Wood & Grain will be at our first ever wedding show, Spoken For, on September 22 from 12:00 to 07:00 pm in Portland!
- “We believe that a party need not be dictated by tradition or limited by lack of options, but instead reflect the unique personalities and values of two people. It is from this notion that Spoken For was created, an upcoming event that aims to put a fresh spin on the typical wedding show.” - Spoken For
Check out our feature on their website. We’re super excited and extremely nervous!
Come visit us if you’re in the Portland area! There will be so many talented local vendors at the show and I can’t wait to visit their booths.
The event costs $10.00 online or $15 at the door but I have 8 FREE tickets to share with you guys. Send me a tweet @woodandgrain and we’ll figure out a way to meet before the show.
We’ve been working nonstop building the booth, but it’s going quite slowly. Here is a photo of our planned layout minus the leftest pallet:
Last Thursday is a street fair in Portland that occurs on the last Thursday of every month, hence the name. The best thing about it is that anyone can sell their handmade/homemade goodies for free. No booth or registration fees required!
We decided to join in on the fun and sell some homemade coconut cupcakes and I used our old wedding decorations to jazz up the table.
Our goal was to sell at least one cupcake. Things were not looking so good the first hour. We were overhearing tons of people say “Are those real?” “No, those are candles.” It was quite frustrating. A kid would scream, “CUPCAKES!” and the mother would respond with “No, those aren’t real” and pull the child away from our table. This happened THREE times.
Luckily, by the second hour we had sold one! I was super excited and ready to go home…just kidding. By the end of the night, we had sold all except one lonely cupcake (out of fifteen). I think the one cupcake on a big 4 foot table made people nervous. So Ian scarfed that bad boy down and we packed it up.
It was a lot of fun and a completely new experience. We were practicing for the real deal coming up on September 22, which I’ll be posting about soon.
I turned 27 last weekend and Ian surprised me with a trip to Victoria, BC!
We packed our backpacks, drove 4 hours to Port Angeles, WA and took a one and a half hour boat ride to Victoria. Not bad for going to a different country! The only disappointing part was that they didn’t stamp my passport. Boo!
It was a surprisingly relaxing weekend of sleeping in, eating, shopping and exploring. We stayed in a well-designed loft in Chinatown that Ian had found on AirBnB.
I was a little nervous at first when I saw the door and hallway.
But once you go up the stairs, beams of natural light hit our faces and we were in awe.
I was seriously blown away at how well the loft was decorated. It was so simple, yet perfect…particularly the walls.
The kitchen, however, was by far my favorite.
We didn’t have access to Yelp or Internet during our stay, except for little bursts of stolen WiFi, so we relied on recommendations from our host, local shop owners and just looking for long lines.
Restaurants
- The Reef (caribbean) - Get the plantain chips…the jerk mayo that comes with it was so addicting.
- Jam Cafe (brunch) - SO GOOD. The Charlie Bowl was really tasty and apparently the french toast and banana pancakes are supposed to be amazing, though we didn’t get to try them.
- Pizzeria Prima Strada (pizza) - Delicious pizza with great local beers on tap
- Red Fish Blue Fish (fish food cart) - We waited in line for almost an hour and the scallop tacos were definitely worth the wait.
Sights
- Peacocks at Beacon Hill Children’s Farm
- Enjoyed the view at the end of Cook St. in Beacon Hill Park
Ditched the birthday candles this year and replaced them with a dandelion.
Shopping
The Damage
one | Brixton via Still Life for Her
two | Red Cap Cards via Paboom
three | Erin Templeton via Still Life for Her
four | Wolf Circus Jewelry via Suasion
five | felt factory via The Milkman’s Daughter
six | laonato via Paboom
This week’s film photos are from our trip to Alaska in the winter of ‘09. We went cross-country skiing for the first time around Hatcher Pass and Independence Mine State Historical Park.
We rented skis from the REI in Anchorage and headed over to Hatcher Pass Lodge. We skied all afternoon until the sun went down and want sledding all night until it was time to sleep. Our lodging for the night was one of their rustic cabins. The same cabins were in an episode of Mythbusters about cabin fever and also in An Idiot Abroad.
