Christmas – Withjulespham

Home for Christmas

Our first Christmas since moving to Charlotte and it couldn’t have been better! We jam-packed our schedule to see and be with as many family members and friends as possible.

I told myself I was going take photos with Hans to capture all my favorite moments and…it did not happen.

I just get so caught up with all my favorite people and would just rather be “in the moment” with them. Ya’ know?

I’ll do better next time. Maybe with just my camera phone, which is easier to whip out.

But I did convince the Tran Clan to take “dressy photos”. It was a hot mess, but I’m still happy we did it. Photographing 12 people at one time with a self-timer is no easy feat.

We were in our “Christmas Eve mass outfits” (we took these photos on the 22nd) in our parents’ backyard.

I took a few individuals too. Apparently I was having a focus-issue and didn’t know till I got these scans back.

One of the few negatives when shooting film: Not knowing what you did wrong and adjusting right away. But I think I know what I did wrong.

Photo cred: Jill!!
Love my Mommy and Daddy <3
Our best one!! Missing my brother-in-law, Ronald though.
This was our “serious pose” but I think it’s pretty hilarious.
So Jill and I really wanted to take sunset photos and the only day we could make it happen was Christmas Eve right before mass. And well that’s what we did. Ha.

Khang opted to “stay back with Mom so I can drive her to church”.

It was just me, Jill, and the beautiful sunset.

Jill always carrying that “Cali glow” with her. This is probably one of my favorite shots ever.

And she took beautiful shots of me too!
I planned to take photos of my in-laws too, but Mom was sick and the weather didn’t cooperate with us. Poo. We will try again this year.

But I did manage to get some sweet shots of our family in New Orleans.

Side note: St. Roch Market is a must! Not only is the food culturally diverse and delicious, the wonderful atmosphere is high in energy, yet warm in conversations with people from all different paths.

We were confined to a corner that made everyone face a wall. This made it hard to take photos, so I decided to play paparazzi and took some through the windows. I was trying to get candid shots.

Missing a bunch of faces. But happy we got to see our cousins!! It’s always a fun time!!

I hope everyone enjoyed the holidays with their loved ones. Khang and I sure did!

Thanks for reading and following along

with me,

Jules.

Christmas gifts 2016: Wrap it up

I finally get to share what I’m using to wrap gifts! I’ve been purposely saving these brown paper bags from the grocery store all year to do this…hopping I saved enough for all my presents.

I really love the organic feel and simplicity of this kind of wrapping. Plus I’m recycling it just like the bag said. And since I’ve been sharing some basics on hand-lettering, I figured it’ll be fun to add that too.

For this Secret Santa gift, I lettered lyrics from the song “White Christmas” because it’s my coworker’s favorite Christmas song.

Of course, I couldn’t help myself but to buy a bouquet of greenery from the market when I saw it the other day. The florist said it should last till Christmas. So who knows, I may use it for a few other things 🙂

Here it is all ready for my coworker to open. I’m so excited for her to see what’s inside.

So that’s one down and 37439734 more to go.

It was probably really ambitious of me to post five days straight, but I really enjoyed sharing something new everyday this week.

However, pretty sure it’ll be awhile till I do this again. Ha.

Thanks for reading and following along,

with me

Jules.

Christmas gifts 2016: Glass-anything

By now I hope you see a trend with glass-anything for hand lettering with a paint pen. Plexiglass works too, but it might not be as forgiving.

So there you have it…all that’s left is to wrap these little trinkets. I absolutely la la love to wrap gifts and cannot wait to share that tomorrow. It’s almost Friday y’all. Get Excited!

As always, thanks for reading and following along (especially this week)

with me

Jules.

Christmas gifts 2016: Hand-lettered macaroon jewelry boxes

When you really start getting comfortable and find your hand lettering “style”, you’ll soon find yourself thinking differently. You’ll think of any and every excuse to personalize an item while causally strolling through Hobby Lobby.

A huge light bulb went off when I saw these adorably tiny macaroon jewelry boxes the other day.

This one was harder to take photos of. It says “and i will hold what’s near and dear <3”.

I wish you could see them in person especially the gold paint ink I used for the lettering. Oh, just think of all the things you could write! Excited to finish and wrap them up in a bow for my loved ones.

Hope you stop by tomorrow to check out more gifts,

with me,

Jules.