to the windy city for a little solo arts excursion for the next few days. i'll be back thursday. enjoy our spring-has-finally-arrived weather!

peace,
becca

in the meantime, enjoy a few photos of a couple new artisan CD cases handcrafted by yours truly and a couple of new sample albums.























and INTRODUCING...drum roll please... THE MINI! minis are available with any larger album (that means any of our wedding stories qualify) for $300 each. they are exact duplicates of the big album, only just larger than palm sized. they are ADORABLE!!! these are fabulous for parents or to carry around in a purse. i loooooooooooovvvvvvvvvveeeeeeeee them. they come in their own fabulous cases, too.

Labels: CDcases, GoodIdeas, Pictobooks

we had a fabulous post-wedding breakfast at rooster sunday on locust downtown. it's owned by david bailey who also owns the wonderful chocolate bar in lafayette square.

there aren't so many breakfast haunts around the city. uncle bill's is always a fabulous choice, of course, but rooster is a nice upgrade. they serve a variety of crepes and sandwiches and your typical coffee drinks. check it out!

and stay tuned for a wonderlicious slideshow from kathy and tim's awesome city museum wedding over the weekend.

Labels: GoodIdeas, STLfavs

apologies for the lack of posts lately. it's been insane around here. both pups got pretty sick this week. jessie even had to spend a night at doggie hospital. i think we're through the worst of it, but yikes- it was scary.

on a service kudos note, last week adam and i went car shopping. we hit several dealerships, including dave mungenast honda on s. lindbergh, mazda, vw, toyota and ford to check out the escape hybrid, which they didn't have.

we did a few test drives at different dealerships and, therefore, met with a few different salesmen. we drove two different honda models and spent awhile with our guy, jim. at the end of our drives, jim introduced us to the sales manager. jim followed up with a phone call a couple of days later. he was friendly, attentive and did not pressure us at all. a couple of days after that, we received a signed letter from mungenast.

this is the way service should be. it was so good that we actually feel guilty we are leaning toward another car. it was so good that we gave serious consideration to the excellent service and our second choice car. car shopping can be a painful ordeal, so kudos to dave mungenast honda for making it a little less painful and for impressing us with their phenomenal service.

and on a keeping-up-to-date-on-business-reads-kudos-note, seth godin is an inspiring marketing writer-guru. our above mentioned car shopping pursuits brought up an intriguing conversation between adam and i about the psychology of branding. godin often discusses this idea. i'm a blog stalker of his. you should be, too.

knowing how oblivious i can sometimes be, i was especially interested in the following youtube video that appeared on godin's blog last month. just when you think you know the answer...



i'm slowly becoming a youtube fan. you're probably wondering what took me so long, right? it is super smart that at the end of each video, one can copy the code and put it on their own blog, myspace page, whatever. that's how things get viral and spread like mad.

well, in our own little techosphere, we now have the power to post our wedding slideshows on facebook and allow our clients to copy the code and post them on their own pages. go viral!

Labels: GoodIdeas

the little ole' link has been quietly sitting in my blog margin for some time, but whew! you gotta' check it out. having been away for a bit, i'm still getting caught up on my usual daily reads. the latest posts left me drooling and fantasizing and feeling guilty for not making jewelry in ages.

so, i present to you, formal kudos to the etsy wedding blog.

stay tuned for images from liz and rob's spectacularistic after shoot.

Labels: GoodIdeas

fair shares is a great local organization that helps match up local produce and other goods with consumers. their website says it best,

"Would you like to support local, but don't have the means to do so easily? Do you have difficulty getting to farmers' markets? Are you interested in learning how to cook seasonally, thereby eating the best-tasting, most nutritious food available?

Fair Shares is a non-profit organization dedicated to getting fresh, local, seasonal food into the hands of more St. Louisans--regardless of their income. We think it's important to know the origin of your food--who grew it and where. With all the horrifying stories of food contamination in the news lately, it's a health risk not to know. We're also committed to spreading the wisdom of eating seasonally (if you've ever eaten a grocery store tomato in the winter, you know what we're talking about).

Sustainable farming techniques are important to us as well. Organic is great, but certification isn't a must for us. We know our farmers use minimal chemicals only when necessary and more importantly they use practices that don't rob the earth of resources or harm the delicate equilibrium. Nature had it right to begin with, so we love it when farmers know how to work with nature instead of against it. Our food loves it, too. So do our bodies.

