Monday, January 30, 2012

CHA 12 Anaheim

CHA was a whirlwind trip for me this year. With only 24 ours to spend in southern California, I left home early Saturday morning and arrived in Anaheim mid-afternoon to find our iLoveToCreate show booth almost completely ready for opening day on Sunday. Lots of hard work and creativity went into this year's booth, and it showed. Sunday morning we started the day with an early breakfast and a key-note presentation on the new creative consumer by a panel of industry experts, including iLTC's own Valerie Marderosian. I walked the show at a fast clip, attended a seminar, and was back on the road home. Here's some pics from CHA:
Hope Perkins did live body art on our model in the booth. It was a work in progress throughout the day. It kept people coming back to see the final look.


Two of our fabulous designers, Kathy Cano Murillo aka the Crafty Chica (above) and Pattie Wilkinson aka PattieWack
And our Swell Designer, Alexa Westerfield, at her post in our Blogger's Lounge.
On Saturday, Allee and I had to go find a place to have a giant red balloon inflated as part of our 'show-stopper' piece.
Yummies could be found all around our booth for anyone to enjoy. My favorites were the pink heart-shaped Peeps.

Me and my sweet friend, Chris Wallace, from Walnut Hollow.


The iLTC entry in the Innovations area of the show - our deluxe heat-setting tool that allows you to apply crystals on a vertical surface without dropping them.
Regan and Allee


Fashion art created for our booth by a designer who works with fashion icon, Betsey Johnson.
Almost done! The body art didn't stop until the end of the day. Unfortunately, my day ended before the body art did. Each day features a new body art work in progress.

Thursday, January 26, 2012

Inspired by Advance Style



I found this story while reading a blog post by TODAY show's style host, Bobbie Thomas. I am so inspired! Ari Seth Cohen is spotlighting stylish seniors on his blog Advanced Style and in a book by the same name.
It's fascinating to see all these stylish women who are not afraid to be bold in their fashion choices. Here are a couple of images from the blog. I seriously want these glasses...



Tuesday, January 24, 2012

Ready-To-Wear Art



Design duo Rodarte (the Mulleavy sisters) are inspired by art, at least for Spring 2012. Their muse? Impressionist artist Vincent Van Gogh. I studied fine art in college (and graduated with a degree in the same), and spent a whole lot of time admiring the Impressionist painters in several art history classes. Van Gogh was one of my favorites.

In the February issue of VOGUE, superstar Taylor Swift wears this off-the-shoulder piece from the spring collection. See the color palette and brush stroke quality of the fabric that is in the painting, Starry Night?


For more of this collection, watch this video.

Thursday, January 19, 2012

Valentine's Day Inspiration


Happy Friday! It's almost Valentine's day, and that means love is on trend! Since I'm always busy and end up waiting until the last minute to pull Valentine's Day together, I decided to cruise around on the www to do a little early window shopping to see what inspires me. Here's some interesting ideas and finds...

image, Decor8

shoes, hearts, headband from Ban.do Hearts
earrings, Anthropologie
heart-shaped coin purse, Urban Outfitters
Annie boots in Rhubarb, Sundance
Metal magnets, Sundance

bowls, West Elm
crocheted heart, Etsy
Smittens, Etsy


Tuesday, January 17, 2012

Jeffrey Campbell Booties





I found these fabulous booties by Jeffrey Campbell at Urban Outfitters. I LOVE them. They are like art for your feet. They are all so amazing I am not sure which is my favorite.

Monday, January 16, 2012

Dynamic Duo

Tangerine & turquoise make a dynamic color duo. That's because they are complimentary colors -- colors that are opposite each other on the color wheel. When put together, they 'pop'. I'm not naturally drawn to orange in large doses, but combining it with turquoise is a great way to make the trend work for me. That's good to know since we'll probably be seeing quite a bit of it as Pantone named Tangerine Tango its 'Color of the Year' for 2012. Get inspired and make it work for you, too.

Anthropologie

Pinterest
Polyvore

Pinterest

Traditional Home

Jennifer Hudson

Friday, January 13, 2012

Absolut-ly Creative!

Happy Friday! Here's some artistic inspiration to kick off your weekend...

Monday, January 9, 2012

A lot happens in a week...


A lot happens in a week. Last time I posted it was December 29th--right on the brink of a new year. I wanted to write about my reflections on the past year, or my resolutions for 2012. Instead, my old German Shepherd, Phoebe, who was struggling with old age as it was, went downhill over the New Year's weekend. (This picture was taken back in September). We said goodbye to our good friend on Wednesday, January 4th at Abby Pet Hospital. I have to give high praises to the staff at Abby Pet because they were so attentive to my husband and I as I sobbed and held Phoebe's head in my arms for the last time. Goodbye, sweet girl... My backyard (and my heart) are a little empty right now.

Two days after this I left for a pre-planned weekend at Pismo Beach to join several of my girlfriends from high school to celebrate our friend Jamie's birthday. Her two daughters arranged everything as a surprise for their mom. We were part of the surprise.

Here's the view from our hotel...
Without giving away her age I will say it was a milestone birthday--one we are all celebrating this year. It was so much fun - just what I needed after losing Phoebe. Here's what we did: We walked on the beach, shopped in San Louis Obispo (the picture below shows us cutting through the famous Bubble Gum Alley), gossiped in an oceanfront hot tub until we were prunes, ate See's Candy without feeling guilty, drank champagne in a limousine while enduring green strobe lights, toasted Jamie at sunset on the beach, took pictures of each other, ate Italian food, drank more champagne in a limo, discovered how to turn off the strobe lights, made fun of Andy-the-limo-driver when he drove us through a strip mall shopping center and bottomed out, rocked out to the music we loved in high school, and laughed over old pictures of us from our younger days. Wow, time flies when you are living life! We all looked pretty good, too, but Jamie looked the best!


Happy Birthday, Jamie!