Valentine's Day 2011

At this rate... I will post enough about Valentine's day to make it to next year's!  :-P  Sorry, been busy!  We spent Valentine's day evening at home since we already had our nice meal, and we didn't want to get stuck waiting for a table eating out!

The sweet husband came home with these!  See them orange flowers!  :-D

We had chicken satay with peanut sauce and a Thai chicken basil stir-fry

Paired with this Riesling!  I like Rieslings.  That's all I remember from my wine class.  HAHA.

Made some chocolate dipped strawberries... and pretzels.  haha.  It's soooo easy and cheap.  Don't ever buy pre-dipped ones!!  Unless they make it all fancy.  If I had some white choclate, I would've gave the strawberries bow ties and buttons, and the pretzels some drizzle!

The husband squirreled away for like 30 minutes.... to make THIS!!!  It's a particle system pop-up card, with 3D hearts!  Isn't he sweet?  haha.  He's been working on particle systems for his game for weeks leading up to Valentine's day (not related), so this was amusingly fitting.  :]

Courtesy of Wikipedia:

The term particle system refers to a computer graphics technique to simulate certain fuzzy phenomena, which are otherwise very hard to reproduce with conventional rendering techniques. Examples of such phenomena which are commonly replicated using particle systems include fire, explosions, smoke, moving water, sparks, falling leaves, clouds, fog, snow, dust, meteor tails, hair, fur, grass, or abstract visual effects like glowing trails, magic spells, etc.

Do you see how it's a pop-up teapot??  :]

If I had a screenshot or one of those moving gif looking things... it'd be funnier cause then you'd see how this card exactly represents what he's been working on.  :]  Here's what the 3D studio max teapot looks like:

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I'm sure we're all nerds here... or are married to one.... or at least know one.... so have you gotten any nerdy/romantic/funny things?

                                          

dark city prints

I like.  That's all.

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From the Etsy shop, Nesta Home, "Dark City Series is a collection of photographs depicting cities and urban landscapes in a dark and gritty light. Each original photograph is printed on sheets of found antique Atlas Book Pages adding to the charm and authenticity of the pieces."  In addition to San Francisco, they also have prints for LA, Chicago, and NYC.

                                                  

fun find: thank you card designs

I was looking for an example of argyle when I stumbled on this page of free downloadable thank you card designs!  Pretty cute ones too.  AND... it says, "Card designs are set up to print on an 8 1/2″ x 11″ paper.  The cards will print two to a page, simply cut the page in half  (no trimming around the edges necessary!)"... which all just means less work for you!  Whoo!  Formatting and spacing things can take so much time sometimes.

There are 8 designs and here at a few I liked:

Kind of really busy... kind of really cool...

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Go here to see the rest of the designs and to download the files (PDF).

                        

Valentine's Day weekend

We celebrated Valentine's Day like over 3 days.  :-P  We took a brief weekend trip up to Nashua, New Hampshire!  It was fun since I've never been to New Hampshire.  We spent more than an hour there... in fact we stayed the night, so I think that definitely counts as having "been to" New Hampshire.  :]

We only went to New Hampshire because I got a Groupon for the Radisson Nashua.  haha.  The Radisson was suppose to look like a castle!  And it's only an hour drive away!  So I got it!  Come along now  :]

We first stopped by Pleasant Lane Mall!  Which was a pretty big and comprehensive mall but we only bought stuff from Target.  haha.

It was COOL!  But... this was kinda it....

And this knight.  Which is not as big as it might look here.

See the ramparts?!

Ducky enjoying our king sized bed!

The Groupon included one night's stay and dinner at their restaurant, The Granite Bistro!  I had a flat iron steak with mashed potatoes and veggies, Tim had chicken parm, and we had some crispy garlic bruschetta for an appetizer, split a chocolate molten cake there, and took home a carrot cake (which was all included!)  Tim liked his chicken parm, I was not a huge fan of my meal though I loooved the crispy garlic bruschetta. :]  I only took some pictures with my iPhone and the lighting wasn't that great.  They turned out pretty grainy so I won't post them. 

The next day, we drove to Downtown Nashua, which is basically a main street?  We didn't do too much exploring there.  It was like 11am on a Sunday morning so not a ton of stores were open but we saw a bunch of people going into this one!

MT Local

So we went in too!  It was a REALLY DELICIOUS brunch buffet!

LOVED the star cracker/bread thing.  :]

What a cute checkered shortbread cookie!

Super cute restaurant!

Omlet special of the day: BBQ beef

I think I ate too much food food and didn't save enough room for dessert.  :(  But Tim got this chocolate mousse thing in a chocolate shell, which he gave me a taste of, and it was sooo delicious.

We looked at the menu outside before we went into the restaurant and they listed some fairly normal prices.  What we didn't know was that it was a special Valentine's day brunch buffet and we ended up with a pretty hefty bill. So it ended up being our "fancy, going out Valentine's Day  meal."  Despite the hefty bill, it was really good quality food though.

We left like noon Saturday and got back like 3pm Sunday so it was a fairly short trip, but it was fun to get away!  We were even able to go to 6pm church service.  :]

                                              

valentines day cuties

Remember the super cute water colory prints I mentioned before from Etsy shop, Trafalgars Square?  She's back with Valentines Day cuties:

And now buttons!  Which can also serve as Valentines.  (Source)

You can check them out on her blog post here (there's a giveaway as well) or at her store's Valentine Goodness section.  :]

                           

recycled wrapping paper!

Our landlords had us up for dinner (SO. DELICIOUS.) and we found it out was going to be Mr. Landlord's birthday.  We had joked about the delicious things we smelled from their kitchen and he asked if we made Japanese curry from the blocks.  Of course I did.  So as a gag gifts of sorts, we got Mr. Landlord a box of Japanese curry blocks.  We didn't have any wrapping paper, so I resorted to using an old copy of the Trader Joe's circular, the Fearless Flyer!

I liked the castle quite a bit myself.

And I thought the bow, with the coordinated center was not too shabby.  :-P  I actually learned how to make that from my brother.  MY BROTHER.  HAHA.  He made one out of paper and stapled it to a Gap bag one year for my birthday present.  :-P



I think there is a charm to having print/words all over.  Of course, there is charm to Trader Joe's circular so it might not work with all newspapers or circulars.  I was surprised how well it turned out, and thought I'd share!  The castle definitely helped.  :]

Do you use unconventional wrapping materials or have unique methods to your present wrappery?

                                        

heart bookmarks!

After deliberating over my Valentine's day craft options, I went with the somewhat useful heart shaped bookmarks by Martha.  See here.

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So here are my renditions  Which are not as fancy pants (and probably not as thick as Martha's) but resemble... what they're suppose to.  I hope.  :]

The first two are hanging out on a piece of cardstock. I figured it'd be easier to "display" them on a card I could write on and explain what they are.  Otherwise they might get lost in the envelope!  And people wouldn't know what to do with them, since it's kind hard to see the part that lifts up, unless you know it's suppose to do that.

For instructions, see how Martha makes them here.  Let me know if you want one from my collection.  :]

                                            

happy Chinese new year!

Year of the Wabbit!

Happy Chinese/Lunar New Year!

Ducky made bank!

What shall I name my wabbit?