On an extremely hot summer day in July, the Mutual of Omaha proud sponsor of life’s aha moments traveling airstream studio made it’s way to the Power and Light District in Kansas City, MO.  They basically go all around the country and interview every day people who have defining moments where you gain real wisdom and that can lead to a change in your life.  All of the videos are posted on the website and some of them make it to the actual commercial you see on TV, how cool is that?

I have never done anything like this before; I’m deathly afraid of public speaking, being in front of a camera, and being stuck inside of a hot car with people I don’t know.  But we all must step out of our comfort zone once in awhile right? So I agreed to do it on a Friday after a business trip I was supposed to arrive home on Thursday from.  That Thursday my flights were delayed and I had to spend the night in Chicago, only get 4 hours of sleep and fly home on Friday morning.  I figured I would nap on Friday morning but i couldn’t.  It was 100+ degrees outside too.  Tired, hot and nervous as can be, I drove myself out to the airstream mobile.  When I got there, everyone on the Mutual of Omaha team was extremely friendly and nice as can be, which made the experience very pleasurable and calmed my nerves!

Ten sweaty minutes later,  I was done.  Did I mention it was 100+ degrees out?  Oh yea, I already did, but just wanted to reiterate it as an explanation for my sweaty glow…

To view the video, click on the above picture or here.

To sum things up, my blog, this blog, has truly been a blessing for me.  It has allowed me to express my creative passions with the world, with you, my dear readers.  I’ve used my right brain more than ever in these last 7 months.  I’ve become a photographer, a seamstress, a crafter, a baker, and a blogger.  You’ve welcomed me into your community with open arms, big smiles, and sweet comments!  But the defining moment, my aha moment, that started it all was when I was in my mother-in-law’s basement, learning how to sew.  I felt relaxed, empowered, and CRAFTY with that sewing machine.  The world (or really just a few pieces of fabric) was in my hands and I was ready to change it.  If I can do it, you can do it.

If there’s something you’ve been dying to try, GO, DO IT, what have you got to lose?  And if you’ve already done it, I’d love for you to share what your “aha moment” was!

12 comments

Tags: blog community, inspiration, video

Happy September friends! Today I am super excited to bring you an awesome DRESS GIVEAWAY hosted by Yena, the fashionista behind Kfashionhouse! I found her shop through a mutual friend (thanks Janet!) and I absolutely adore everything about it. Kfashionhouse is an online clothing store dedicated to bringing you, beautifully designed Korean and Japanese style fashions at affordable prices. The merchandise is trendy, sophisticated, fun but also comfortable to wear for every-day women and for fashionistas everywhere.

{shop} {blog} {twitter} {facebook}

{Meet the Shop Owner}

1) Tell us a little about yourself.

I am a caffeine-loaded, Lancome eye-liner obsessed girl who, just over a year ago, decided to take fate into my own (fashion-needy) hands. My whole life has consisted of obsessively reading Vogue and WWD, watching copious amounts of FashionTV and constantly channeling some fashion icon or other. (Currently channeling Vivien Leigh-for those who care to know) I am that girl who just can’t say “no” in Nordstrom even when my credit cards are crying out in pain. I may be labeled as one who has their “priorities all out of wack” because I would honestly prefer to starve for two weeks in order to buy a pair of Louboutins, but I feel fashion feeds my soul.

2) How did you get the idea to start up your shop?

A few years back (in college), I became obsessed with cultural fashion pieces. Think Kimono-inspired skirts and Hanbok colored scarves. Since then, I’ve immersed myself with learning about Asian fashion trends, Korean styles and Japanese street looks. It made me realized that my true calling in life was not tax law (plans of going to Law School) but fashion. Fast forward 3 months of craziness, sleepless nights, trying to communicate with Chinese merchandisers and Japanese Jewelers (I’m Korean), while attending school and voila! I opened my very first store. It represents who I am in every way, because I literally hand-select each piece I choose to have in my store. I also decided against going the big-name designer route because I wanted to cater to “struggling” shopping-gals, just like me, who want champagne on a beer budget!

