Hand painted personalised shoes

a note: having British and Australian clients and coworkers recently had me preferring the English spelling rather than American. Hence, the “s” for personalised.

The wedding not only strengthened my relationships with old friends. I never did expect it but through the wedding, I gained new friends as well. Thanks mostly to W@W for being the venue for that new friendships in that long after I’ve become almost inactive in the forum, I was still able to be in contact with my newfound friends, and even get to read their very interesting blogs at that! Thankful.

I have a friend from the group though who doesn’t keep a blog. Yet we’ve kept each other posted of the latest happenings in each others’ lives purely by gmail – for over six months already! It’s sort of like having a cyber penpal 🙂 (which reminds me of my Korean penpal back when I was in high school and we didn’t know about Internet yet. I wonder what happened to her already. I am to be blamed though since I was the one who didn’t write back anymore, drowned as I was with the hectic and exciting activity of moving to the city for university).

Her wedding is in the end of the month and hence there’ll be more exciting days to come for her. And I, still not fully over with wedding mania, gets excited as well with the stuff she shares about her wedding preps.

Like this one.

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Debbie had it personalised at Baubles Bangles. Check out their site for more cuteness.

on cake toppers and kokeshi dolls

Our wedding cake toppers weren’t really the type that could last a long-distance flight, much less last months after the wedding. Yet hubs was so patient in putting the pieces back together, thinking of a better glue that would last longer than the last one he used. And every time he fixes the cake dolls, something in my chest twitches, my eyes burn a bit, and I am reminded of the many reasons why I married this man.

Hence when I saw Jen’s post in w@w about her kokeshi dolls, I didn’t hesitate to contact Khristine, the kokeshi dolls designer, to have our personalized kokeshi dolls, as my anniversary gift to hubby. By personalized, we mean the dolls will be designed to look like us, wearing clothes that looked like the gown and barong we wore during the wedding.

Turned out it was a great decision. For at least two major reasons. One, I didn’t just get to know a great supplier, I also earned a new friend who’s so amazingly creative. Secondly, I made hubby emotional with the surprise I had for him; he was full of questions on how I made it possible, especially since his doll look a lot like him. Happy me.

Couldn’t count anymore the number of email exchanges Khristine and I had. Being an OC myself, I appreciated her being a stickler for detail as I sent her a number of pictures of me and atsushi and of what we wore during the wedding. Seeing her creations, you’ll understand why. Such detail! Ours were no less different.

Khristine is also one really thoughtful person. A colleague of mine has been very nice to carry the dolls from Manila to Japan. Khristine was so thoughtful in that she left my colleague a note of thanks for carrying the dolls and gave Kristine (my colleague) a cute pair of guy and girl earrings. 🙂

Since the dolls are due to travel some long distance, Khristine promised she’ll pack the dolls in such a way that they’ll still be intact even after a long flight and that Kristine,my colleague, will not have difficulty in carrying the dolls. True to her promise, the dolls were well packed indeed.

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The dolls’ bed. And yes, I also have my cute boy and girl earrings. 🙂

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The bride aka Marj.

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The groom aka atsushi.

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I giggle whenever I look at the doll. He looks so very atsushi!

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Told Khristine as well about our passions – music and books. She then thoughtfully included it in her package for us. The guitar has real strings!

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And the books has both front and back covers.

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Khristine also added in the speaker hubs always carry with him whenever he travels.

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Dolls are now happily tucked in one of the shelves in the dining room.

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Khristine promised she’ll give us something extra special as well. And indeed she gave us something really special. Bookmarks. With our dolls in it. Mind you the photography was really good! We almost hesitated to use them lest we loose them. But then that would defeat the purpose of Khristine giving us the bookmark and so use them, we did.

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Thank you SO MUCH Khristine! 🙂 I think you’ll be hearing more from me. 🙂

Do visit her site.

