I saw this shop featured on Black Eiffel. It’s in Abilene, Texas and the design was done by Ryan Feerer. I love it because it’s great looking, but I especially love it because Betty and June are our two youngest kids and the phrase “Betty & June” is used at our house a dozen times a day. : )
If I’m out and about and I see a shop with one of my kids names (like Oscar’s BBQ in Colorado), I snap a photo. It’s a simple, happy thing to collect. Do you have any silly habits like that?
That’s really cute. My grandmother is Betty and her lifelong best friend (60+ years) is….June!
So sweet, Jan! I hope my Betty and June will be lifelong friends too.
My story is just a bit different. When I was in elementary school our family usually went camping for our vacations. One year while camping in the mountains (I think maybe the Smokey Mts.) I found a postcard with a beautiful mountain scene and the name of the area on it. I sent that postcard to my grandma. Fast forward to years later. In 2002 I had my first child, a boy, and named him Cade. One day after my son was born I was at my grandma’s house. She pulled out the postcard that I had sent her years ago with that beautiful mountain scene and the area name……Cade’s Cove.
What a wonderful story. You gave me chills…the good kind!
wow. my parents live in abilene and it is such a tiny, unexciting town that it’s funny to see you featuring it. i love seeing things with family members’ names. i would love to start a photo collection.
Yay for Abilene!
What a fabulous idea that I think I will adopt!
I do the same! My favorites so far are Aubrey’s Meats in Ottawa, Canada; a crossword puzzle that had both my name and my last name as answers; and when we moved to Texas 11 years ago we were surprised to find that my name and my husband’s name are both small towns each about 20 minutes away. Fun stuff! Now I do the same for my little girls too.
We spent a weekend in NYC without the kids and I managed to snap shots of all 5 of our girls’ names: Divine, Pearl, Olive, Azure, Clover. It’s always fun to see your name big and bold on a sign!
What great souvenirs!
I do the same thing with street names! My cousin’s name is Adriana Maria and I saw a street named Adriana Maria, I snapped a pic and gave it to her she loved it.
I love the names! If you’re ever in Nashville, or actually Franklin, TN, a town south of Nashville, there is an amazing little Mexican place called Oscar’s Taco Shop. Or I suppose I could get a picture of the sign for you some time. :)
This sounds really redneck, but I collect pictures of clever vanity license plates I’ve seen… preferably photographed while driving. (I know.) It’s easy, takes up no space, and costs nothing. :)
Yes! My daughter’s name is Lucille so anytime I see something with Lucille, Lucy, or Lu Lu I snap a photo as well.
My grandma is a Lucille. Love that name!
It’s rare to see my name on anything American, but when I visited the Easter European states with our college choir, I found a store with my name on it! I took a photo…
Absolutely. Glad I’m not alone. My husband and I were in Zurich with our infant daughter and there was a Cafe Annabelle and I took a photo of it. Turns out there’s another restaurant named Annabelle in our hometown San Francisco too. But for some reason seeing it in a foreign country seems cooler.
Of course! Any time one of our names pops up (well, not my hubby, he has a pretty common name) I snap a photo. And I try to find books where the characters have the same name as my kids.
I have a thing for “toe shots”. As in I’m always taking photos of our feet. It’s totally random and totally fun and now my kids are getting into it. One of these days I’m going to make a photo book (“Oh the places we’ve been”) with just those photos.
My husband is a Thunderbird (car) aficionado so whenever I travel, and have the chance to capture them, I always take photos of signs, hotels, street names with that appelation. He gets a kick out of it.
What a great tradition, Mary!
My three children, Sophie, Henry and Oliver each have a collection of children’s books featuring characters with the same names. I have always done this, and now that they’re sixteen, twelve and ten, I have a hard time stopping it!
We lived in Ireland for a year and my daughter’s first name is a very common last name over there. I often took photos of bread, bread trucks, etc. b/c they the brand was her name. :)
Love that. Recently at BevMo I had to buy a bottle of wine with our sons name on it! Grayson. :)
Very cool, Melissa! And I love the name Grayson.
I used to collect Noah’s ark things but now I tend to collect fabrics.
My youngest son’s name is Mack. I have an adorable picture of him when he was 2 with a beautiful vintage red firetruck. My plan is to get photos of him with different kinds of Mack trucks as he gets older.
Those Betty and June signs are beautiful.
