True Birds

(Yayyyyy! I can finally tell you!)

Hello friends! Today I'm happy to expose the underground project I've been working on with my twin sister, Heidi, for almost a year now. We've kept our side biz pretty hush hush as we needed to place our accessory products in the hands of the right buyers/showrooms, magazines and influentials before we exposed our idea to the web world.

Our accessory company is called True Birds. We've been calling each other 'bird' for many years and thought the name fitting! We had a big vision of a business idea and limited time with newlywedness, work endeavors, moves and the sort but after lots of passion, designing, fabric districting, midnight sewing, marketing, graphicking, photoshooting,web-site-ing (I just made up a slew of 'ing' words!)and the like we have come out just in time for the last of the Christmas shopping! Yahoo!

We've struck some luck with a great buzz about the product. We're in numerous boutiques from Beverly Hills to the N.Y.C., have had some celebrity requests for True Birds from the likes of Mamma Mia's star, Amanda Siegfried as well as the writer of JUNO, Diablo Cody. We also just recently had a request for a meeting with the hair accessory buyer from Henri Bendel which will be held next month. We've been so blessed and we love how it is all naturally taking flight!

(A quick glance of what the True Birds, http://www.truebirds.com/ web store features)

So, we want to spread a little Christmas Cheer! We're offering a 40% off coupon for all orders until December 31, 2008. This coupon is for our family and friends and their family and friends so feel free to share it!

If you want to get an additional 10% off to get a total of 50% off your entire order its easy! All you have to do is post something about True Birds on your blog and/or facebook, send us a link of your post to truebirds@gmail.com and we'll immediately send you your 50% off coupon for your entire order as well as our much appreciation and email smile :).

fyi: All of our accessories are almost up! For the next couple of days the only items you can purchase through the website are the adult 'soft bands' and 'baby bands' because the others aren't linked for sale yet. If you would like to order others that don't have the link to buy online you can email us your order and phone number and we can do a paypal order via phone. Thanks!

*other fyi: you enter the coupon code on the page after you enter your credit card information

For Christmas Delivery order by

Wednesday, December 17th (11:59 PM PST)

*We would love to play Santa for you so we will pay the extra PRIORITY MAIL charge to make sure you get it just in time!

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Many thanks go to our so supportive husbands for letting us run with our dream, be our biggest fans, let us leave glitter, feathers, sequins and needles--ouch!--everywhere and also for backing us up financially in the state of the economy. Our sister Sandy has also been a true inspiration as one of our photographers, idea bouncers and super big fan. She's been with us all the way and so have her daughters, our darling nieces, who actually inspired us to create our Baby Birds line so younger heads of hair could have hip headwear too. Our sweet Mom and Dad and mother-in-law's have been so kind, supportive and interested, thank you! As well as our Grandparents and cousin Em. We also couldn't have looked profesh and all without the talents of Mariah and Nina, our two dedicated, talented and super rad photographers and our many willing friends that were able to model. Thank you ALL!

By the way, Heather and I don't enjoy 'modeling' our own products on the website but you do what you gotta do to cut costs! No offense taken if you get sick of seeing our faces dawn the products, we get sick of seeing our faces on there too!

http://www.truebirds.com/

I'm excited to finally share this with you!
Happy Holidays!

I'm Dreaming of a Silver Christmas.....

One of my great joys in life is decorating. Sometimes I even take it to the extremity of taking pinecones from the Wild Animal Park, and Paul giving me the "I can't believe you just did that" look. But I'm not ashamed :) When my mom and I went to Z Gallerie over the Thanksgiving holiday we were able to get our theme inspiration, "silver christmas." However, I am very frugal when it comes to picking up Christmas decorations. Below are some of my fun finds, hope you enjoy!

These branches rock, I have to admit I did get these lovelies from Z Gallerie, my mome was kind enough to pay for them they were half off the day we went! However, you can create this same look by using branches, preferably with berries and spray painting them with silver and glitter, very doable. I also found the snowflake tin canisters at Target in their dollar section, the mercury bird was also found at, can you guess...Target.

A fun idea for the centerpiece of your table is by using some very fun, detailed ornaments. Getting coarse sand, mine was purchased at Walmart, getting styrofoam balls and hotglueing small shells on, and other silver knick knacks and treasures :)

Our beloved tree, Paul and I had so much fun decorating it!