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my Kanji flashcards

I just love it everytime the intercom buzzes and when I pick it up, the voice on the other line would say a cheery “takyoubin desu!” or “youbin desu!”. This means “package delivery!”, by the way, or something similar to that.

Got my beginner Kanji flashcards. Ordered online by hubby from Whiterabbitpress. Recommended by Apple, a friend I had through W@W; Apple will hopefully be taking her JLPT level N1 this December. Isn’t she just amazing?! I wonder when can I take the JLPT level 5 or 4 haha. Anyways, for now, I-am-so-excited for these!

Of course I opened my pink case first. ~sheepish grin~

And the lessons continue. 😀

 

packages, packages!

I just love opening gifts, packages, mails. There’s just something novel about the moment you received one and the moment you open one. Ahhh! And one boon with staying at the house is I can receive the packages myself. I hope the delivery guys doesn’t think I have such a weird smile as I sign the receipt forms. 😀

Received Ate Weng’s package from Singapore a couple hours ago. Yey!! Looking forward to when Hubby gets home this evening so we can open it together. 😀 Thank you for the wedding gift Ate Weng!

Argh, too bad I wasn’t able to take a picture of the package I received from Apple, a w@wie sis who sent me her copies of her Japanese lessons. So nice and thoughtful :). One of the reasons why I really am very thankful I joined the group. 🙂

——–

10 hours after. I really love how our family and friends who gave us gifts really did grant our wish. They gave us cash gifts. Helped a lot indeed in lessening our baggage when we flew back to Yokohama. No plates and pots and whatnots to carry back home. Plus it helped with our charitable cause. But I loved even more how some went out of their way to keep to our theme as well. Will blog about them later. But for now, Thank you Ate Weng, for keeping to our colors! 😀 Happiness.

took this picture using my phone cam so colors didn't come off as it really is. The colors ate weng chose were perfect for our motif

 

Review: Customized Designs (misalette)

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

corporate greetings and some progress

Hubby advised me last week that we will be receiving a card from his company (our mother cum affiliate company in my previous workplace – gosh i miss work) yesterday. Indeed, I woke up just in time to answer the postman’s doorbell ring. Had to wait for Hubby till I can open it though because it’s supposedly a congratulatory card for our wedding.

My name was nowhere in it though. 😛

Isn’t it just a bit weird? This is supposedly a wedding card, and they even supposedly send this to the actual wedding date but since our wedding is in the Philippines, Hubby advised to have it sent home. But where’s my name??

Anyways, it’s the thought that counts. And the CEO of the company himself is the signatory (although it probably was processed and done by HR). We’re thankful as it is that their company has this kind of thoughtfulness. My previous company doesn’t practice this stuff, although we do receive some “amount” as congratulatory token.

Although I really am not bothered that my name isn’t in the card, I playfully hounded Hubby about it. To make me feel “better” we ate the Godiva chocolates that he gave me for my birthday. But actually, it’s our dessert for the night. It’s been aeons since we saw a yogurt in the supermarkets. Lack or nada yogurt supply is one of the mundane effect of the March 11 Tohoku earthquake.

Isn’t Hubby just sweet? 😀

Godiva chocolates is really good. Even if you eat the whole bunch in one sitting, your throat won’t hurt at all, even for me who’s prone with tonsilitis. It’s one of those once you pop, you can’t stop – and this coming from somebody who really is not too keen on eating chocolates.

As oh, there’s been considerable progress lately, thankfully:

  • misalette draft already approved by officiating priest, with all readings the one we preferred. yey! Answered prayer. 🙂 thanks as well to Ivy of Lipa Chancery and to Erika (Detalye) for talking it out with Fr. Dong
  • already purchased our gifts for the principal sponsors. We were so happy that we can customize the labels – for free!! Japanese customer service is just simply awesome. I’m excited with our labels as well. 🙂
  • our unity coins were also already delivered. Thanks to Kat for receiving them. And since i’m w@w tag holder, i got a discount.

Hope there’ll be more considerable progress soon.