blessing reception: part I, the decor

I'm splitting this up into two posts. First, the decor & food, and next the people. I went with a simple R theme, for Ronin, and green & white as the colors.

First I made simple flags from a white & green sheet of paper. I cut them out, glued them to toothpicks, and then cut out the v-shape on the ends. We put the white ones on the cucumber sandwiches and the green on the pb&j for the kids. We made the pb&j a little more interesting with pear and apricot jam.
Sprinkles are a really easy way to customize a cake without adding extra frosting (for me, less is more). I used Illustrator to print out a large R, cut it out and lightly set it on top of the cake after the frosting had dried a little (about an hour). We pushed green sprinkles into the R, lifted off the paper, and voila.I got a green and white plastic tablecloth from target along with green & white striped napkins. Chocolate cupcakes in green, white & yellow liners from Surfas and ikea trays helped tie the theme together. We had cranberry white chocolate scones, orzo salad, croissants, meringues, and homemade chinese noodles (thank you uncle!).
Last but not least, the refreshments. $3.50/case bottled water from albertsons got an easy makover with 2 colors of green paper and a little creativity. We brainstormed words that described Ronin and created labels in illustrator that emphasized the R in each word.

It went from simple
to creative
to ridiculous
and on to how the little one came about. (korean + irish & we are both german)

super excited for plastic

i finally went and bought the diana camera w/my birthday money! we went 3rd Street Promenade over toward the beach on friday night and stopped by urban outfitters where i picked out the white & black version of the camera and also added the 35 mm backing so film can be cheaper when necessary. i can't wait to try it out - i'm going to grab some film tonight and take it to to the farmer's market tomorrow after work. for those of you that don't know, it's a plastic camera that can take medium format and now 35 mm. film. it has light leaks, can be a pinhole, can be way too saturated, and everything else that i'm excited for. j said, why do you want a camera that you can't control? my reasoning is that it's nice for once to just see what happens. it looks older. more seasoned. grainy in b&w's. love it. we ate dinner at a crepe place and if you haven't been to one, you need to track one down. ham, fancy cheese, spinach & tomatoes in a crepe? yum. lemon & sugar in a crepe? divine. one of my hands down favorite ways to make a crepe.

jujubees

The other day Noz & I went to the big Korean market in Koreatown and saw Jujubes, fresh ones. We had no idea what to do w/them, until I remembered that they come dried in one of my favorite korean dishes. They are like dates. Apartment Therapy, the Kitchn, recently posted an article about fresh ones and now I think we'll have to go back and try them out. If you don't have fresh ones nearby, you can help me on the hunt to find the best recipe to make korean yaksik. You won't regret it. Brown sugary sticky rice with dried jujubes, pine nuts and chestnuts. (i usually pull out the chestnuts for mom)
2nd photo via flickr