These pinecones are the infamous ones found at the wild animal park :), anyway all you have to do is dust it with some silver and glitter spray. The extra greens are fun to place anywhere. When you get your tree cut, I highly recommend you ask for the trimmings so you can use them around the house.

I missed the snow, so I had to have snowflakes somewhere! Here I have some 3-tiered frames and all you really need is very small, flat ornaments and frame them as you would a picture. If you have larger, flat ones you can attach them with ribbon to the frame.

Here we have a nutcracker, I am a little obsessed but they are so stinking cute. If you have ever seen the nutcracker you know this mean mouse character. It was too funny for me to pass up, I found it for Target for $10, what a steal of a deal.

In this platter there is poutpouri, purchased at Target with the silver pinecones.

I love Christmas and the excitement it brings to gather with friends and family to enjoy this festive time of the year. I have been listening to Christmas tunes and the christmas bells keep ringing in my head...just the way I like it. Onto Christmas presents!

Gobbly...Gobbly

Hello all, I have been neglecting my blog and feel like a blogging failure! I will keep trying to do better though I promise!

So, I just wanted to tell you about my special turkey holiday. We actually took the fun long road trip to Utah. Paul's sister Ruth was due on Thanksgiving and Paul's mom of course wanted to be there for the shining event so she hopped a ride with us! Paul's mom is so witty and funny...always telling embarassing moments of Paul's childhood...which I thoroughly enjoyed. It was super hard for her to leave her kiddos at home for Thanksgiving let alone two weeks! We were so proud of her!

We made our first stop at Ruth's in Provo. Here she is the mother-to-be she looked so great, it was hard to believe she was the full 9 months. We were all anxious for her to go into labor and in order to push that baby along Ruth drank herbal raspberry tea. Poor Ruth it wasn't the tastiest tea in the world...


Then we headed to my parents home in Bountiful. It was fun having my parents all to ourselves, spending some special one on one time with them. I was able to help my mom out in the morning by taking her to physical therapy to increase the strength in her wrist and elbow. It was really difficult to see her go through all of the pain...but she was a champ and pushed through the painful hour and a half sessions. I am so proud her!

While we were there,we we also happy to see my mom and dads future home! The view is absolutely stunning. When you look out the window you see hundreds of evergreens stretching across the hills. When you open the door you can hear the sound of rushing water...truly a paradise. The inside of the house needs some major work but my mom is going to work her interior design magic and make it breathtaking I am sure.

Turkey day came and one and all were stoked for the feast. My mom was not able to help much because of her injury so she did a great job at directing Heath, Danielle (my amazing future sister-in-law) and me as to what needed to be done. It was truly an adventure before this Thanksgiving I usually helped with the salad and setting the table...but this time I helped with the whole she-bang. My favorite task of the day was making the rolls, Danielle and I were a little nervous because we both had never attempted homemade rolls before...let alone being compared to the incredible baker my grandma, but my mom helped coach us and they turned out pretty darn good if I must say myself. On the menu:
Pear Salad
Turkey
Cranberry/Orange relish(yum!)
Stuffing
Mashed Potatoes
Yams
Rolls


We all filled up again and again and went around the table and told what we were grateful for. We missed having a couple of my siblings who were unable to make it. My sister Sandy, Tim and Kennedy along with my brother Jason and Rachel :( But we heard they had a fun Thanksgiving. We then trekked along to the notorious Twilight movie. I enjoyed watching it for the second time and Paul to my surprise also enjoyed it! Some of my other family members thought it was a little cheesy but I guess it didn't bug me all that much...I am a romantic, sappy individual and proud of it!

The day before Thanksgiving my mom and I went to Gateway together to pick up a couple of items and went into Z-Gallerie and fell in love with their inspiring Christmas decor. We had fun browsing the store for ideas and found the one item we could not pass up, the sparkling branches and since they were 50% off my mom purchased some for me she is so nice! On Friday I helped my mom decorate the house for Christmas. We had such a fun mother daughter day doing something we both loved to do! Paul did a good job at snapping a couple of candids...my little photographer!

