Wedding wood signs!

When we decided on having a backyard wedding, I immediately dreamed of having yard games, hand picked garden flowers all over the place, fabric flags, hanging bulb lights, paper lanterns hung from the tree, bamboo parasols, cute chalk boards, lots of black and white photo's hung on twine with clothespins, and my favorite: hand painted wood signs!  

Crafting resources are definitely scarce in Korea, but lucky for us, there is absolutely NO lack of old distressed wood pallets laying around! Aaron and I jumped on the scooter yesterday afternoon and rode around the neighborhood, looking for wood crates to take apart and use for the wood signs that I'd dreamed of having!  

We found a place with an awesome old wood crate leaning up against a wall, and asked the old guy working there if we could have it.  Lucky for us, he was more than happy to give it to us and actually even grabbed a crow bar and took the pieces of wood apart for us and hammered the old rusty nails out!  YAY!  

Aaron found some sand paper and a small saw at the local DAISO ($4.00 total) and went right to work on the rooftop of my apartment building, sanding and cutting the pieces of wood!
We love the character in this wood!

No rooftop project is complete without a beer, right?!  Aaron likes to keep it classy in a fancy wine glass!

 

This morning, I scoured the internet in search of home made wood stains, since I have NO idea where to buy any in Korea.  I found a website that said if you soak steel wool in a cup of vinegar for 24 hours, it can be used as a dark wood stain!  PERFECT!  So, I walked next door, to the corner market, and grabbed a package of steel wool... but then as I was walking to the checkout stand my eye was drawn to a small display of brown shoe polish... and the wheels started turning!  If it works on leather, it should be strong enough to work on wood, right?!  For $2.00, it was worth a shot!

I was right!  Not only did it work, but it stained it the perfect color!  SCORE!
The wood only needed one coat, which meant only 1 bottle was needed! 

The next part was something that made me a bit anxious!  If I messed up the writing, I'd have to start all over!!   I grabbed a piece of newspaper and free handed the font for each sign on a piece of newspaper, then set it in front of the wood to help as a size and orientation reference.


I used a white paint pen (bought from DAISO for $1.00) to write the fonts, and I'm soooo excited with how the signs turned out... if I don't say so myself!  For a total of $7.00, I was able to make 4 one of a kind wood signs for the wedding!  YAY!!!

Hope my wedding guests are up for playing a couple of my favorite games!

Let's do this thing!

Aaron and I have talked a lot about what we would do for jobs when we move back to the US one day.  I seemed to always revert back to being an admin assistant, while he would throw around things like: being a teacher, a personal trainer, or something related to sports... but would always say that his DREAM is to do photography full time!  I am such a HUGE fan of his work that I couldn't resist being supportive of him pursuing this DREAM!  

So with that, I'd like to officially introduce the humble beginnings of our new business and photography blog!

Remember to save it as a favorite place, or subscribe by e-mail, to see what we're up to!  

If you happen to live in Busan or are planning to be in the area, and are looking to have some photo's taken, shoot us an e-mail, or leave a comment on the blog and we'll work on setting something up!  We're currently offering FREE photo shoots as we are building our portfolio!  Free photo's for you, free practice for us! :)  I'd call that a win win!

Health kick

I've been on a pretty big health kick for the past couple weeks! While I haven't lost a huge amount of weight, I AM feeling really great and am loving being outside more and eating healthy! I woke up early this morning, threw on my Adidas shoes and headed for the stationary store, 3 miles away! Why take a bus when the weather's nice and your squeezing into a tight white dress in 2 months?!   Eeekkk

I used an awesome app called Map My Run. If you're a runner and have a smart phone this is a must have!

6:67 miles baby!  

Cat nap

School was cancelled today for memorial day, so I spent most of the day working on wedding crafts while this little fatty cuddled up on my Thai floor pillow next to me!   Seriously, have you ever seen a fatter cat?!

Ashley and Adam

Aaron and I have been pretty seriously throwing around the idea of starting a photography business when we eventually move back to the US.  How could we possibly work an 8-5 office job after all the freedom we've had for the past 3 1/2 years!  Plus, we love the creativity of photography, and would rather be together than not during the day, so why not try doing something we love, and do it together, right?!  

We're pretty sure we'll end up settling in Charleston, SC, and lucky for us, there happens to be a good market for wedding photography in that area!  With that said, we figured we'd get our feet wet (literally) and get a little practice in.  Our sweet friends Ashley and Adam allowed us to do a couple's photoshoot with them for 2 1/2 hours!  Hey, free photo's for them, free practice for us!  It's a win win! 

We decided to meet up at Da Daepo Beach, on the west end of Busan.  Pretty, right?!

 I ended up being more of an artistic director, while Aaron snapped photos, which was really fun for me and actually more my speed!  I did, however, snap a few of my own little behind the scenes photos, just for kicks! These solo shots of Adam (& later Ashley) turned out REALLY stunning! 

You'll have to wait to see those though!  SORRY!

They were so fun to work with!  Neither of them had ever done something like this, but with a little direction, they were total pros!

Aaron climbed up on this huge rock to get them from above. (Another EPIC pic that you'll have to wait on!) 

Oh yes, there was a dirty dancing move!

Lots of laughing was involved in making this one work!  The final photo is really cool!  They look like couple ice skaters that just happen to be practicing their lifts on the beach! ***
I'm not sure I'd be as brave as Ash!   Props to these two!

I snapped this one while Aaron was changing his lens!  How great is this heart rock that Aaron found as we were walking along the beach!  

More behind the scenes of Ashley and Adam...

I had to get in a little artistic shot between giving directions to the gorgeous couple! :)

The sun was setting perfectly in front of them as we were working on this shot.  The one Aaron got of them kissing with the sun between them makes me practically drool!  

Another fun one that I caught between positioning them!

Aaron's going to be working on putting together a little photography blog for us in the next week or so, so you can check there to see the final pics!  I'll keep you posted when it's up and running!

HUGE thank you to Adam and Ashley for being our guinea pigs!  You guys were AWESOME!