show and tell #7

Today we're featuring more of our Ready2Wear wedding invitations. I've always known they would be a hit, but couples all around the world seem to be on the same wavelength.

1. Ann Marie and Eddie - With a few changes to colours and their own photo, Ann Marie and Eddie made this fantastic Humour Me invitation their own. OH! They're getting married tomorrow!! What timing!


2. Kasia and Dustin - When you know what you want, and It's Not A Thistle is exactly that, it's as easy as putting in your picture and your wedding announcement...and off you go!


3. Uzma and Thomas - We reworked Our 15 Minutes for Uzma and Thomas and came out with such a bold and clean wedding invitation for their guests.

Escort cards for the animal lover

Josselyn and Dan, who were married this summer, had the fantastic idea of naming their tables after pets within their circle of friends. You must really have a lot of friends with pets to be able to pull this off.

But they did pull it off!


We carried their custom design from their invitations onto their escort cards, table cards and menu cards. Everything looked so SHARP!

Can you end a season any better?

Last night marked the finals and the official end of the volleyball season for my team, the Wildcats. Bittersweet, we arrived early with three of our players not able to make it, we stood around warming up, waiting for our beer to arrive (care of the Coghills) feeling a little tired and maybe not totally ready for the competition that lay ahead.

We were happy to see that Mike called in reinforcements and brought in our ringer, Kurtis, who not only played awesome but gave the boys a sub so that they could continue drinking their beer...in true Wildcats style. Unfortunately for Melinda and I, since we were the only two girls on the team that night, we were only able to pound our beers in between matches.

The night started off mellow, with our first team accidentally playing on the wrong court, we warmed up playing against each other (read: we chatted and drank beer).

Then came the official first match of the night.

I don't really know where it came from but our team became this weird force of competitors, where we played like we knew what we were doing and we played like we were a team that wasn't coming out to drink but actually coming out to play.

In three words: we killed it.

We won our first match. We WON our first match and moved onto the next match with ease. And then we won our second match. Not only did we win our first two matches but we won and realized, holy crap, this is the last game...the last game that will win TEENIE A T-SHIRT!

All three seasons of volleyball this year, I've been saying at each finals that I want to win a t-shirt. I want to win a t-shirt and I put pressure on my team to win and every finals we fell short. This was the first time that the t-shirt was soooooooo close and I could taste it. I could TASTE the T-SHIRT.

We stood by, drank beer and watched the semi-final match, knowing that the winner of this match was who we had to fight for the elusive t shirt. With the bell ringing to mark the end of the match, we were ready to play. We came to play.

And oh boy, play did we do. With the sun already setting behind the city limits, we played blindly and with gusto and with a vengeance. We played...dare I say, like we were in the C pool! In a clean sweep, we beat our final team 2-0, not even having to try and play a third game. All I can remember is watching that last play and when fully realizing we won, I was screaming and jumping at the top of my lungs (and the rest of my team was too) yelling "WE WON A T-SHIRT! WE WON A T-SHIRT! WE WON A T-SHIRT!"

Not ONLY did the Wildcats represent last night but when we left to collect our t-shirts and have our celebratory end of season dinner, we were informed that we won the Fun Points Prize as well! WHAT?! We won the fun points?! You guys like us? You really like us?!

I think the only thing that could've made the night even more perfect was if Queen's We Are the Champions started playing on the loud speakers. Seriously. We were THAT awesome.

(sorry for the crap picture...all we had were phone cameras to document the night)

The night ended in true Wildcats fashion. We headed (with our winning t shirts on) to Memphis to eat our weight in meat. The only thing that put a damper on the evening was Mike losing his wallet (after losing his phone a week earlier)...it took the Coghills awhile to come and join us but they eventually did and even though Mike was upset about his wallet, he still gave it his all and ate a meat plate to prove it.

(um...kids look away)

Congratulations to my Wildcats!!! We RULE the D pool, babies!!!

****

A surprising update...

This morning my phone beeped letting me know that I had a message on my blackberry messenger. It was Mike. The conversation went a little something like this:

Mike: Found my wallet
alberteenie: YOU DID?!?!?
alberteenie: YA!!!
alberteenie: Where was it?!
Mike: On the roof of the car
alberteenie: You're fucking kidding me. :|
alberteenie: It stayed on the roof the whole time you drove around the city?
Mike: Yup it was stuck under the roof rack.
alberteenie: That. Is. Hilarious.
alberteenie: AND
alberteenie: This conversation is so going in my blog.
alberteenie: :D
Mike: Shitty

CRISIS AVERTED!!

We're so sketchy

A few mornings ago, pre-neck spasm (which is why I haven't been on top of this site this week,) I was looking through some old sketch books of mine and found a few familiar drawings.

I'm a bit of a packrat.

There were some very old sketches used on some wedding invitations from WAY back when. I'm not sure if our couples even know that I sketch most of our designs out first and then digitize them. How would you even know that?! I understand. It's ok.

So here's a collage of some of the sketches I found. I should frame them!

Music to listen to

1. The Botticellis



2. Nicole Atkins & The Sea



3. Ratatat

Painting in a jar on my desk

Andrea and Rob are 4 years old today!

Just cuz they mentioned it, I have a little picture gift for Andrea and Rob for their 4 year anniversary. See you later!

Teen's back: Did you miss me?

