rachel trigueiro blog

Happy Fall

2008-10-09T20:49:00.000-07:00

Yay for cool weather, breezes and pumpkin spice lattes. Today finally felt like Autumn was upon us. I am so happy.

I love all these warty, freckled and cinderella pumpkins...I hope I can get some this year.

BOOYAH!

2008-10-08T23:55:00.000-07:00

It's a big week around here... just 4 days until the neighborhood Tar-jay opens and the new location is less than 2 miles from my house. W-O-W. Isn't that exciting? I can hardly contain it. I have a feeling Target employees will be seeing a lot of us (and my sister- #1 Target shopper) in the weeks to come. :) Yay for Target and not another drug store, game store or Supercuts. I am a happy girl.

rocks, lights, and a pretty tree.

2008-09-30T22:45:00.000-07:00

Here are a few more pics from the lingerie shower a couple weeks ago. I thought perhaps you could see the 200 lb. teal tree (that my amazing husband made) a bit better in full size pictures. :) I'm sorry, but I have to brag. I saw this entire vision in my head months ago, and he helped bring it to life. When I asked for a tree, cemented in a box (that he will have to make), and spray painted teal, he smiles and helps me... Instead of calling me crazy. :) I am soooo incredibly thankful for him. Another little project I liked was the namecards. I collected a bunch of different sized rocks on our beach trips this summer and used chalk to write everyone's name on them. Not only was it free, but it felt kind of earthy and organic too. I really liked 'em!

Chinese lanterns as always. A fav around here. :)

Note to self: 35 floating candles is an amazing idea, but never forget that those 35 candles quickly become one blob of floating wax and flame in the center (or side) of the pool. They just never work out the way you want them to.

In addition to the ice cream bar, we had cute little sugar cookies made for the favors in the teal bags. I thought they turned out real cute. When it comes down to it, if you don't know what favors to get, go with something EDIBLE. It always makes people happy!

Sweet tooth

2008-09-29T16:30:00.001-07:00

A girly shower wouldn't be complete without a yummy sweets bar of some kind! We had an ice cream bar packed with delicious toppings and fun waffle bowls, I have learned that an ice cream bar is really quite simple but it can get a little pricey if you aren't careful! Our toppings included:

Reese cup crumbles
Heath bar crumbles
Homemade brownie crumbles
Mini m&m's
Rainbow sprinkles
Chocolate sprinkles
Chopped almonds
Peanut butter chips
Fresh strawberries
Maraschino cherries (of course!)
Chocolate sauce
Caramel sauce
Marshmallow sauce
THIS delicious peanut butter sauce
Whipped cream

My friend Aron had sent me a picture of a darling ice cream bar a couple months ago and in the picture it showed frosted glasses filled with ice cold milk. I apologize, because I do not remember where it came from, but that is a brilliant idea! Milk and ice cream...mmmm. We decided to do the very same thing by putting glasses in the freezer and serving ice cold milk when it came time for the ice cream bar. Well, I guess you can say we were having too much fun at the shower and we completely forgot about the milk! I think everyone was happy with coffee anyway, but still, it was a cute idea. :)

Girly Stuff...

2008-09-29T15:19:00.001-07:00

Lingerie showers are fun, aren't they? I love evening lingerie showers because it's more like a fun dinner party with your girlfriends and one of them just happens to receive lots of fun, sexy gifts! :) Remember this invite I posted a couple weeks ago? Well, here is the shower. More to come later! Enjoy.

No, no...not what you are thinking. It was a lingerie shower, so of course we had to play the "bring the bride a new pair of panties" game!

And, I didn't even get a sucker.

2008-09-22T23:16:00.000-07:00

I had to get a tetanus shot today. :( Why, you ask? You wouldn't believe me if I told you. Honestly you wouldn't, but I will tell you anyway. As I was setting up for a glorious outdoor shower this past weekend, I jumped back (while I was in a flower bed) in order to steer clear of a viscious man-eating wasp. Well, as my feet landed on the ground, I felt an excruciating pain in my left foot. No, I wasn't bare foot if you are wondering. I was wearing at least 1/2 inch thick soled shoes. Anyway-back to the climax-I yelped in pain because it hurt so bad! My husband and friend looked at me like, "what the heck is your problem?" That is approximately when I took my shoe off to find a 3 inch stick puncturing through the middle of my shoe into my foot. YES. You heard me right. Somehow, a freaking piece of bark pierced its was through my 1/2 -3/4 inch soled shoes directly into the middle of my poor-little-supple-foot. It was as bad as you imagine it to be. Just thinking about how bad it hurt after I took my shoe off makes my foot hurt even more now!

