little roo {first swing}

My sisters wanted to take little roo to the park this afternoon. The cold front from the north was coming in town so we bundled up with many layers and took a short walk to the nearby park.

Little roo loves her aunties. So cute to see them play together.

When we got to the park, she was starting to doze off. After all 5pm has been her bedtime... (and we were there at 5:30pm) but we gave a try to see if she likes the concept...

... and she LOVED it! Forget about bedtime. She was giggling and laughing so hard...

Her adventurous soul totally melts my heart.

I see many more visits to the park in the future!

home {sweet} home

Hope you are welcoming the very sweet weekend! We had a lovely week with great companies. Now little roo and I are on the mini weekend adventure with my sis... so we will see how things develop in next few days.

Seeing these pictures make me feel all fuzzy. I am already missing home and warm snugs...

flea market find {functional beauty}

Few more items we brought home from last Sunday's flea marketing!
1. Made in Germany ceramic hand mold used at glove manufactures
2. Japanese wood marker "celebration" in Chinese character (second pic).

Aren't they pretty? I love that they were both used as functional pieces in their past lives! We are thinking of creative ways to use these old but beautiful goodies at our house. The hand mold could be a nice place to display/organize jewelries and I am thinking of ways of incorporating the wood marker as a part of the packaging process for items we ship from baum-kuchen shop.

What do you guys think?

flea market find {vintage kids' chairs}

Hello everyone. I would like you to meet our newest family members in our household - a pair of vintage chairs (collapsible and kid's friendly) - found at the Rose Bowl flea market last Sunday.

Craftsmanship on these chairs are impeccable! There is no glue used since everything is fastened by hardware or wood joints. They collapse so smoothly like they never get old! You can see that "someone" actually built them unlike their IKEA counterparts. The vendor (who was a pretty big guy)... sat on one of the chairs to show us how sturdy they are... and they did not fall apart nor flattened... I think we were sold when we saw that.

Eventually we will get a tiny kid's table to go with these chairs and they can live happily ever after in the little roo's room. For now grown-ups are enjoying one of them as a bedside table and other one to admire and drool over in the living room.

Happy flea marketing!

sweetness = happiness

I hope you are enjoying a lovely evening...

When we first started dating, we made an unofficial pledge that we would not go out for a big valentine's day dinner... just because it's so crowded out there and becomes little superficial to us when we dine next to all these other lovers.
*** disclaimer: please don't take me wrong. I have nothing against anyone else who have awesome dine-out experience tonight! enjoy:)

So as usual, we are keeping it as a very low-key celebration... starting the day with very sweet (vegan and almost no sugar/gluten) strawberry shortcakes. Right now special dinner is being prepared in the kitchen and I had a chance to secretly wrap a few strawberry shortcakes for dessert between little roo's bedtime and hubby talking on the phone.

It's the small details that make a big difference, right?

More moments filled with sweetness and happiness to come in next 365 days!

IDEA {customized party cups}

We had a small potluck gathering at our house yesterday.

You put German and Japanese together to prep the party, everything is done two hours before anyone shows up...

So I had some fun with plastic cups by customizing them with colorful mt masking tapes! I was hoping that our guest would hold on to their cups longer if they had some pretty patterns. No more half empty lost cups:) I think it looks especially pretty with colorful drinks in the cup.

I wish everyone a very happy Valentine's day tomorrow.

♥

Baking away!

I am one of those people who can eat sweets for breakfast, lunch, dinner... and still wouldn't mind having one last bite before my bed...  so when my friend (who probably knows me too well) gave me this recipe book from Babycakes in NYC, I was ecstatic! 

I am not a vegan nor on gluten-free diet..., but it doesn't hurt to eat healthier, right? Especially if they look this great on pictures...

After browsing through the book many many times, I had my first [go] at one of the recipes this weekend. Strawberry shortcake. I had to hunt for some very eclectic baking ingredients like coconut flour, spelt flour, dry soy milk..., etc. at Wholefoods but somehow I managed to have all the ingredients on my kitchen counter yesterday.