3) What are some must-haves in every girl’s wardrobe?

A well-tailored black blazer, gorgeous brown leather boots, a fantastic pencil skirt, and a statement necklace (it can dress up any plain top or outfit).

4) What is your favorite item in your shop?

It’s hard to choose but it would have to be the Fine Lace Napoleana Blouse (perfect under a mini leather jacket with cowboy boots) and the Midnight Rendevous Dress (which happens to be the dress we are giving away today)!

{Reader Discount}

Yena is sooo sweet and is offering my readers a special discount.  From now through Wednesday, September 15, if you enter code “ALAMODE15OFF” at check out to receive 15% off your total purchase! How cool is that? I’m totally going to buy a dress… or maybe two!

{Giveaway}

Isn’t this dress so beautiful and sexy?  Great as a present or for yourself, it would look great worn as is or over tights/jeans and paired with tall heels!  Currently all of Kfashionhouse items fit a size Small (2-6) but they will be getting more size options in the near future.

{To Enter}

1. (Mandatory entry) Visit kfashionhouse and leave a comment on this blog post with the name of your favorite item!

2. (For an additional entry) Twitter about this giveaway and leave a separate comment with the link to your tweet or your twitter name. If you Twitter, please use @sandyalamode and @asian__fashion in your tweet so I can track them. And to make things extra easy, feel free to use this tweet:

Win a sexy SATIN DRESS from @asian__fashion’s kfashionhouse website on @sandyalamode’s blog! #GIVEAWAY http://bit.ly/cAcpCn

3. (For an additional entry) Like kfashionhouse on facebook and leave a separate comment letting me know you did so.

4. (For an additional entry) Become a follower of the kfashionhouse blog and leave a separate comment letting me know you did so.

5. (For an additional entry) Blog about this giveaway and leave a separate comment with a link to your blog post.

This giveaway is open internationally and ends on Wednesday, September 8 at 5:00PM CST. The winner will be chosen by random.org and will be announced on this blog on Thursday, September 9. Thank you SO much Yena and good luck everyone!

47 comments

Tags: discount, dress, giveaway

Need a delicious, unique, simple to prepare, crowd pleasing appetizer for a party?  Then try making these Pistachio and Goat Cheese Grape Truffles!  I made these for the Baby Shower I blogged about yesterday and they were a hit!  This recipe was given to me by Sue from Inspire, Fashion and Photography (she blogs about trendy fashion that catches her eye and has cute pics of her adorable baby girl as well)!

Ingredients

40 red (or green) seedless grapes
2 packs (1.5 ounce) goat cheese
1/2 cup shelled pistachios, finely chopped

Directions

1. Take a grape one by one and roll the goat cheese all around like a little ball.

2. Then take the grape with goat cheese around it and roll it in the pistachio nut mix.

3. Serve in whole truffle form or cut in half.

4. Truffles can be stored in fridge for up to a week.

Was that easy or what??  So easy that I probably didn’t need to show you a picture tutorial of it, oh well, at least I got to practice my food photography, yea??    These little bites are sweet, salty and sassy… and rather unexpected that a grape is inside if served in whole form, I love surprising people!

26 comments

Tags: appetizer, cheese, food, fruit

A few weekends ago, a couple girls and I hosted a pink + yellow baby shower for our friends Lai and Billy.  I played planner, host, cook, decorator, photographer and couldn’t have felt more in my element.

Isn’t the mommy-to-be at 31 weeks so absolutely radiant?  I love the contrast of the yellow rubber ducky against her hot pink dress, that’s the photo I’ll be linking up to Sweet Shot Tuesdays this week!

We hung up onesies and tissue paper pom poms for decoration across the living room.  And of course props to Martha Stewart for providing us with the  tissue paper pom poms tutorial!  These were soooo fun and quite simple to make, you can bet I’ll be making more in the near future!

