Thanksgiving With The Fam

I know what you're thinking...and yes, we do realize that it is, in fact, January, and we are a bit late on blogging about our Thanksgiving.

But the fact of the matter is, we Jung's had a rather fun filled Thanksgiving which (luckily for you) yielded many great pictures.

While eating copious amounts of food and watching football all day is fun in itself, what made this Thanksgiving so much fun was that I managed to convince almost all of our family to convene in Spartanburg, South Carolina for the holiday...which, if you think about it, was quite the feat, as half of them live in Pennsylvania or New Jersey and my husband and I live in New Mexico.

Pictures documenting the whole vacation can be seen below. Enjoy!

Our pre-meal hike in the woods behind our house took us to an abandoned day camp...complete with an adorable little chapel, play ground, and dunking tank

Grammy and Rudy got along swimmingly...once he realized he could easily convince her to play fetch with him.

Dad served us the long awaited feast! Lauren was lucky to have gotten such a nice shot, as we were all pretty hungry by this point and irritated that the photo was getting in the way of starting the meal.

Poppop helped us solve the world's problems after dinner.

Thanksgiving #2 was held the next day at our cousin Blaine's house. After the meal we were sure to check out his new 3D TV (hence the funny glasses in the photo on the left) and Lauren made everyone check out the new Birds and Berries strikeoffs. (Which turned out awesome too. We can't wait to debut the line in May!)

The next day was reserved for hiking with Dad!

As you can tell, we had a rather fun filled and action packed Thanksgiving. We apologize about the delay in the post...but better late than never I say! I'll go ahead and blame this on Lauren (kidding! sort of) and the fact that there was an insane amount of Lauren + Jessi Design business that needed to be taken care of in the weeks that followed.

What's a little sad though... is this is not the most pending of our posts... We still have to blog about Christmas, and our recent trip to NYC to attend Printsource, as well as my wedding which happened a year and half ago. Way to go, Lauren, and your amazing time management skills. :) Kidding. Sort of. :)

A Pretty Fly Dragonfly

Could you guys help me out in a competition that I entered on Threadless... Just go here to vote for my dragonfly t-shirt!!!

I've been wearing Threadless t-shirts for years because they're awesome and the designs are all so unique and quirky... And then last week, it occurred to me that I should try to design one too. So I did. This is my first attempt here... and after checking out some of the other t-shirts, I'm a little worried that my style might be a little too girly for them. But, well, there's nothing wrong with pretty... and as the old saying goes, nothing ventured, nothing gained, right?

Anyway... If you're game for helping me out... could you please go to this link and give me a nice high score!

And then after you click on the 5 ( :) )... it will prompt you to sign in... (I guess to prevent people from voting multiple times). You can sign in through Facebook! Which is super easy. And then if you don't have a Facebook account, you'll need to set up a super basic account with your name and email and password... that sort of stuff. It's really easy and I would REALLY REALLY appreciate it!

Then lets just keep our fingers crossed!

Since this is just a first attempt, I'm not getting my hopes up too high... I'm choosing to keep a "glass-is-half-full" attitude here... and make this a learning experience. :) Anyway, thanks for your help and I'll post about the outcome later. :)

My Parent's Trip to Albuquerque

A post by the youngest Jung…Carrie

It took some convincing, but after 6 months, I finally got both of my parents to visit me in Albuquerque. Mom was an easy sell. After her trip here last August, she knew just how much fun Albuquerque and the land of enchantment could be…but my dad, was a different story. It seemed that work and various other things always seemed to get in the way, but soon my unrelenting pestering got the best of him and before Mom and Dad had a chance to say no…I booked them a ticket to Albuquerque. They arrived in the ABQ late on a Thursday night…but after a good night’s sleep we began what was to be a power packed and green chile packed weekend. (For those of you not from New Mexico…New Mexicans LOVE green chile and it can be found atop most any entree you order out here) One of our first plans was to head up Sandia Peak via the tram…but said plans were foiled by an unusual rain storm (it doesn’t rain much here in the desert). We took it in stride though, and headed to Old Town Albuquerque instead. Which…as you can see, turned out to be a lot of fun.

A gargantuan lunch at El Pinto was on the docket next, which was to be our first of many doses of the New Mexico Green Chile. Pretty soon, it was time to head back to the house. Even though the gang had solid plans to take naps next, I still had to head into KUNM to host All Things Considered. And while the idea of work while my family visited seamed like a buzz kill, we managed to turn it into an activity…as Mom, Dad, and Jon showed up at the station to watch me host the last half hour of the show (ok, so that idea was partly mine too). And I think that everyone was pretty excited to check out the control room. Mom was sure to whip out her camera to document the whole experience as soon as my mic was off.

The next day was Santa Fe! After another huge lunch FILLED with green chiles, we headed off to check out the various street vendors and shops. I know the trip to Santa Fe was especially useful for Mom as she was sure to snap pictures of Native American art we found, all of the colorful tiles that line the shops, all of the beautiful ceramics at our favorite shop, The Rainbow Man.