Such a great idea, Natalie! I’m sure he’ll love that.
what a super sweet tradition!!!
my kids names are judah and cordelia…not names i see to often but judah does have a “n-judah” shirt from the famous sf muni line.
what great names! i love that idea!
yes! i saw this too and immediately thought of you guys. PS I think I always start off my comments on here with ‘YES!’. you bring out the enthusiastic side of me i guess
Yes! I love enthusiasm!!
I also do this….and also with license plates :) I look for initials of people I love ;)
I love the way that the white names pop off the blue wall. Looks great.
Thank you so much for the post! I’m flattered :) My wife loves your blog so it was quite a surprise for her to see this post.
Thanks for chiming in, Ryan! So glad your wife saw the post. High five on such great identity & branding work for the store!
i totally thought of you when i saw that post on black eiffel! here in austin, the boutique maya star is right next to costume store lucy in disguise. now that lucy is getting older, i need to take she & maya down to south congress for a photo op! :)
I live about 2.5 hours from Abilene. I’ll have to check it out next time I drive through. Thanks for sharing the fun Texas store. I never thought about looking for my children’s names before…but you may have just started a new obsession. :)
I hope you do get to visit the store. It looks so cute!
I like to take pictures of silly street names…just a few miles from where I live there’s a street, a park and a city with my last name. Los Nietos…And there’s a street in that city with my dad’s name, Daniel…. Thanks for sharing the blog BlackEiffel, just bookmarked it :)
Black Eiffel is a great blog! You’ll be so glad you bookmarked it.
I have a habit/obsession of buying things on eBay with my son’s name: Gus. http://www.projectdenneler.com/2011/01/whats-in-name.html
The beautiful branding first caught my eye then I read the shop is in Abilene, which I drive through All The Time traveling from Dallas to Lubbock, AND the branding is created by Ryan Feerer who I worked with for a brief time! So Fun, thanks for sharing! It really is beautiful and so fun that it’s your daughters’ names!
Such fun connections, Julie!
I have yet to stumble upon a place with my daughter’s name (Amelia) and I see my son’s name a few times every day and it will get much worse in another month. His name is August!
well now, we were just in abilene last week! how funny!
I love that too! My daughter’s name is Luna so there’s a lot of italian restaurants, girly stores and romantic shops with the name. We always take pictures too. My other daughter’s name is Lila and the only thing we’ve found is a line of Cuban desserts in the supermarket : )
Wish I’d seen that when I went through Abilene!
My family has a few street and town signs photos dedicated to us kids. With a last name like Kitchen, there are a few extra options. It’s always fun to have!
Kitchen is such a cool name!
Happy Bday a day late! I love hand-drawn logos like this. Sometimes i like to snap obscure things. Over the weekend I snapped a piece of sour candy strip on the ground at a baseball game. It was very colorful and conviently at my feet. I’ll probably never do anything with it though! Lately I’ve noticed some things driving that I would like to photograph but I’m either in a hurry and the moment gets lost.
Such a great idea, I will have to do this with my Girls…Georgia should be pretty easy.
I do that whenever I can, too–though, it’s rare to see my name “as is” and not some variant. :) My best story is when my dear friend and I were traveling in Germany and we stopped to check out the Berlin Wall. As we were poring through all of the graffiti, we stopped at one that read “Jen and Rachelle were here”–our very own names!!! Of course, we took a picture by it! To this day, I remember it as one of the happiest of coincidences. :)
Wow! That’s a goosebumps story Rachelle. Love that!
That’s so cute–I thought of your family the other night as we were reading Maude and Claude Go Abroad–have you seen this book? Two fox siblings set sail for “Phox-en-ville, France!” :) How fitting, right?
http://www.amazon.com/Maude-Claude-Abroad-Susan-Meddaugh/dp/0395291623
Aw, I love the name of this shop, too. My beautiful grandmother’s name is BettyJune!
Oh, that is so fun! Makes me think that not being able to do cool stuff like this is the down-side of having four children, all with unusual names.
First of all, I love your children’s names! So lovely, each and every one!
I see my daughter’s name on store fronts from time to time. I might have to borrow your idea of taking pictures of them. Perhaps I could even put a collage of them together for her room one day!
Adorable! And I happen to be from Texas, so I appreciate the Abilene connection. :)
Our kids are named Jasper and Magnolia, both of which pop up on street and business signs occasionally — we snap photos, too, often with the kids, and they love it! Gives them a little thrill to see their names in big, bold letters.
Years ago my parents went to dinner in LA with friends. The other man’s parents were “Harold & Maude” so imagine their surprise when they saw a movie playing in Hollywood called “Harold & Maude”. The friends were very conservative and didn’t like the movie as much as my parents did.