I woke up Sunday morning with a foot 3 sizes bigger. No joke. It was so swollen I could not fit into a pair of my shoes AND I could barely hobble to the bathroom. It was pathetic. My mom and hubby took good care of me yesterday and made sure that I soaked the Quasimodo foot in Epsom salt all day, (which according to the doctor helped extremely much with the infection). BUT, just because I soaked my foot in Epsom salt all day does not help with the fact that I hadn't gotten a tetanus shot in over 12 years. And seriously, a piece of BARK? OMG.

After my sister told me that I might die if I didn't get the shot within 72 hours, you better believe we were making an appointment with the doctor (even though we have NO insurance!). Well, I am glad to say that I still have my foot (I woke up this morning and asked James if they were going to amputate), the infection is already starting to go away, and it's gone down at least a size. However, I still look like an idiot when I walk, my mom calls me peg-leg, and now I have round band-aid on my arm from that mean needle. And, I didn't even get a sucker.

Surprise :)

2008-09-15T14:32:00.001-07:00

So, I am still using the "loaner" computer and therefore I do not have any of my pictures, but I realized today that I do have some pictures of the latest invitation I designed. Yay! Something fun to post. :) On top of that, I think I will be getting my computer back by the end of the week, so hopefully there will be some more fun posts to come. That is really exciting.

Here is the front of the invitation. The paper was folded in half so part of the tree creeped on to the back side.

Here is the inside of the invitation- the fold went directly down the middle of the tree.

Enjoy! :)

MIA

2008-09-03T15:05:00.000-07:00

I have some sad news...the wedding posts will not be continuing this week. Unfortunately, our one and only computer (my life at the moment since I am a FULL TIME student ONLINE) has decided to STOP working. She has to be sent in to the dr for about a month, which means all of my pictures will be gone. (No, I have not started uploading to an online share program and yes, I know that I need to start doing so asap). It was a sad and stressful evening last night, realizing I would not have my laptop for about a month. Thankfully we have found someone that will let us borrow one for the time being. But still no pics. So...there may be random posts like this for the next month, but I am not expecting anything too exciting. :( Once said laptop is back in my possession, wedding posts should resume. (Should meaning: hopefully :)

We love weddings

2008-09-02T09:48:00.000-07:00

Most girls I know love going to weddings and second only to going, love looking at pictures of weddings. I am the same way-I love all things wedding. For the next couple days I am featuring a beautiful wedding. This wedding was spectacular. The bride. The venue. The decor. The food. The cake. The dj. It was all amazing. And that is not just because the bride was my cousin. I would have said the same thing if she weren't my cousin because this truly was a beautiful wedding with delicious food :). I helped a bit beforehand with some minimal details, but it was the bride (cousin), the mom (aunt), and my mom who pulled this beautiful shin-dig off. WOW. Here are some pics from that August 2 wedding.

Here is the aisle pre-ceremony...this was a beautiful church. When the lights were down and these lanterns were glowing it was amazing.

Please look closely at the ring-bearer. First because he is my nephew :) secondly because he is wearing orange converse. How amazing is that. Seriously, orange converse and a black tux. Perfection.

More to come on this lovely wedding...stay tuned!

Back to business.

2008-08-30T23:23:00.000-07:00

So I admit, I have written handfuls of personal posts in the last couple months, and to be honest, I will probably do a lot more in the next few months. Why? Because I like life and I especially like mine in particular because well, after all, this is the only one I am living, right? So, this is not an apology for personal LIFE postings, it's more of a celebration that I have other goodness coming your way! We are getting back to business! That's right folks, I have got some fun little "creative" things headed your way! (It's about time, I know).

So I know I stated this post was not going to be a personal post. Well, I kind of lied. This post actually holds the "personal" and "business" title all in one! I think you will like it anyway though. :) Enough jabbering, let me get to it! This is the invitation I designed {along with my creative bro-in-law} for my best friend's bachelorette party. We didn't want the typical bachelorette themed invites or party so this ended up being a perfect combination; enough sassiness for a bachelorette party and yet still personal to Jenna. I especially loved combining the teal in with the pink & black. Not only did it seem perfect for her, but it seemed fun and a little different from the norm. (Please ignore the missing text from the invites. I deleted addresses, names, and phone numbers for the sake of privacy).

It was a great girls weekend out; fun was had by all! On the final day of the weekend, us girls decided that we need to start having an annual "bachelorette" party even if no one is getting married! It's easy to get caught up in life and all the wonderful things it brings, and forget how much fun it is to get away and have some good fun with the girls. Hopefully next summer I will be posting the invitation for the annual "married" bachelorette party. :)

couldn't resist...

