
super pain in the neck to take out the seeds, but
the result is pretty to look at and hard to not
eat too many of them.