Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Wabi Sabi Events

Frances Loves You will now redirect to the Wabi Sabi Events Blog!
Thank you!

Monday, April 12, 2010

I'm patient, I swear.

Ok, that's a lie. I'm the one who checks tracking every few minutes and will cry if I can't have what I want immediately. Er, so I don't cry, but I do get whiney. I'll shake Rob and whimper if I have to wait for someone and you don't want to be around me if a shipment is coming in late for something. Late is bad. Late causes serious anxiety.

So the idea of having to wait a very long time to do the kitchen/laundry/pantry remodel is killing me. I spend a lot of time looking at appliances and dreaming about where we will put them... even though chances are by the time I actually buy anything the ones I'm looking at now will no longer be manufactured. Honestly, I don't know when we'll be doing the remodel. It's such a huge expense and we have other things we want to take care of it.

Like... I want to go back to school for a year and it won't be cheap... since I won't be doing it locally. Without a job, I need to have saved enough to survive on my own for a year. I don't mind living like a hobo and eating breadcrumbs for a year, but the living expense alone is a lot to handle.


The problem is, just like wedding planning, the longer you have to plan it - the more elaborate it gets. So although it was originally just an aesthetic gutting of the kitchen without moving any electrical or plumbing, it has become a complete demolition with removal of a wall, complete redos of the heating system, an extra window... basically, we want to start completely over. Yes, a ton of electrical and plumbing will have to be moved in order for this to happen. We'll have to do some moving of electrical in the living room also if we want to be able to tear down a wall...

I'm ridiculous. By the time we're ready to remodel, I'm going to have decided to tear down the whole building and start over.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

Uh oh

We only had the two color options when I ordered that daybed, the red/orange and the blue/gray... so of course being nuts I picked the red/orange. But now what? I'm color impaired. Well, here, how's this?


look, I'm at work and don't have photoshop so I had to use some really chinsy online editor, hence the crappy white artifacting around the daybed. DEAL.

The room is already that color and I already have that dark gray cabinet in there, stuffed full of crafting junk. So adding that rug? What do you think? I need to put in the fact that there is already a white desk and I intend to replace the room darkening period lighting with a brighter, whiter light fixture. Too dark? Clashing colors?

I'm lame. I like the rug, I want to make it work.

Tuesday, March 16, 2010

dwr sale!

We've been putting off organizing or furnishing the guest room/office/craft room, partially laziness and partially because the money that we would use was better used elsewhere at the time. In fact, it is the only room that still has a lot of unpacked boxes. However, with the sale, we decided to just go for it. So Saturday after class, (well, I went to class, Rob ditched) we head off to Fillmore St and bought ourselves a daybed.

We had always wanted the modern daybed from DWR, but with a $2100 price tag - uh no. So we considered this:


Which had more options in color, was actually more comfortable, and was cheaper. But it was still expensive, something we didn't want to just drop down and pay for if it wasn't necessary. It also had the metal legs, which made me sad.

So when we saw that the one from DWR was 50%, we decided to get it. No matter what. Even though it only comes in 2 colors, that's fine - we'll make a new slip cover ourselves. It's the style we wanted for less than the one we were going to settle for - so who could pass that up? It took us all of 5 minutes in dwr to sit down and do it.

Well. Again, it's not the most comfortable. It's stiff, which is actually fine for sitting after the initial butt-shock, but for sleeping...? We're going to buy a japanese futon to put on top of it when people come over. I mean, it's not like I want someone directly on the thing anyway - drooling and all that.


I guess this means if you were planning to stay over, be warned, our daybed is not soft.

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

This is how much I care

I care so much that I'm willing to post this fairly unflattering photo of me with Frances:


This Sunday, Rob and I went out to Pine Lake Dog Park with our three pup girls for the SF Chihuahua Meetup. We've been a few times and it's always a lot of fun for the dogs. The people are great and it's wonderful to have dogs the same size as ours for the girls to play with. Because the weather had been so gloomy the week before and the weather was PERFECT on Sunday, we just had to go!

I swear, there were 50-60 dogs there at any given time. Even after an hour when our girls were ready to leave (when they just start following us around and have no interest in anything other than us, then it's time to go) other dogs were coming in! A great time is had by all, I really recommend it if you have a small breed dog. We bring our papillon because she's so little, and no one minds at all that she's not a chihuahua.

If you have a small dog in SF, you should look into it!

Sunday, March 7, 2010

So long ago!

I've been so busy I haven't had time to post anything... but that doesn't mean I haven't been working on illustrations!

I had the pleasure of working with two really great people on these illustrations and I had a lot of fun doing them! I'm not a calligrapher, and in fact I have terrible handwriting, but I like having a handwritten look on banners. I like to say that my bad calligraphy has charm and heart, but it might be just something to make me feel better about my 3rd grade handwriting. Maybe one day I'll take some classes so I can offer more styles and be confident about the writing.


This was a gift to the couple and I had a lot of fun with all the great details that celebrate their unique style and Hawaiian wedding!


Holly and Peter are the most adorable couple and I'm really excited to have been able to contribute this illustration towards their wedding planning!

Congratulations to both couples!

Monday, November 23, 2009

Chugging along

I have no more excuses because we're technically done with the new place.. for now. I've been working on a few illustrations, going between outlining and coloring. Sometimes color takes me no time at all, but others.. it gets really difficult and I have to take long breaks in order to sort out what I want to do.

This is a typical screen capture of my screen when I'm working.


ooo eraser. My friend!
All my illustrations have a pinkish background to begin with, so that colors stand out more and I can make sure I didn't leave anything uncolored. If I can see the pink, then I know I missed a spot! I could use any color... but I'm pretty attached to pink.

Hopefully I can push these out quickly and have finished illustrations!