2008-08-27T23:29:00.000-07:00

As I have stated multiple times, the beach was beautiful and the weather perfect a couple weekends ago when we were in Pismo. We enjoyed being down on the sand goofing-off and breathing in that salty air! We have also really been enjoying our new camera lens that my husbands parents got us! They actually bought it for their trip to Alaska (which they got A.M.A.Z.I.N.G. pictures of), but technically they bought it for our camera. So amazing. Anyway, it's been fun playing with it and getting used to it. I'm still always having to call her and ask her questions like when to turn this dial or what this number should be at, or what speed, etc... She has always been so kind though in trying to teach me how to use this fancy thing. (Even back in high school she was teaching me how to use the settings on my old canon!) The more amazing thing to me is that she knows what the heck all these little buttons are for! (I am definitely going off on a tangent right now, but seriously, there are so many buttons and numbers it's like a different language.) Anyway, my husband and I are by NO means professional (I'll leave that to those listed in my blog roll), but it's fun to be able to snap pictures and have them turn out half-way decent, right? I used to get so frustrated when I tried to take good pictures and they turned out bad. ESPECIALLY WHEN I WAS PAYING FOR FILM. Now I just snap a million pictures and hope one turns out good. :) hehe

Anyway, back to the point of the story: couldn't resist... was this moment right here. How precious is she?

The fog in the background really makes the whole thing a lot better but she was too cute! I couldn't pass up the "kodak" moment. :)

treasures.

2008-08-26T22:06:00.000-07:00

Since I was a little girl I remember collecting fun little treasures on the beach with my family. To this day it's still something I absolutely love. I don't always keep these treasures, but I love hunting for them. Seeing these natural beauties in all their rawness makes me smile a lot.

I got so lucky a couple weekends ago when my husband and I were at the coast with his family...there were lots of treasures to be found!

I love the purity of this white shell against the sand... it seemed as if it was gleaming off the bright afternoon sun.

This little feather was perfectly laying on the sand all by its lonesome. I am not a big seagull fan, but isn't this feather beautiful? I love the lines in it.

A glowing piece of jellyfish. Sort of looks like a baseball mitt doesn't it?

I loved the teal in this shell, it's not often that I find these beautiful blues in seashells!

Can you believe it? I found a huge jellyfish! I was wanting to play with it and step on it until my husband told me that it was flipped upside down. That would have been real bad. :)

One seashell that I am absolutely in love with is the sand-dollar. They were all over the beach that specific day, but this broken and rusted one in particular grabbed my interest.

The sun was bright, the water clear, and the sand clean. It was not a typical day at the central coast!

Spiky seaweed. I just thought this was cool!

Happy Feet

2008-08-22T01:07:00.000-07:00

I smiled tonight when I looked at my sweet little friend Aron's blog. Her dedication and tendency-to-obsess {she doesn't just follow through, she goes above and beyond on everything!} is quite inspiring so I am usually smiling when I read her blog! However, tonight was a sweet little surprise because I saw that she posted this. Yay! She wrote out her thank you cards! I hope all her donors like them a lot and smile when they see those cute little shoes! As a small side-note, Aron finally completed her first marathon a few weeks ago and she was nothing short of a rock*star. She is now training for her second marathon! WOWZERS. Talk about passion, huh?! (See that comment above in italics? That is exactly what I am talking about). :)

Welp, I am off later this morning for my lady-loves (remember le creuset?) bachelorette party! It should be lots of fun...Perhaps I will share some pictures of the planning process in the near future. :) Until then, happy Friday to everyone and I hope you have something real fun planned for this weekend! (AUGUST IS ALMOST OVER. OMG!)

Registering

2008-08-15T00:21:00.000-07:00

Isn't registering seriously one of the greatest things ever? My husband and I had waaay too much fun with this wedded tradition. Have you ever heard the story? No? Well, pull up a seat, grab a drink and let me tell you.

