our rituals: jamie and jake of a pair of pears

It all started with this print. I love everything about it—the typography, the simplicity, the power of coffee! Once I spotted it on Ann-Marie’s blog, I wanted to find out who was behind it. And that’s what led me to A Pair of Pears, the blog, graphic design business and paper goods company of Jake and Jamie Bartlett of Los Angeles (clever blog name, no?).

What began as a way to stay in touch with family after they got married and moved to SoCal (a week after graduating college!) blossomed into a beautiful blog, documenting their L.A. happenings, adorable dalmatian, Pixel, and graphic design musings.

They’re honest, sweet and super talented. And I love the name Pixel for a pup. Let’s get to know them:

Jake
Age: 25
Hometown: Traverse City, Mich.
Current City: Los Angeles, CA
Professional Title: Motion Graphics Artist

Jamie
Age: 25
Hometown: Battle Creek, Mich.
Current City: Los Angeles, CA
Professional Title: Graphic Designer and Letterer

Coffee time with our Pup.
Neither of us would consider ourselves morning people so we tend to take it pretty easy in the AM. It’s important to us to start our day off by relaxing as a family even if we have a million things on our to do list (morning cuddle time is also pretty important to our pup, Pixel). Jake’s always the first one out of bed around 7:30 while I sneak in a few extra minutes of shut eye. Once I hear the coffee grinder going, I know it’s safe to get out of bed because coffee is on its way. While we sip on our coffee, we usually catch up on our favorite blogs and scroll through our Instagram feeds to see what happened in the world while we were busy sleeping. And if we are going to be honest, there is probably an episode of Sponge Bob playing on the TV.

List.
Once we’ve had plenty of time to wake up, we’ll plan out the rest of our day by listing out our projects, goals and any other things that need to get done that day. Then we make a game plan of how it’s all going to get done. We both work really well this way, and it keeps us productive and on the same page.

Walks.
We love going for walks together and of course Pixel comes along too. On Saturdays we change up our morning routine and make the trek down to the coffee shop to treat ourselves to a fresh pastry and spend the rest of the morning relaxing in the sun. There are also a bunch of yummy restaurants that are in walking distance that we love to frequent for dinner. And when the days get longer and the nights stay warm, we love to go grab an evening treat at our local frozen yogurt shop. I don’t think we would ever move to a place that wasn’t walkable. We would miss it too much.

Family Night.
We recently started what we call family night with our best friends/neighbors. Every Wednesday night after work the four of us get together. We’ve explored new restaurants and just sat and talked for hours. We’ve gone to the movies or even just stayed at home to relax and play games. These mid-week breaks are like a mini weekend that refresh us and jump-start the rest of our week. It’s funny but until we started doing this I kind of forgot that you can do fun things during the week and don’t have to wait until Saturday rolls around.

Thanks, Jamie and Jake! You can also find them on Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest.

Have a good weekend!