And since food photography is my dream, I couldn’t leave you without some pictures of the delicious food!  Here’s the full menu:

Ham and Cheese Tea Sandwich
Cucumber Tea Sandwich – will post pictured directions + recipe soon
Pistachio and Goat Cheese Grapes – will post pictured directions + recipe soon
Brazilian Cheese Bread
Fruit Skewers
Lemon Cupcakes with Cherry Frosting
Banana Pudding
Strawberry Pie
Pineapple Pie
Brownie with Strawberry Cheesecake Ice Cream
Fruit Punch – Orange Juice w/ Pineapple Chunks
Pop

Thanks to everyone who helped make the food! 

Then the games commenced, the first one being “Which Male Can Drink The Apple Juice Out Ot the Baby Bottle Fastest In One Minute?“

Are you kidding me??  That’s all you guys could chug in a minute??  Hehe just kidding, I tried it afterwards and it’s not an easy feat, props to babies!

Then we played “Who Can Guess the Circumference of the Mommy-To-Be’s Belly?“

Followed by one of my favorites… “Guess What Chocolate Is In The Poopy Diapers?“  We had guests smell, touch, and LICK the chocolate.  Yes I said lick, gross.

And the last game was “Pin the Sperm On The Egg“.  Thanks James for being our egg holder!

And here are our lovely game winners posing with their prizes!  Great job guys!

Then it was present opening time where Baby Chen received tons of onesies, hats, socks, animal towels, and more!

But perhaps the real gift of the shower was having adorable little Natalie’s sweet presence.  Aren’t her blue eyes just soo enchanting?  I can already tell she is going to be beautiful when she grows up!

A few more shots posing with the adorable baby bump!

And as the guests left, we gave them these yellow and pink tin favor boxes filled with candy and tied with a matching tag.  I purchased the tin boxes at Michael’s, basically clearing out our local store.  And tags were designed by Jane Jeon of Olive Hue Paper Goods, as a DIY for Grey Likes Weddings.  I think the tags were originally designed to use for wedding favors, but I thought they’d be perfect for a baby shower favor as well! 

And lastly, we created this “Guess The Birth Date Calendar” for guests to lock in their votes for when they think Baby Chen will be born.  My guess is October 22, because that’s my brother’s birthday!

Congrats again to Lai and Billy!  Can’t wait to meet your beautiful baby girl!

45 comments

Tags: baby, food, food photographer, games, photography, shower, tissue paper pom poms

Rain, overcast, space needle, first starbucks, pike place, seafood, ahhh seattle we meet again! I’m so excited to be in this beautiful city witnessing the wedding of C+J. I’d like to think I was a semi-match maker for them since I was already planning on going out with J + friends when I invited C + friends to come along to the bar we were going to as well (this was about 4 years ago)… and the rest is history. I’ve also had a ton of fun helping C with any wedding questions that come along during the planning process. Of course I’ll be taking photos with canon 50d. But for now, I leave you a collection of items from seattle based designers, photographers and basically things that remind me of seattle!

1 christian louboutin “bianca” owned by i am stylish, so pretty!
2 alchemy goods bag (from a local seattle designer) seen on broken saucer
3 luxe clutch by laura bee designs (made in seattle)
4 a warm seattle snuggler by counting stitches
5 adorable it’s a raining cupcakes print by lipeony
6 amazing wedding photo taken by seattle based photographer yvonne wong
7 gold fill hand-wrapped tear drop with prehnite briolette by dotted line jewels
8 parfait organic ice cream truck spotted on the soho
9 darjeeling knot ring made by elephantine
10 pink light design seen on print & pattern

And in case you haven’t heard, there’s a 5 day wedding photography workshop going on right now hosted by the amazing jasmine star! She has loads and loads of useful information about tips on being a great wedding photographer (and just great photography tips in general).  Today is day 3/5 of live streaming videos and she’s actually going to be shooting a REAL WEDDING IN SEATTLE today, so you can follow in her thought process and see all that it takes that goes into shooting a wedding. For more information on the timeline, click here. Don’t worry, if you can’t watch it live, her videos are available for purchase afterwards. Neat stuff!

