Wood & Grain

Backpacking the Deschutes River

Tue, 26 Feb 2013 08:00:39 -0800

The weather has been getting a bit warmer, so we decided to go on a one-night backpacking trip for President’s Day weekend at Deschutes River State Recreation Area.

It was a 7.5 mile roundtrip trail, which was a bit shorter than we were hoping for, but this hike was the only one in our book, One Night Wilderness: Portland by Douglas Lorain, that wouldn’t be below 25˚F at night, which was not something I wanted to deal with.

The trail went along the Deschutes River, which made for amazing scenery.

The camp was right on the river and I had one of the best outdoor sleeps that night, even with the few passing trains chugging by.

The next morning, we packed up our gear and took a different route back to the car, going up the hills to see the real views of the valley.

Although this hike wasn’t very detached from the “real world”, it was in a way very peaceful and quiet, even with the passing trains.

THE GOOD: beautiful views, easy hike, modern bathroom
THE BAD: short, low rating on the solitude scale

After the hike, we stopped by Double Mountain Brewery for some delicious pizza and beers.

Green Chalkboard Gift Tags

Tue, 11 Dec 2012 08:00:52 -0800

For my gift tags this year, I spray-painted shipping tags with two coats of green chalkboard spray paint. I let them dry overnight and wrote on them with my white chalk drawing pencil.

I’m liking the way they look with the black/white twine and kraft wrapping paper.

Wedding Invitation Suites in the Shop!

Tue, 04 Dec 2012 23:11:53 -0800

We have been making custom invitations since we opened last year for awesome clients who specifically email us with their ideas. They put their complete trust in us without ever seeing examples and we love them for it. We even created an invitation completely in Swedish last year and will possibly be doing another in French! It’s very exciting.

Now, two of our invitation suites are finally in the shop so that anyone can get their hands on them for their special day. We even gave them cute woodsy names!

THE BIRCH:

THE PINE:

We can’t wait to work with you.

Advent Calendar 2012 - Day 1

Sat, 01 Dec 2012 23:41:00 -0800

Day 1 | Cut a Christmas Tree and Decorate | Inside: Handmade mitten ornament

We headed to Shriver Farm in Gresham, OR and found a six foot Colorado Spruce that had to come home with us.

Although we could have easily gotten a Christmas tree within a couple blocks of us, it was worth the 35 minute drive because they had a vast selection and it only cost fifteen bucks!

We took out the ornaments I made last year and got to decorating while listening to the A Charlie Brown Christmas soundtrack and sipping on a favorite beer. It was perfect.

DIY Soda Crate Advent Calendar 2012

Fri, 30 Nov 2012 12:11:00 -0800

Why are advent calendars mainly for kids? It’s not fair. So I decided to make a grown-up one just for Ian and I that is more about doing holiday activities rather than toys and candy.

Materials:

Vintage Soda Crate with 24 sections
24 2” Boxes
Advent Calendar Activity Template and Paper in the color of your choice
Wood Buttons (I used the leftovers that I made for our wedding, but you can get similar ones on Etsy)
Red & Green Twine

1. Write or stamp numbers 1-24 on the front of each unfolded box.

2. Make a list of twenty-four holiday activites to do at home and in/around your city. Handwrite or print them onto the Activity Template and cut out each square (I like to leave a tiny border around each square).

3. Fold up boxes and fill with the activity and goodies that match (e.g. “Make hot cocoa”; fill the box with marshmallows).

4. Decorate the boxes with the wood buttons and twine (half red, half green). The buttons allow for easy grabbage of the boxes when put into the tight sections.

5. Put boxes randomly into the soda crate, alternating between the green and red twine.

Holiday Gift Tags

Thu, 29 Nov 2012 13:50:37 -0800

Wood & Grain gift tags are in the shop!

The first set contains six different messages (2 of each):

The second set contains three different messages (3 of each):

Make gifts extra special by layering them with these tags; available in black or white ink.

Want personalized labels with your names? Just message me on Etsy with your inquiries.

Happy Gifting!

Pre-Thanksgiving Dinner in Portland

Thu, 15 Nov 2012 05:00:42 -0800

Every year, since high-school I’ve cooked at least two Thanksgiving dinners, three being the typical number. This year isn’t going to be any different. We threw the first of three at our home with a few friends. We still don’t have a dining table, so we ended up bringing our patio furniture into the dining room. It actually worked out pretty nicely, if I do say so myself.

To make the table more festive, I reused some of our old wedding decorations (burlap table runner, candle votives and vases) and filled the table with un-carved pumpkins from our Halloween decorations and fall-colored leaves from around our neighborhood. It took me about 15 minutes and cost nothing!

The food was simple: roasted chicken with stuffing, mashed potatoes, cranberry sauce, roasted butternut squash and an apple, pear and quince crostata. The crostata was definitely the highlight for me.

