Happy Halloween & Mini Blog Break

Happy Halloween everyone! This was one of the fun-shaped macarons that I made. He's so cute with his spooked face. While you're reading this, James and I are on our way to Seoul for our honeymoon. I will be back in a few weeks with lots of pictures to share! See you then! :)

Getting Richer

I love richer and deeper flavors as the weather gets cooler and we head into the holiday season. I made these chocolate and speculoos macarons last week in addition to the birthday ones. I love how they turned out. I'm still working on the recipes and will share them when they're ready.

Have a fun and safe Halloween if you're celebrating this weekend! :)

I love speculoos and the spread is so delicious.  I especially like the look of  the biscuit crumbs on top :)

Lovely Couple

I had a really fun time taking photos of my friends this past weekend. 

They are one of the sweetest couples that I know. I bought new lenses for my camera and they were nice enough to be my test subjects :) This is one of my favorite photos from the session. It's hard not to get a good photo of these two. They're so lovely together ♥

 

Birthday Macarons

Sprinkles make everything so much cuter! I made these lemon macarons to celebrate my friend's birthday. A sweet treat for a very sweet friend. Happy 30th Kristen! :)

Colorful Leaves

We haven't had the chance to go see the foliage this year. The weather is going to be beautiful this weekend so I hope we're not too late! Happy Friday everyone!

Btw, these photos were taken a few years ago just around James' neighborhood. The colors of the leaves are truly amazing. I love fall ♥

DIY: Simple Notecards

Today I want to share a simple way to make pretty notecards out of plain cardstocks. 

You will only need craft paper punches (any shape you like) and plain cardstocks. Here I used a flower-shape puncher and a mini-round hole puncher. You probably already have these materials at home if you love crafts as much as I do. If not, these punches usually cost $5-$10 a piece and a stack of 100 cardstocks is around $5. It's a good investment if you need a lot of notecards or if you can use the same craft punches for other projects.

Use the paper punches and punch out a design that you like. You can do the whole border or keep it simple like I did with this design.

This DIY is very versatile. You can chose cardstocks in any color and paper punches in any shape that you like. It's a fun way to use your creativity :)

Snuggle Me

Just want to share a pic of the fluffiest teddy bear I've ever seen :) Happy weekend everyone!

Busy Planning

Our honeymoon is right around the corner! James and I decided to take a late honeymoon so that we could spend time with our family who flew in for our wedding. Japan in the fall is so beautiful. We were there five years ago and we can't wait to go back. We're also going to Seoul for the first time. I'm so excited! There's so much to see and do (and eat!). I can't wait but first I need to get more planning done :)

Wedding Colors

While I was planning for the wedding, I was often asked what my wedding colors were. Picking them was very easy for me because I knew I wanted the rich royal colors of a traditional Vietnamese/Chinese wedding. Red and gold have such a cultural and historical importance in all of our celebrations. Plus, I've always loved these colors because of all the historical Chinese drama I used to watch when I was younger. They remind me of the beautiful settings and costumes of the royal court.

Invitations set the tone for the wedding so my theme and colors were on full display. I accented the red and gold with touches of pink, cream, and blue. Since I enjoy making things, I decided to make our invitations too. I had fun designing them and picking out the papers, envelopes, and stamps. I only needed 60 invitations so I was able to print everything out at home.

These envelope liners were another DIY project that I did. I made a simple template and cut them out of these pretty gift wrapping papers. It's a lot cheaper than buying pre-made ones. (Future DIY post, maybe?) I have to thank my sister for helping me find these beautiful papers. I love the light blue color. It contrasts with the red nicely. The birds and the cherry blossoms matched with my theme too. I also later found out that this print is named "Double Happiness". How perfect is that?

Btw, many of you were curious as to what inspired me to paint my vases turquoise. It was because of the blue color in these envelope liners :)

I was so happy that these stamps were available this year. The dragon and bonsai stamps were the perfect finishing touch for our wedding invitations. I really love how our invitations turned out :)

What colors would you pick for a special celebration?  I would love to know!

*You can see more of my wedding theme/colors in these posts: Wedding Dessert Table & Traditional Dress :)
*Envelopes, invitation papers, and gift wrapping papers were bought at Paper Presentation in NYC.
*Gold card stocks for the invitations were bought at Paper Source.

Fun Macarons

Aren't they cute? :) Earlier this year, I was working on a tutorial on how to make these fun-shaped macarons after the great response I got from my Hello Kitty macarons post. Many readers wanted to learn how to make them and it inspired me to experiment with new shapes and recipes. I want to write up a foolproof recipe with clear instructions and techniques so that making macarons doesn't have to be so intimidating. I had to put this project on hold to plan for our upcoming wedding at the time but now I'm eager to start again. So please stay tuned for more updates on this project!

Pretty Frames

I'm loving these new picture frames I bought for my photos. They really match well with the photos, don't you think? My customers at SoWa have been buying them as Christmas gifts for the Paris-lovers in their lives (kudos to early holiday shopping!). It always makes me feel so happy to know that my photos make other people happy :) Have you started Christmas shopping yet? Any Francophiles in your lives?