We believe that eating healthy shouldn't just be an elite privilege, but a right for every individual, regardless of income. Fair Shares will donate profits and work with other organizations to help low-income families gain access to "real" food. Fair Shares is working with local farmers and producers to form a Combined CSA* (CCSA). Each week, we'll collect, organize and distribute a well-rounded example of the freshest, seasonal, sustainably-produced foods available in St. Louis all year long.

* Community Supported Agriculture is a partnership between consumers interested in safe, fresh, local foods and farmers interested in a stable market for their products. Consumers pledge to support the farms as co-producers, sharing in the bounty and the risks of farming, including poor harvests due to pests or weather conditions."

there are still shares available for this year. it may seem expensive at first, but consider what you spend on regular groceries each week and the quality of produce and meat you receive. in addition to produce, shares will include local breads, pastas and meats. we're excited to expand our commitment to our great city of st. louis this spring by purchasing a share.

Labels: GoodIdeas, green

UPDATE 03.05.08 oh couturebook how i wanted to love you! you are just not a good fit for us. i need you to stay together and stay strong!

the roma from couturebook just arrived this week. it's beautiful. take a look for yourself! (they don't come in cases, btw, so i made the one you see.) this is the roma. it's a very different and special, fine art, kind of book. its pages have a very organic feel and overall, it just exudes handmade loveliness. the cover is a velvety-soft, worn in a good way, leather with a buckle type closure.

Labels: BentonParkPhotographyCo, CoutureBook, GoodIdeas, green, StLouisWeddingPhotographers

is embossing. i have always been the artsy craftsy type. i can thank my mom and dad for that. besides photography, i also design jewelry and have dabbled in various other forms of art.

when i couldn't find suitably creative and original DVD cases for our fabulous clients, i set out to design them. the latest appears below. i make them from scratch starting with bookboard and beautiful papers and ribbons.





until last week, however, i didn't quite figure out a good way to label them as such. that is, until the idea of embossing hit me. and conveniently enough (do we have enough adverbs in this post yet?), the next morning i saw a demo on a cheesy DIY show. i immediately designed and sent away for a custom rubber stamp! i gleefully traveled to hobby lobby to find a heat gun and embossing powder. and that's where my newest craft love affair began.

my custom stamps arrived yesterday from rubberstamps.net.

now i'm a lean, mean, stampin' embossin' machine. omg, did i just actually publish such cheesiness? darn skippy! the benton park B will be tearing it up all over town.

Labels: GoodIdeas

after a weekend of exploring the st. louis art museum and the contemporary art museum and enjoying them both, but not feeling super inspired, i thought i'd share links to a handful of photographers who do inspire me. often. in no particular order, they are:

ben chrisman
david alan harvey
sebastiao salgado
david lachapelle

becker
jessica claire
the image is found
the weibners
jasmine star
jesh de rox
lacour

there are many more photographers that i love, so this is a short list, but perhaps this will be a post-in-progress.

Labels: GoodIdeas

i just had to share. botanical paperworks has a great variety of plantable invitations, notecards and favors. i LOVE this idea.

favorite discoveries include the plantable journal, the eco calendar, and the celebration grow favors.

check them out!

Labels: GoodIdeas, green

stray rescue of st. louis is in hot pursuit of a one MILLION dollar shelter makeover from zootoo.com . the deadline is march 1st and all you have to do is register. follow the zootoo link above to do so. if you're not already familiar with stray rescue, they are a fabulously great-hearted organization. our next rescue puppy will definitely come from stray rescue. we're hoping to add to our four legged family in the next few months.

Labels: GoodIdeas, StrayRescueStLouis

please vote for us on delightful blogs!

Labels: GoodIdeas

with couture | book. i am even considering a trip out to phoenix to see these babies in person. they just fit so well with our business. beautifully hand-bound books that use pages of 50% recycled content. oooooohhhhhhhhhhhhh, they are fantabulicious! they have a highly entertaining and fresh website, so do check them out. what do you think? should we add these to our collections?

Labels: Albums, BentonParkPhotographyCo, GoodIdeas, green, StLouisWeddingPhotographers

a growing trend these days is the wedding website. mywedding.com is one option that allows you to create a free site using templates. i love this idea. it's a great, environmentally friendly way to keep guests posted on the latest info.

ben and laura of last year's stlove wedding hunt fame have a fun site for their upcoming august nuptials. and check out janet lackey schmalfeldt (our awesome designer's wedding website from her 2007 wedding,) here.

domain registration is inexpensive at only $9.95/year or less, so it's worth it to register a unique web address.

Labels: GoodIdeas, green