Months before our wedding, we drove to the local bed bath and beyond as it was the first store on our "to-register" list. We were register-virgins at the time. If I recall, we got to the store around 4pm or so and started registering at approximately 4:30pm. We started in the huge front section of the store. *Side-note: I'm not positive, but I would think most BBB's are set up similarly with the first section of the store containing all the little random kitchen thingy's, like canisters, utensils, paper towel holders, ice cream scooper's, egg timers, you get the picture.* Back to the story- Husband and I started in the front "kitchen-heaven" section and we were clicking away. The problem was, we were not clicking fast enough. We discussed every single item that were to appear on our registry as if each of them were a matter of life and death. You might be thinking that is okay since we were going to marry and share these items until the end of time. Well, I would agree with you and that is why it was the way it was. BUT, you haven't heard the rest of the story. Husband and I continued on snaking through those tiny aisles in the same section. Hours later, we finished the first section of the store and eventually found ourselves two sections further in the "dishes," where we were completely wiped out. To make the story even better, it was past closing time and we had not even made it half way around the store! At this point, we were on a first name basis with the BBB employees (who loved us after our wedding), and we realized that this glorious "registering" thing was going to take much more than a penciled-in Saturday afternoon.

We eventually finished registering at BBB along with 2 other stores, and the rest is history. Our home is now filled with lovelies and we look back and giggle at those moments of comparing this spoon to that spoon or these tongs to those tongs. (Yes, we pondered every single item on that registry, even if it was 12 pages long).

A year and a half later we are quite happy with our still-new appliances, utensils, and collection of kitchen bowls. However, I have happened upon something that has brought all those feelings back again. Those feelings of wanting to register. Again. and Badly. Meet her...

One of my BFFs is getting married soon. She and her fiance have had the lovely joy of registering over the last couple months. She and I were chatting about the joys and lengthiness of the registering process one night, (while the boys played wii of course :), and we pulled up their BBB registry. That is the point where I think I may have gone into convulsions. Since when does BBB carry Le Creuset?! Cause they sure didn't carry it when we registered! Believe me, that would have been another two hours of our time in the store. So when did they start carrying it? Does anyone know? To perplex you even more, this gorgeous 5 3/4 Quart covered dish is a wopping $89.99! (I know you are calculating the price with that 20% off coupon right now!) I am just flat out shocked! I told BFF that I may just have to buy one for her and me at the same time. :)

Did everyone know that BBB carried Le Creuset except for me??

memory lane & lots of sand.

2008-08-11T23:51:00.000-07:00

It is back to reality around here, which means back to work, back to household duties, and back to the lovely heat. We had an eventful week and a half that started with my cousins incredibly beautiful wedding (more to come on that later!). After the 3-day wedding affair, my entire family packed up and headed to Carp. Our favorite place. Grandma and Grandpa even joined us for several days, which was a blast of course! As we were laying on the beach one day, my mom realized that we had 4 generations of family sitting on the beach with over 52 years of coming to that very spot. Isn't that amazing?! My mom started camping at this very place when she was just 4 weeks old and my sister started the tradition with our family when she was 6 months old. Perhaps that is why we love this place as much as we do.

We spent every day laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, building sand castles, and plain old relaxing. We spent our evenings walking to town, eating delicious food, going to the farmers market, visiting our favorite candy store, and laying around the beach house {Yes, we normally camp, but due to the entire world falling in love with our favorite campground, we were unable to get reservations this year. We got a beach house instead.}

Lana (1 month) enjoyed the ocean air and slept peacefully on the beach while her brother Ethan (5) and sister Grace (1.5) played hard. every. day. They are beach-kids to the core. I had a lot fun snapping photos of the little ones and since this is my blog I thought I would share them with you. Why the heck not? Enjoy! (And please, for the love of all mankind, don't start camping in Carpinteria after reading this lovely post about it. My family would really like to pick up the tradition again.) :)

Va-K

2008-08-05T10:49:00.000-07:00

I have decided that this is the life. Really and honestly, this is the life. It doesn't get much better. I looove vacation. I also love summer when I am not at home in Visalia. The beach is glorious. The weather ideal. The food scrumptious. The company perfect. It's so good, we don't ever want to leave. I hope you get out of town and on a vacation this summer...it's all coming to an end so quickly!

Caprinteria. Home away from home.

Dishes

2008-07-29T23:41:00.000-07:00

I have long been a fan of Jessica Rust and her dishes. They are uniquely quaint and while they seem so dainty, they also look incredibly durable! The problem is, I can't decide which piece is my favorite. I feel like Jessica crawled inside my head, took a look around at my favorite things, and plastered them onto some dinnerware!

First we have the birds. Love birds. This is one of my obsessions.

Next we have blossoms. Another big obsession. In fact, our dinnerware has cherry blossoms on them. Love. Love. Love

Then we have the Family Tree. I love this dish for lots of reasons. #1. I love trees. Our wedding was filled with trees of all sorts. Every time I go to my in-laws ranch I fall in love with trees all over again. #2. I love the idea of a family tree. For the last several years I have thought about researching our heritage and creating a family tree for my husband and I. Seems really cool. How amazing to give this gift to a mom&dad or grandma&grandpa who have been married for a billion years. You could have their wedding date printed in the roots of the tree and have all their kids and grandkids names up in the branches. I would love that gift. But that's just me...I like sentimental things. :) #3. More birds.