What are your weekend plans?

21 comments

Tags: accessories, ice cream, photography, travel, wedding

And we’re done. HELLO? Did you see that? We’re finally done with our basement renovation! And it only took a year! To see our progress from beginning to end, click here. Of course the last step of the process, laying down the carpet, did not come without a few bumps. We looked high and low at carpet styles, carpet colors, carpet pads, etc. We got prices from multiple stores and it took weeks until we finally landed on one, we had a 20% off coupon which helped too. The carpet we landed on was a light creamy plush carpet where the strands stick straight up. We were sent a samples of the carpet but were sent a different style, it was twisty, also known as frieze. We immediately called our sales guy and said, thanks for the sample but that’s not the carpet style we ordered, we ordered the plush one. He said he’d make sure the computer had the correct one and all was well. We decided to go with it and a few weeks later the carpet installers arrived at our house. The two guys went downstairs and did their thing. Once done, they called up for my husband to come down and look… and the first thing out of my husband’s mouth… “You installed the frieze carpet?” Profanity was strewn from the installer’s mouth. They messed up, they were supposed to verify with my husband before laying the carpet but they did not. But apparently the sales guy didn’t update the computer either… Mind you, I was on a business trip and my husband wrote to me and said “We have a problem. They installed the wrong carpet.” My mind was racing, my heart was beating fast, my husband sent a few pics and I wasn’t so sure about it. Pretty much we had two options: keep the carpet and get a discount or reinstall the whole thing and have to spend another day at home. My husband wanted to wait until I got home to make a decision, and the moment I stepped into the basement, I LOVED THE CARPET! I immediately dug my toes into the threads and laid down on the ground, big sigh of relief! Needless to say, we got a good chunk of money back so that sure was a bonus!

So without further ado, I present to you, our FINALLY finished basement!

As you walk down the stairwell, you’ll first notice the bamboo wallpaper.

And as you turn to the right, we have the wide open space with a beam in the middle and a cozy fireplace.

Say hello to frieze carpet, I just can’t get enough of digging my toes into it!

I just love the big open space without any furniture, maybe we’ll leave it like that for a bit longer. Marvin and I are such pack rats that I know once we start putting stuff back in the basement, it’s going to look cluttered. Although that means we can’t park one of our cars in the garage since it’s currently holding all the furniture… well parking outside is totally fine for summer/fall but I suppose we’ll have want to have that garage space back before it snows yea?

27 comments

Tags: basement, carpet, renovation

This weeks’ shots are brought to you by my trusty ole Canon Powershot SD770 IS, you know it, I am Canon for life!    I think I probably explained it in a previous post why I did not have my Canon 50D with me, long story short, brought the wrong passport to airport, luckily was rerouted in a later flight, but had to run home and get my correct passport and therefore did not have time to check luggage which meant no room to carry on Canon 50D… so pictures captured on Ottawa trip had to be with my point & shoot.  OK so that was probably the long version of the story right there.  Anyhow, Ottawa had BEAUTIFUL 70 degree weather all week and the downtown (Market) area where we stayed was super cute, tons of great restaurants, historical buildings, and SHOPPING!

Around the National Gallery of Canada Museum, Ottawa sure does have some amazing buildings and sculptures!  I love the composition and lighting of the first shot so I’ll be linking that one up to my3boybarians Sweet Shot Tuesday this week.

But the best view is one of the Parliament and Quebec all in one spot (did a little Light Room editing to these, my trial ends in 3 days, so sad!)

But aside from the amazing architecture, I was told not to miss the Beaver Tails (similar to elephant ears/funnel cake?)… one was a basic Cinnamon Sugar and the other was had warm vanilla icing, sprinkled with Oreo cookie crumbles and drizzled with chocolate sauce, nom nom!