Blog Buddies!! It's Teenie here and as much as Beans been doing an awesome job maintaining our blog (sorry for the lack of participation, buddy), I think it's time to write my essay on "What I did during my summer break".

And BOY was it ever the best summer ever!

I don't really know how these past months transpired, but with the perfect timing of friends and family visits, mini-excursions and a long overdue trip back home, somehow I was able to relive those summers past. When life during the summer months meant my only responsibility was to keep myself busy and spend my disposable income until school started again. Man, those were the days.

So! Without further ado...

What I Did During My Summer Break (by teenie)

1. Luigi, Julie and little Adrienne visit!
Life was ho-humming a long just nicely, working away in our new (old) office digs, since we just moved back to our respective homes. Beans and I met up a few days in each week to talk about things (in person) and eat a meal...all good things. And then BOOM! My brother, his partner and their baby girl arrive to Vancouver for their annual trip out west. This is their 3rd annual trip in the last 4 years (they missed last year) and having them around was both fun and exhausting but more than anything, it felt really wonderful to have family close by.


The best part of their vacation was that I was the special person who was invited to take the place of a set of friends from NYC who didn't end up making the trip out West. What does this mean? WELL...Benny and I were invited to use the extra two tickets to see the Cirque du Soleil with the whole family (AWESOME!) and I got to join their trip to the Okanagan for five days, to taste wine, eat yummy food and pretty much live a life of leisure that I don't think I would ever be able to experience otherwise. Thank you to my family from Toronto, the family in Hong Kong & Shanghai and the family in Vancouver for allowing me to have the best start to the summer ever!



2. FERNIE, BC
I'll keep this part short and sweet because Beans did an awesome post already about how fantastic, fun and fancy free our trip was to Fernie, BC. Let me just note to all those out there who haven't explored our BC: DO IT. Not only was it so very beautiful driving through and across our province, but this little sleepy (and not so sleepy) valley town, nestled in the middle of the Rocky Mountain Trench is so beautiful and quaint and precious and fun! Brina and Rod were the perfect hosts, keeping us more than busy showing us around the town, planning summer activities and introducing us to some very fantastic people.

Next up: Winter in Fernie!!


3. A New Nephew, Parents Visit, Goodbye to Papa
As our funny universe is, with all good things in life we are balanced with the opposite. My brother (who is my remaining family left in the city) and his partner, Karen, welcomed a brand new edition to their family on July27th (see entry below). Braxton is beautiful and huge and has a full head of hair and a scowl just like his Dad. He's amazing and I feel so blessed to have my neice (his older sister) and nephew close by to share and participate in their life.


But like I said, the universe loves to balance and teach us things, doesn't it? As it was such a happy time for our family, we also had mixed feelings of sadness and anxiousness, as our Papa, my stepfather's dad, was sick in the hospital. We all thought that he was going to get better I mean, he was always a little spitfire of a man, strong and robust, he lived life with gusto from the time I met him. Sadly, on August 17th, Papa said his goodbyes and left this world for something better.

4. Toronto, ON
In between all this family happenings, I was able to finally make a trip back home to see the other half of my family who I haven't seen in over two years. Two years! There's a nephew I had yet to meet and win over for the first time ever! The trip was perfect and exactly the kind of family love injection I needed. I met up with my old buddies who I haven't seen in a while, spent a lot of quality time with my two nephews and nieces (sidebar: Lucas, my nephew in Toronto, started his first day of school ever the same day Brody did! BFFS!) and of course, made sure that I got lots of time in with my parents. I was even able to convince (twisting her rubber arm) my sister to fly up from New York for a weekend so that we can all go to the African Lion Safari. One word: FUUUUUUUUN!!!

Sigh. Family rules.

5. One more visit to round out the summer nicely
I've been back for a few weeks now, same as Beans, and it's definitely been challenging to get back to normal pre-summer life. Making things harder is our last out of town visitors hailing from London, UK.

Two very fantastic and close friends of mine are back in the city to spend their quality time with family and catch up with us friends. They've been busy and exhausted from travelling back and forth from the burbs, making it tricky for all of us to meet up, but we were able to squeeze a few visits in, including a full day out in False Creek for a kayaking excursion. This was my first time on a kayak and even though my arms a still a little sore from the memory of paddling against the current and wind, I had the best time out there! If I had more space in my apartment, I'd buy my own kayak and go out and do it every weekend. Fun! Fun! Fun!

(this is actually a photo from the vaults because we haven't really taken any photos this trip!)

They're leaving tomorrow for Seattle, which is where they're going to fly back home from. I'm hoping to get one more visit in with them before they leave, since their visit really marks the end of summer.

You know, if they just STAYED then summer would technically never end....

:)

So...what did YOU do for your summer?

A Braxton Announcement

Speaking of nephews, Albertine has a new one! His name is Braxton. This is the announcement we did for his parents Court and Karen. That's it! Enjoy!

Brody's first day of school

Just received these, thanks to book of face, and wanted to share with you my concern for the teachers and fellow students of my little nephew Brody Schenk. Don't get me wrong, he's awesome and my little buddy, but MAN oh MAN is he in his own little world. I hear he enjoyed his first day.

If he didn't change at all or experience any more in life, I'd say he would grow up to be a Spiderman impersonator or the Prime Minister of Canada. It could go either way.

I love that Brody's first day of school was a family affair. I would have been there too with a sign that said "Close your mouth when you chew your food! Don't ask me why. Just do it. No? Go to your room."