Vivitar Ultra Wide & Slim
After years and years of renting, we finally bought our first home! It is a newly renovated, hundred-year-old home in an amazing neighborhood in the Northeast. This is a side view of the house.
It has dark hardwood floors throughout and gorgeous wainscoting on the first floor.
One of my favorite features is the nook. It’s not huge and we’re not sure what we’re going to do with it yet, but I love nooks.
Some other features that are awesome but not really useful are the beautiful french doors that open up to the living room and the cool pocket doors that lead into the dining room.
The seller also put some amazing light fixtures with antique-style bulbs throughout the house.
It’s going to be a challenge furnishing this old home and I have no idea where to begin…but I’m super excited!
I love shooting with film. The only problem is I rarely have time to scan the developed film, so I end up never actually seeing what I shot until several months later. Well this series is going to force me to get on it. I’ll be picking a random set of film strips from my unorganized pile of developed film and posting a few of my favorites from that set, unprocessed.
First up are from my surprise birthday trip two years ago to Vancouver, BC, Canada. These are from our bike ride around Stanley Park.
Pentax K1000
We went to the Mississippi Ave. Street Fair on Saturday and found some really talented local Etsy crafters/artists that I had no idea about.
one | Neil & Mary - handmade home goods
two | Mary Kate McDevitt - hand-lettering & illustrations
three | Man vs Ink - printing & design
four | Hand Forge Metal - jewelry + metalwork
five | The Little Canoe - artwork, prints & greeting cards
six | Upper Metal Class - minimalist jewelry
Paxton Gate also had a booth (not an Etsy shop) and is one of our favorite stores. Their shop is located on Mississippi Ave. and is a sister store to the San Francisco location on Valencia. I couldn’t help myself and got some goodies:
P.S. Tattly turned 1 year old yesterday and everything is 50% off until tonight with this coupon code: 1yearold. I got this and this. Ian got this and this.
Wood & Grain is a Featured Seller over on the Etsy blog! Can’t believe it!
It was Ian’s 27th birthday on May 31st. We celebrated by going to dinner at a new seafood restaurant in town called Riffle NW. I also had a bunch of his friends/coworkers meet at one of our favorite breweries, Cascade Brewing Barrel House to surprise him.
More surprises were in store for the weekend…
We left Friday evening and stayed the night at a cabin in LL Stub Stewart State Park (about 45 minutes west of Portland). We were on our way to the coast…but Ian didn’t know that. The cabin was really nice and comfy. We cooked up flank steak and kale salad for dinner, took an evening stroll and had coconut cupcakes for dessert.
Early the next morning, we continued our journey to the coast and arrived at our destination, Kelly’s Brighton Marina for some crabbing! Ian had been wanting to go crabbing since forever, so I thought it would be perfect to take him for his birthday.
We rented a boat with some crab rings and got to it. We started off by putting the rings in random spots that the owner had suggested.
After 15 minutes, we’d go back to check on them. We were catching about 5-10 crabs per ring, but none of them were keepers. The keepers had to be 5 3/4” and male.
About 40 minutes in, we actually caught a crab that was a little over 6” long! I named him Sammy because I was hungry and felt like eating a sandwich.
We kept going for a total of two hours but unfortunately didn’t catch any more keepers. We were honestly surprised to even catch one and we had so much fun that it wouldn’t had mattered either way.
Kelly, the owner, cooked up the crab for us while we dried off by a fire.
The crab was so fresh and amazingly delicious, my mouth is watering right now just thinking about it. The best part was the fatty juices in the shell that we were drinking like soup and using as the “butter” dip.
After filling our bellies with crab, we sat on awesome wood chairs by the fire drinking beers and tea and relaxing under the sunlight.
I highly recommend this excursion and go to Kelly’s if you’re in the area…he is awesome! We’re yearning to go back soon. Next time we’ll probably try dock crabbing.
We finally had time to make some business cards for the Etsy shop!
The information is printed in black ink on 100lb kraft paper and cut into 2” x 3 1/2” rectangles.
Then they are hand-stamped with a stamp based on my chalkboard drawing. The back is also hand-stamped with another smaller Wood & Grain logo. (We used Simon’s Stamps to create both stamps.)
The business card is then finished with a piece of Washi tape on top of some of the text to add color. The tape is see-through so you can still read the text under it.