This design could actually fall under the previous category of "trees," then again my love for birch is just about as strong as my love for trees so I think this platter should stand alone. Birch. Beautiful. And with initials engraved into the trunk is just precious.

More love birds, different design.

Love birds platter...(thought I would squeeze as many birds onto the post as I could.) hehe

What?

2008-07-26T14:39:00.000-07:00

I came across this couch online today, isn't it the strangest thing? Quite handy for a lounge I suppose, but I would be afraid to ever sit down. I actually like strange pieces of furniture but this is just really weird.

Fun times

2008-07-24T00:17:00.000-07:00

We had a great weekend here...

Oh my goodness the weather was beautiful! We just couldn't get enough of it; especially after the 110 degree weather we had been experiencing the week before.

I have had a sick obsession with Alcatraz my entire life...not sure why, but I am still fascinated by it.

We've got another busy month ahead of us...in fact, this is our last weekend in town for the next month. Eeek! August is full of weddings, vacations, and bachelorette parties...Can't wait! Any fun plans awaiting you?

...Another Birthday

2008-07-16T08:00:00.000-07:00

I have to apologize for the lack of creative/design related posts on this poor little blog, it's just that summertime is always so crazy busy for our little clan. Every person in my family, except for myself and one niece and nephew, celebrates their birthday between June & August. Craziness! Because of that, it seems as though the only posts I am doing these days are birthday related. So, cheers to another personal birthday post! :)

If you see this pretty lady today, tell her happy day!

Happy Birthday Mom. YOU ROCK!!!

Yummy birthday celebration dinner last night at Tahoe Joe's. And of course birthday breakfast is required today. :)

Hotter Day

2008-07-09T23:13:00.000-07:00

Just when I think it can't get worse...it does. Today topped out at 108. So I have decided to make this scrumptious breakfast tomorrow and then head out to this lovely tropical paradise. Sounds like a perfect day to me! ;-)

Hot day.

2008-07-08T11:25:00.000-07:00

When it is this hot outside, you have to pretend you live somewhere else. Somewhere tropical and lovely with fresh fruit in abundance and of course, fresh squeezed lemonade. This post is in honor of my husband who is outside working in this dreadful heat; and on the steaming asphalt no less.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY II

2008-07-03T11:06:00.000-07:00

This past weekend was full of birthday celebrations! The most exciting birthday celebration was that of our new precious niece Lana Kate who was born Saturday the 28th. Her brother and sister are absolutely in love with her; watching them cuddle her and kiss her is absolutely priceless. (See for yourself.)

My cute hubby holding his little niece just hours after she was born.

Ethan & Grace were so excited to have a new baby sister.

Grace really liked it when Lana cried. It was like her baby dolls had come to life. :)

Lots of kissing going on.

Sweet little Lana sucking her thumb :)

Happy Birthday I

2008-06-30T00:27:00.000-07:00

I had a lot of fun seeing this party come to life. There is just something about those bright beautiful colors that make me so happy!

Scrumptious triple chocolate cupcakes with chocolate buttercream made by Shelly Wade Gourmet Desserts & Wedding Cakes 559.318.7658 (Simply to die for).

I've said it before and I'll say it again, hosting/designing parties at Fugazzis' private banquet room is a dream come true. Not only is their food delicious and their back room beautiful, but their staff is also rockin! (Seriously, I have never seen customer service like it and that's why I keep going back).

I really enjoyed tying in beautiful paper products to this party; like the scrapbook paper wrapped vases and the 'happy birthday' sign. It's amazing what you can do with paper!

Birthday Bash

2008-06-24T16:07:00.000-07:00

This week I am wrapping up some final details for a 30th birthday party! I love celebrating birthdays, especially BIG ones, so it has been a lot of fun putting this together. It's also a first for me and the little bid-nis since I have never actually been 'hired' to do a birthday party. I guess we can check that off the list now. :) Looking forward to more birthday celebrations to come!

(Sorry about the white-out block {ugly} but you get the picture!)

These invitations were a lot of fun. They were inspired by the birthday girl's love for sewing and her passion for all things bright and cheerful. I used a chocolate brown and apple green metallic card stock and sewed the two pieces together with a salmon colored stitching. The front of the invitation displays a yellow flower cut from a textured linen paper, while the back displays the chocolate brown print. Enjoy!