I’ve already made a delicious, yet simple chicken vegetable soup and a chicken rice porridge with the carcasses. I love leftovers.

DIY Halloween Outdoor Movie Night

Tue, 06 Nov 2012 10:23:01 -0800

We decided to stay home on Halloween, so we could pass out candy to all the kids in the neighborhood.

I still wanted to do something fun/scary, so we threw a mini outdoor movie screening on our front porch.

For the movie screen, I used an old white full-size bedsheet (IKEA also has twin-size sheets for less than $5) and nailed it to the porch. I wanted to screen a silent movie so that we wouldn’t have to blast sound and disturb the neighbors. We used our projector and Apple TV to screen “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari”, which I highly recommend if you haven’t already seen it. (I believe it’s also available on Netflix.)

We served popcorn, apple cider hot toddies, homemade roasted pumpkin seeds (from the pumpkin I had carved the day before) and pizza.

For the apple cider hot toddies:

I heated up some unfiltered apple juice in a large pot.
Threw in some mulling spice packets and steeped them for 5 minutes.
Put a shot of bourbon into each mug and added the apple cider.

For the pumpkin seeds:

Pumpkin or Acorn Squash Seeds
Olive Oil
Salt
Cayenne

Clean the seeds, spread onto a cookie sheet and let them dry overnight or until they are completely dry.
The next day, put seeds into a bowl and mix in olive oil, salt and cayenne (you don’t have to be exact).
Roast at 275 degrees for 10-20 minutes until lightly toasted. Keep an eye on them, as roasting times can vary.
Let cool and enjoy.

The Pumpkin Patch on Sauvie Island

Mon, 05 Nov 2012 11:56:00 -0800

I was very eager for the holiday season to begin, so I convinced Ian to go pumpkin picking way earlier than normal (the last week of September). We headed to Sauvie Island and started our search for the perfect pumpkins.

There were a ton to choose from and we were particularly obsessed with the white ones.

We were a little nervous that they wouldn’t even last till Halloween, but they are all still looking great.

Home: Upstairs Bathroom Makeover

Thu, 04 Oct 2012 05:56:18 -0700

We’ve been taking it slow on updating and furnishing our new home. Each room needs to be painted/wallpapered and furnished exactly to our liking and it’s really hard to make decisions.

The first room we decided to take on was the upstairs bathroom, because it’s small and easy to work with.

I knew I wanted to paint the walls black. Of course, I used Pinterest to find some inspirational photos and these were the two bathrooms (1, 2) that I fell in love with:

Our upstairs bathroom is extremely small and doesn’t get much natural light, so painting it black was a bit of a risk, but we went for it anyways!

THE BEFORE

I used Sherwin Williams Chip It website to figure out what color of black paint we should get and the results came up with SW 6258 Tricorn Black.

It took a lot longer than we expected to paint such a tiny room, but we did manage to finish in one day.

THE AFTER

We added some hints of wood, white, mint and red to brighten up the room and I can’t be happier with the results. For the first week after the transformation, whenever I entered the bathroom I couldn’t help screaming out to Ian, “I LOVE THIS BATHROOM!”

THE DECOR

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine

THE HARDWARE

one | two | three | four | five | six | seven | eight | nine

A few things we need to fix, but haven’t yet had the time/money for:

Rip up the linoleum and put in tiles.
Possibly paint the cabinet white.
Change all the fixtures (sink faucet, bath faucet and shower head) to gold. This probably won’t happen for a long time since gold bathroom fixtures are insanely expensive.
Get a better light fixture above the mirror.

Spoken For - A Portland Wedding Event

Tue, 18 Sep 2012 04:58:21 -0700

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 on Alberta

Wed, 05 Sep 2012 08:55:49 -0700

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.

Birthday Weekend in Victoria, BC

Sat, 18 Aug 2012 09:57:00 -0700

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

Royal British Columbia Museum

Beacon Hill Park

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

Still Life for Her (women’s clothing)
Still Life for Him (men’s clothing)
Suasion (women’s clothing)
Paboom (home decor)
The Milkman’s Daughter (women’s clothing and home decor)
Rook & Rose (floral)
Books on View (used bookstore)

Film Friday - Palmer, Alaska

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 09:58:47 -0700

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

A Place to Call Home

Wed, 25 Jul 2012 10:56:03 -0700

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!

Film Friday - Vancouver, BC

Fri, 20 Jul 2012 23:29:00 -0700

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

Mississippi Ave. Street Fair

Sun, 15 Jul 2012 16:44:00 -0700

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.

Featured Seller on Etsy

Wed, 04 Jul 2012 18:52:00 -0700

Wood & Grain is a Featured Seller over on the Etsy blog! Can’t believe it!

Crabbin' on the Oregon Coast

Fri, 15 Jun 2012 08:00:00 -0700

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.

Wood & Grain Business Cards

Wed, 13 Jun 2012 07:57:41 -0700

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.