Friday night we went to the Hale Centre Theatre to see the musical "Into the Woods", it was the first time I had seen it. It was a mesh of about 7 different fairytales and how they all worked together to make their dreams come true. There is something about seeing a live play not only is the set alive you feel like you are a part of it just as much as the characters are. When intermission came I was a little disappointed because when I was waiting in line this girl was on her cell phone talking about the play then she said she wasn't looking forward to the end of the show because.......-she gave the whole ending away, seriously the nerve! No surprise ending for me.

Saturday came all too quickly and Paul and I packed up and headed off. We already had a full car at this point but I insisted that we take a couple of branches that were cut so I could take them home and spray paint them. Oh the silly things I do for decorations. It felt like I was in a forest when I was driving and looking through my rear-view because of the twigs that stuck out every angle. Paul was a champ and hardly complained about them at all.

At this point Ruth was about to get induced but we had no idea how long it would take before the baby came. So we headed off we were happy to find out that the baby was delivered at 5:00 p.m., if only we had stayed around a couple of more hours! Congrats Ruth and Jared we are so happy for you!

Under the Sea Halloween

Oh, how I love Halloween! Ever since I was about six I worked in a costume shop. I loved it, it was so much fun to go through the many aisles and pick and pull costumes off the rack to change me into whatever I wanted to be for a given day Whether it was a genie, witch,...you name it! This holiday definitely holds a special place in my heart!
Ever since I moved to California I have had a difficult time not living in a costume shop for the month of October. It wasn't until the 29th of October till I realized Halloween was almost here! Heather and I were in LA at the time and decided since we were close to the fabric district to go and check out some patterns and figure out what we could pull together last minute. We were going to go with cave people...until we saw some awesome sequin fabric. I had always wanted to be a mermaid and here was my grand chance, so we picked up random pieces of fabric we felt would go well together for a mermaid and a merman! Halloween is not Halloween for me unless I dress up!
The day of Halloween was kind of hectic and Paul came home a little bit later so we tried to make the merman costume work on him....but he ended up looking like a crossdresser and decided to bag his costume. However, lo and behold he pulled out an awesome tiger outfit his mom had made for him! Seriously, he made the funnest tiger. Every once in awhile during the night he would pounce out in front of people...it was hilarious!
We ventured off first to Seaworld, and I felt truly at home :) We met up with some friends Adam and Natalie, and saw the Rockin Shamu show. It was really fun to be there and see all the kiddos dressed up. We trick or treated and they gave us loads of Swedish Fish, how appropriate. Let alone they are one of my favorite treats!
We snapped some shots with the under the sea crew.
This girl was so hilarious, she was so funny...just look at that face. Isn't it funny how chilren are dressed up as he or she-devils!

Here is Paul and I, me trying to pull the face of a mermaid and Paul pulling out the claws!

Taking the trolley downtown. It was my first time and it was so much fun! Once we were downtown we people watched...our favorite costume of the night was the pacman crew. One dude was pacman and he had his three accompanying ghosts chasing after him...it was hilarious!

We then went to the mall and Paul had his first experience with Hot Dog on a Stick, crazy I know! It was a definite hit!
Last but not least we went to Ghiradellis for some ice cream. Thanks for joining us for Halloween Adam and Nat!

Excuses...excuses

So have I dropped off of the planet, some of you might ask! Not necessarily I just have been crazy busy with a project that is nearing it's end, I will definitely post about it when it is finally finished. I choose to use this blog like my sister as a personal journal of the adventures and happenings of life. So below I have posted many of our activities over the course of the month. Can we say post overload?

Sweet Cameron

Here is some fresh sweetness from Heaven. Baby Cameron, our first time seeing her I was absolutely beaming. She is so precious and beautiful. I still can't believe how small newborns are! Doesn't she have such a precious little face, we were lucky to have her awake, for the most part she is soundly sleeping! We are so glad she is here, happy and healthy! Now we have three fun-filled nieces, we are so blessed! Job well done Sand and Tim!!

Paul and I taking in every moment with this sweet baby girl...babies are the coolest!

Beach Day

I love beach days. We met up with Paul's cousins Cathy and Ricardo and their little kiddos along with Hyrum and Tiffany and baby Rachel. We had so much fun chillaxing on the sand. We are so lucky to live so close we definitely need to take advantage of where we live.