I have to say... it was surprisingly easy and simple to make their vanilla frosting and short bread. I put baking soda instead of baking powder and I forgot to melt coconut oil before putting it in the frosting mixture... so that screwed up the flavor and texture a little but they came out still pretty okay. I would have to try it again with right ingredients and process.

I see more baking/cooking photos to come in the future!

Happy weekend:)

the Message {framed}

When I was working with Jane & Dale on our Message Bag, they gave me some screen printed samples to check out. These samples were printed on pieces of scrap canvas with the two mantras we used... just to see how the screen print would come out on the material.

Instantly I fell in love with these samples so I was really happy when they let me keep one pair. For last few months I had them pinned on our breakfast nook wall with clips but now they are properly framed. To highlight the lovely canvas textures and edge fringes, I kept them exposed without using glass panel... pinned against a white washi-paper with silver clips.

I am totally in love with them:)

Also check out the blue Tina from Wooly Pockets!  (thanks Jane & Dale:) I love it as a little indoor succulent garden.

They totally make this little corner of the living room my favorite spot in the house!

thank you:)

I love packing orders... it feels little bit like sending the kids off to a college. (I would only know if it's true or not in another 18 years...)

I want to thank you for making the order from all over the world. LA, Seattle, Australia, Japan, New York... and all the other awesome cities...  I know each order means something to the person who is receiving the box on the other side of the mailbox and I appreciate the opportunity for these lucky  baum-kuchen items to walk the new life with you.

Thank you... and I hope these bags, pouches, cases, tapes... will give you happiness, strength and joy when you need one...

cheers,
-w

Behind the scene {collaboration with TWELVEZEROSEVEN}

I am so excited to finally share behind the scene story of baum-kuchen's collaboration with TWELVEZEROSEVEN!

Jane and Dale of TWELVEZEROSEVEN are the designers behind the Message Bag. We've been good friends ever since we first met at our design school and have been sharing our passion for great designs and creative lifestyle. They recently launched Snug Attack after having their adorable twins focusing on baby(twins) apparel with typography twist. When I saw their clever yet sophisticated collection, I knew that their aesthetic would be a perfect fit for the baum-kuchen shop.

We had great time brainstorming on possible design opportunities! We wanted to create something meaningful yet very functional for everyday life while highlighting their sense of style.  We have always used these two phrases, "Everything happens for a reason" and "It is what it is." as our creative/life mantras... so we were ecstatic when our creative magic sparked and came to the conclusion that we should use these phrases as a core of inspiration for this collection.

The result is the Message Bag... designed and hand screen-printed by Jane & Dale in their LA studio. Check out some of the photos from behind-the-scene in their shop and more! (photo credit to Dale for screen printing studio shots)

I am absolutely in love with their typographic interpretation of these mantras. They played with the contrast between first and second read on these designs. "Everything happens for a reason" reads as "YES" from 10 feet away and the upside down "It is what it is." makes you think twice when you first read it before realizing the actual meaning behind it.

These designs communicate their attitude towards everything they do and genuinely captures the essence of what I like baum-kuchen to stand for.

Thank you Jane & Dale! It has been a blast working with you guys:)

p.s. if you haven't seen the video we put together to showcase our Message Bag, check out the link here!
 
  

little roo {baby room}

Little roo was still feeling under the weather so we decided to spend a day to give her room a big make over!

Yeah. We have been one of those parents who didn't go crazy over the baby's nursery. Few reasons. 1. we didn't know what we really needed to do; 2. we just moved in this house when little roo was born so we didn't have time nor energy to tackle the nursery; 3. we didn't need the room yet... until today.

Now we have the room 90% finished, we are ecstatic! We have an open space where all three of us can spend time together comfortably. All the toys somewhat fit on her shelf and our living room has some breathing room again!

Soon we will be putting art works in her room and it will be THE place to hang out:)