And I also just happened to stumble upon some 3.25% milk and Yogen Fruz  Froyo (they mix the toppings INTO the yogurt) – never seen either of these before!

But what really struck our eyes was the CatsRUs catsitting and cat sympathy baskets car, *meow*

39 comments

Tags: architecture, car, cat, food, frozen yogurt, travel

We quite possibly have the best neighbor ever, the one that lives west of us.  He helps out with house projects, tells us where the best local joints to eat at are, and he gives us his extra vegetables!  A few weeks ago, he gave us a SUPER large zucchini and I had spent a few days agonizing over what to make with it.  And of course, I turned to my favorite trusty recipe site, www.allrecipes.com.  And yes, lo and behold, I found three perfect recipes to use up that super large zucchini.

Appetizer – Baked Zucchini Chips

These crispy cheesy healthy little wedges are very simple to make and taste delicious dipped in ranch!

***

Entree - Tomato Basil Zucchini

Again, this was super simple to make as you just mix all of the ingredients in a skillet and heat to boil.  You can totally improvise with this recipe and throw in whatever vegetables you’d like.  Totally delicious served over rice!

***

Dessert – Zucchini Chocolate Chip Muffins

The perfect way to sneak in vegetables into a delectable treat.  Never in a million years would I have thought there would be a scrumptious recipe out there that included zucchini AND chocolate chips in one.  The zucchini makes this muffin super moist (and you can’t really taste the zucchini) that no one will know you even snuck zucchini in it!   And of course, I gave a handful of these goodies back to the neighbor who gave us the zucchini!

20 comments

Tags: appetizer, dessert, entree, food, neighbor, vegetable

This past week I kept seeing the book Eat, Pray, Love all over the front stands at airports since the movie just came out.  I read this book a few months ago and just loved it so I can’t wait to watch the movie!  There probably couldn’t be a more perfect person to play the lead role than Julia Roberts, I love her.  The part that stands out to me in the book is when she goes to Italy and eats at all of these delicious places, especially the gelato o ne, YUM!  So for this weeks flavors to follow, I’ve scoured the web for different ways to eat gelato!

1 eat gelato out of a cup like julia roberts does in eat, pray, love
2 enjoy unique flavors of gelato in a chocolate dipped cone at black dog gelato in chicago, il
3 have a sample of each flavor at gail silverton’s gelato bar in los angeles, ca
4 gelato filled to the brim in a brioche bun seen on ms. adventures of italy
5 one of my favorite chefs from food network, giada de laurentis brings us a delicious chocolate gelato baguettes recipe
6 a recipe for key lime with graham cracker gelato by the talented no so humble pie
7 queen of crafts and cooking martha stewart brings us an ice cream waffle sandwich

how do you like to eat your gelato?  what’s your favorite flavor?

27 comments

Tags: gelato, movie

8 years ago… in the summer between my freshman and sophomore year of college… i packed my bags and went to taiwan for the summer.  it was a summer camp called loveboat, where taiwanese americans from across the world gathered together for chinese lessons, craft lessons, visiting all of the clubs that taipei had to offer and traveling around the taiwan.

…and 8 years later, i’m still keeping in touch with many of those friends through facebook… and most recently i was able to reconnect with two of them through blogging and then subsequently in person!

the beautiful sonja from SoNg Designs and her husband and sister took me around orlando, fl while i was out there on business.  sonja is such a fun bubbly person and a great designer!  she has some more pictures from the trip up on her blog, including a sequence of jumping pictures (or rather attempts) that we took!

and by now, you must all know who janie from janie hearts is!  she’s had a jewelry giveaway AND a custom critter letterpress stationery giveaway on my blog before!  if you don’t know her, you must visit her we heart paper shop for a dose of beautiful paper!  my husband and i had the pleasure of meeting her and her husband in NY over soup dumplings and bubble tea!  she gave me this set of letterpress cards that have a pink bow and my name on it, LOVE IT!

when’s the last time you’ve met up with old friends?

21 comments

Tags: friends, taiwan, travel