Here's cute Nephi, pulling a mischevious face!

Paul the peacock.

Shout out to Tiffany who took this great picture of Paulie and I.

Sweet Baby Rachel, I love those cheeks!

Ruth's Baby Shower

Here is a pic of the decor for Ruth's baby shower, you can't tell she likes pink can you?! It was so fun, Tiffany did such a great job planning everything out from the invitations to the games to the party favors. It was so fun to see Ruth I have not seen her since she got pregnant she only has about 90 days left, but she is still so small...she has just a little bump! One of the most entertaining games was the sippy cup chugging competition, I had never seen this before but I was laughing hysterically! Great job on the party planning Tiffany, and congratulations Ruth we are so excited for you!

Comedy Club

Awhile back Nat and Brandon invited us to go with them to a comedy club! We had such a fun time. I decided I liked the comedians who had their performance scripted out, improv seemed overused and not nearly as funny. The last comedian was my favorite! He was Asian and he was pretty much mocking himself the entire time. Paul and I had the same favorite joke of the night. One of the comedians was commenting on how crazy little kids act. He was hanging out with one of his buddies and was kind of out of it when his friend's family came home and all he remembers is a little kid running up to him and whispering in his ear "I used to be a cat" and then ran off. Seriously, hilarious! He definitely had the last laugh. Thanks again Nat and Brandon for the fun night out!

Paul pulling a face as usual trying to impersonate Charlie from "So I Married an Axe Murdere", whilst holding the votive candle getting ready to blow it out.

And Natalia and Brandon, they are so photogenic, seriously!

Sea World

Paul and I broke down and got Sea World passes! It has always been a childhood dream of mine to go to Sea World but for some reason or another it never worked out. We had the perfect excuse to get passes because one of my best friends from college was visiting and invited us to go with them. Paul and I have been having a good time going after work during the non-busy hours to enjoy the park. My favorite show would be the Rock'n'Roll Shamu I know so cliche, right? I just think it is unbelievable how the trainers teach the Shamu all the cool tricks!

And of course one of our favorite places was the Sesame Street bay of play
watch out Paul the panther is ready to pounce, what is that look on his face?!

This pic was hilarious, I had to post it. For some reason or another I have the hairstyle of Alice from the brady bunch. Paul looks like he is about to cry because I ate all of the cotton candy. Me enjoying every minute of it..he..he

And the firework show to end the experience with a bang!

Silly Rhinocerus

My fab parents came to town so we met them in Coronado. I love Coronado it is such a fun place to visit. We want to an awesome Zaggat rated restauraunt called the Rhinocerus. What drew us in was the fun decor and the presentation and last but not least the price. My mom and I had a fun time parousing around looking at everyone's yummy plates of food, getting ideas as to what we were wanting to get. Kinda funny my mom even started talking to a random stranger who actually offered my mom to take her left-overs...my mom is so energetic and fearless I love it!
The Paulster and I.

The parentals, they are so stinking cute!

After dinner we went window shopping since everything was closed (probably a good thing) and came across this butterfly fantasy!

We then ventured on to the famous Hotel Dell Coronado and walked around searching for Maggie Moos in hopes of indulging in a scoop of divinely flavored ice cream. To our utter dissapointment they had closed, oh well. Thanks for the great time mom and dad we love you!

Padres Night!!

Good ole Nat planned this fun event! What was the highlight of the game the $1 hot dogs of course. I don't believe I have ever seen hot dogs so cheap at a baseball game. Kind of sad they have to have special $1 hot dog nights to bring in the crowds, but we aren't complaining the hot dogs and company were well worth it.
Paul is a major A's fan any baseball event we go to you can guarantee he will be sporting this hat.

It was fun sitting up in the nosebleed section besides the face that we had some crazy hooligans that were yelling into poor Joselyn's ears. We think they secretly knew that Joselyn was a teacher and were out to get her from the beginning. Don't worry Joselyn gave them a piece of her mind and put them in her place. It was kind of annerving that the kids' parents refused to quiet them down at all. I mean half of our section kept on looking up in our direction expecting the parents to do something but never did, craziness!
The girls!


Big question of the night is did the Padres win? A resounding no, but hey we were there for the hot dogs and social aspect, overall a great night!

