Monthly Archives: May 2011

on towel holders, formalities and melons

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On paper towel holders. Scoured the whole of Gumyoji, Bandobashi and Kannai for 100 yen shops but I still haven’t found the paper towel wooden holder I had in mind. Similar to this one, yes.

I bought one during my Japan stint last 2007 in a 100-yen shop but I just couldn’t find a wooden one now (they have the metal and plastic ones). I can buy in upscale malls but somehow I can’t accept that I am buying something that costs more when I can buy the same kind in a 100-yen shop (not all 100yen goodies are of good quality though). The one above sells at £3.49. So, the search continues…

On formalities. Now, whenever an acquaintance, say an office acquaintance you have only just met recently would ask you “how are you?” I think one would instantly reply, “i’m good” or “i’m ok” without really thinking about your current emotional or physical state. For some, the how-are-you question is more like the small talk that’s prelude to more small talk. You don’t really think about what you answer. Anyways, when you’re asked the how-are-you question, etiquette would make you ask the same question back. And if ever you encounter a person who deeply thinks about his/her answer to your how-are-you question and who may answer more than “i’m good” or “i’m ok”, do listen closely. True people like them are hard to find.

On latest craze. It’s the melon season. You can buy a perfectly-ripened-can-eat-immediately whole melon at 200yen. I was afraid to buy at first because I don’t know how to judge if it’s ripe already or not. I took the plunge. And it was worth it. Perfect for our 1st month celeb.

one month, a new header

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Funny how days can just slip and fly by and then wham! Before you know it, it’s been a month after your wedding.

Thirty days after our dream wedding in Caleruega. Almost three weeks since we flew back here in Yokohama. Luggage yet to be unloaded and the library and bedroom are still pictures of chaos. Fortunately, because we pushed through with our housewarming a week after we came back, living room, dining room and kitchen are in some sort of order already. There’s still more that’s yet to be done though.

Thirty days! And I guess it’s high time we replace our header for one that we had from our wedding. Since our blog’s launching, we had been using this picture from one of our prenup last September in Minato Mirai, Yokohama with our friends-officemates-photographers Russell Olaguer and Douglas Cataylo.

 As with the new phase in our life, time to change our header as well.

Thank you much Russell for the great pictures! Sa uulitin! 😀

New photo courtesy of Dino Lara.

calendar guest book

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We have avoided that not-so-posh tradition of guests queueing in at the registration table to look for their names on some sheets of papers by having escort cards for our reception.

I was then on a look-out for a brilliant idea on how to be more creative with the traditional guest book signing.

When Lene and I met last January, she casually mentioned that I can pass around a calendar for the guests to sign in, putting their names on the dates of their birth. Just the kind of brilliant idea I was looking for.

When I went to Japan last March, one of my agenda was to look for a cute A3 size (max) calendar. It now hangs by our wall, with birthdays of our guests. Just perfect location for us to check in on if it’s time for us to send our thank you postcards, in time for their birthdays. 😀

3 idiots

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Hubby and I were the early comers in Ric’s farewell party at Ryan’s pad last night. To wait for the others, Ryan made us watch the Indian movie “3 Idiots”. Once we got started, we almost didn’t notice people coming in anymore, hooked as we are with the movie. Halfway through the movie though, we had to stop as we already need to have our dinner.

It turned out that we just stopped right at the right moment. Hubby and I resumed watching it at home this evening. But less than 2 minutes into the movie and my eyes were already brimming with tears.

While watching it, I told hubby, “how I hate this movie”. Hate in such a way that you’d hate a movie that had made you cry in buckets, laugh your heart out loud and made you reflective what with numberous insights one can get from the movie. Ergo, translation for the “hate” is that I LOVE this movie to pieces.

The shoot location is SOOoo beautiful as well! Certainly a candidate for our honeymoon options. wink wink.

The whole day though, the song “Ahll izzz welll!!” was our LSS. Either hubby or me would shout “Ahll izzz welll!!” and then the other would immitate the sound of a whistle. haha. Quite a team, yes.

The movie made me hope though that there’d also be a Filipino movie soon that is as masterfully crafted, if not better. Well, sans the singing and dancing, if possible.

I wanted to embed the trailer here in our blog but the official trailers with the subtitles are not for embedding. Do watch the trailer here though.

Ja, “Pursue excellence, and success will follow you”.

Rustic-travel themed wedding guest giveaways

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Hubby and I wanted guests wedding favors that covered both the rustic and travel aspects of our theme. And well, katsa (rustic) bags (can you get any more “travel-ly” than bags??) certainly did fit the bill!

But we want it personalized.

With the help of a co-w@wie Anna, who designed our cartoons for us just in the nick of time, we had our cartoons silkscreen printed on the katsa bags.

Credits!

  • Cartoon design by Anna Bonnevie
  • Giveaways tag design by Lene Dee-Dragon
  • Printing coordination, twine wrap and tag fringe edge ideas by Erika of Detalye

And oh. I wanted to use our cartoons as a stamp on our postcard thank you cards that we’ll be sending our guests. Customizedesigns did give us freebie stickers but the number of sticker cartoons we have is obviously much less than the number of guests we need to thank for. I tried to edit our cartoons to put some stamp border on it using Photoscape but my computer just freezes over whenever I try to attempt to edit it. After almost a day’s attempt, I had an output. But far from satisfying. I emailed Anna what she used to obtain the same stamp border as our cartoons for our giveaways. And I should have expected – Photoshop is the answer. But what I didn’t expect was the attachment that came with the reply. Anna revised our cartoons and gave me four options for our stamps.

Hubby was so surprised when I just suddenly exclaimed, “wow, Anna is such a nice person!!” when I read Anna’s email. True, Anna is one of those persons I have encountered that would make you say, “People are intrinsically good”.

Thankful for the blessing! 🙂

Katsa bag raw photo courtesy of Dino Lara.

Review: Customized Designs (misalette)

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Renee was such a breeze to work with. Totally not stressful at all. She’s based in North of Metro Manila and pickup point for the misalettes is in malls in Ortigas area. Since I’m in Alabang, I opted for courier delivery. Totally hassle-free.

The only one catch though was that the supposedly orange font color on our misalette cover wasn’t really orange but more on the reddish tint.

One good thing however was that since i’m a w@wie, she offered me a freebie. However, I already have the three freebies she offered to me and I don’t want things to be redundant. So I asked Renee if she can make us sticker stamps with our cartoons made by a fellow w@wie Anna. Tada!

Just used six of them last week and posted them on our Yokohama postcard thank you cards. Lovely.

Supplier: Renee Rose M. Hernando-Ferido of Customized Designs

Rating: 4/5

Contact Details: +63922.8530470, +63916.2532095, customizedesigns09@yahoo.com