Hmm…Perhaps we could have expensed this trip because it provided mom with so much pattern inspiration???

It was a power packed day of shopping, but before we left the area, my husband Jon and I took a detour up the mountain to check out the Aspen trees…whose leaves were supposed to be in full Fall colors.

We indeed found the colorful Aspens we were looking for, but we also found snow! And the combination of snow and colorful leaves made for some awesome pictures.

It was early to bed that night because we had to be up bright and early the next day for Balloon Fiesta! And I have to hand it to my parents, they were good sports and agreed to get up at 4am for this event. And after we took care of some digestive issues from all of the green chiles we’d eaten that weekend, and a little bit of traffic, we made it to Balloon Fiesta Park with enough time to get coffee and hot chocolate. We also managed to find the Albuquerque Quilt Guild’s stand! Which was decked out with lots of beautiful hot air balloon themed quilts. What a great find! They were also raffling off one particularly awesome Balloon Fiesta quilt. At first, I wasn’t sure if my parents were having fun that morning (it was quite the early morning and we Jungs aren’t morning people), but as soon as they saw all of the special shapes and realized that they could actually touch the balloons, I could tell that they were having a lot of fun. It really is like a flying Macy’s Thanksgiving day parade.

It’s safe to say that we all had a great weekend…but before we knew it, it was time to head back to the airport and send Mom and Dad home. I’m so glad my parents managed to make it out to visit me…And I think my mom left the state with enough inspiration to last her at least a line or two.

My Business Cards: And Why They Feel Delicious...

Right before Market, we printed our second round of business cards... this time, professionally, due to some extremely painful memories from last time... (when we decided to make them ourselves).

The idea behind this design is to have our logo knocked out of the front, revealing one of the fabrics from our current line. This allows them to constantly change... while highlighting whatever's new. Then on the back, you'll find that same swatch of fabric acting as the background of the card... with a small tag that contains all of our contact info. (The longer story behind our logo and business cards can be found here.)

And I just think they're beautiful.

And beautiful cards need to be printed on beautiful paper.

Which is where our printer, (Moo), stepped up to the plate... enabling us to create a truly magical experience for anyone who is able to touch/caress/sometimes, even lick these cards.

They feel delicious.

Maybe even a little seductive.

The paper stock is thick and rigid with a surface coating that feels sort of like silk...

Silk that has been fused with waxpaper... (which, in my opinion, should probably be called silax-paper).

And they do all of this by using a "matte laminate"... which they claim will also protect your cards from getting dirty.

And I am here to back that up, because I literally had my cards out in the mud today for my little photo shoot... From which they returned completely unharmed.

Yay!

I love Moo!

The Invitation Saga

Well, it's official. Carrie Jung will be getting married to Jon Clausen on June 5th, 2010... and there are now 85 wedding invitations out there that back up the whole story.

As my wedding present to Carrie, I designed her invitations and took care of all the printing. Carrie headed up the production department and cut, scored, folded, glued, and corner punched each of these 85 invitiation suites (see Carrie below).

Needless to say they took a LONG time to make... fights have broken out... tears have been shed... doors slammed... tv remotes and tape dispensers have been hurled across the living room... It's been a long, ugly journey... but I feel as though the end result has made it all worth it.

Formally worded invitations from back in the day were usually typed in a sappy/scripty font onto a blandly colored piece of paper (like off white or cream...) and then topped off with a sheer vellum flap of paper.

But there's no need to be boring when announcing such a happy day! I wanted this entire invitation experience to act as an emotional preview of what's to come... The envelope contains a branded tag that identifies which item in the suite you are receiving, as well as the recipient's address. It adds an eclectic sort of feel to the set. The first thing you will see when you open the envelope is the Invitation Folder that is folded up and held shut with a ribbon and tag. When you open it, you'll see the invitation on the left, and a pocket on the right that holds a series of cards. They are staggered in height so that you can see the title of each card, right at first glance. The Reception Card contains a map and a set of directions. The Accommodations Card contains a list of hotels in the area. And finally, the RSVP Card/Envelope sits in the very front of this little set. The arrangement of these individual pieces can be seen better in the photo below.

I believe the little details that are added towards the end of a big project make all the difference in the world, and one of these tiny details can be viewed in the photo above. There's a small row of purple flowers that make these invitations especially awesome... in my opinion.

Often times these details lie beneath the radar of the average observer, which is perfectly understandable... but when they do get noticed... everything suddenly becomes worth it. So I want to take this moment to say thank you to my sister's college roommate, Becca Crane. Becca has made the enormous chunk of effort that went into these invitations worth it because when she called to discuss them... she said, and I quote... "I especially loved that cute row of purple flowers."

The photo above is the rehearsal dinner invitations which uses elements from the initial illustrations, but in a slightly different style.

And that's about all I've got... After all was said and done, I really enjoyed this whole process, so if anyone is interested in personalized wedding invitations... I'm your girl!