Oh funny story as we were on our way to the game while we were stopped at a stop light. Nat was conversing about people on the street and how cool some people think they are. At that moment we looked right ahead of us and noticed a metro guy with his designer jeans and a rip nearing an area which should not be exposed. We were in awe at how his skin tone through the rip perfectly matched his ultra-tan face...we were amazed it must have taken some major effort to match his face to his derierre!! Wish I had a pic to prove so you could see the evidence.

The Blue Wavestorm Wonder!

I have always dreamed of being a surfing chick. So a couple of weeks back Paul and I invested in the one and only Wavestorm. Where did we purchase this 8 foot wonder, Costco of course! If you go to any beginning surf beach I can guarantee you will find about five of these boards floating around.

What is so fabulous about this board? It is made of foam, super thick, light, and last but not least super easy to balance on! I have attempted to surf in the past but have never been truly successful. By the time I paddled out on the 10-foot wooden board I was too exhausted to even catch a wave because it was so heavy. With the Wavestorm I paddled in and caught the wave super easy and I was actually surfing, it was the coolest feeling ever!

Paul gave it a whirl and did amazingly well. It was kind of funny seeing my 6'6" man surfing it up. The Wavestorm is my beginning board and I love it! Our friends Drew and Kathleen came to the beach with us this last Saturday, Kathleen did amazingly well for her first time and Drew the surf king shredded the Wavestorm on the big waves.

Just living the dream!

The Knothead Craze

This last weekend I had the amazing opportunity to help represent Knotheads in Las Vegas for Cosmoprof which is one of the largest beauty conventions in the U.S. In total there were about 800 vendors displaying their products in hopes to be picked up by large beauty corporations. If you have never heard of a Knothead, I seriously urge you to check them out. Definition of a Knothead: a unique hair accessory that does it all from sleek to funky to classis all in a matter of minutes! I have fallen in love with Knotheads and with the unlimited possibilities to make your hair stand out in fun and unique ways. I have thrown out my bobby pins and have resorted myself to just using a knothead to change up my hairstyle on a daily basis, I love it.

Out of all the 800 vendors Knotheads created the most buzz! The event lasted three days in the duration we were hit up by huge names such as Ulta, Sally's Beauty, Target, and Costco just to name a few! One of the most exciting proposals came from a representative that has major connections to Disney, she wants to put Hannah Montana on the front of the packaging. Hannah Montana is a super-celebrity at the moment and anything with her face on it sells tremendously well! There were people from all around the world getting knotted up in the craze, you should check it out Knotheads at www.knotheads.com

It was so fun working with the Knothead crew, my awesome cousins Scott and Jessica Law are the head honchos of the company and are an absolute blast to be around. I also got to hang out with the twinner, who works as the head honcho of marketing and of course the amazing Katie Squires...life could not get better, but I did miss the hubs terribly. I loved being able to introduce the product to so many different people from all around the world. It was such a conducive environment for me to be in and I loved every single second of it. All in all it was a lot of work but it sure makes a difference when you love who and what you are working for!

The Crew!

Katester and I true Knothead blue inside and out, and aren't these shirts abolutely adorable I love them!

I totally have my buns of steel going on!

Oh and did I mention how incredible the booth was?! Heather and Jessica spent a great deal of time searching out the perfect items that would keep the look clean and fun to match the amazing branding. People left and right commented how much they loved the branding and the packaging.
What I did during my time off!

I am stoked that Las Vegas finally has a Cafe Rio, I got my fill there twice and it was ohhhh so delicious!

We had a fun time at the Mandalay Bay hotel other than the fact we were walked in on twice first by one of the employees and the second time by a couple, kind of messed up! We were a little frustrated and we called in and they felt so bad they gave us $50 worth of free room service. For breakfast we got a yummy fruit tray with bran muffins...it was delicious!

The beautiful Bellagio water show...love it!

Heath and I walking the Strip!

The twinner and I indulging at the Rainforest Cafe.

The fab glass sculptures in the bellagio, and I hear each flower costs $10,000...crazy!

Stretching out on the nifty statue after being on my feet all day.

My new do I love to wear all the time, it gives a nice braided effect.
I am planning on hosting a Knothead party soon enough so stay posted!