happy weekend

i'm off to palm springs with my girlfriends! we're going to the ace hotel & swim club (swoon) for our first ever "Artist's Retreat Weekend". we'll be spending an entire weekend dedicated to our side passion projects - a book proposal, song writing, and creative design. the ace hotel feels perfect for our purposes - it's a funky, stylish commune full of personality and creative inspiration. plus, they serve spiked sno-cones by the pool!

wish us luck! i'll be posting lots of pics of our experience on monday.

photo love art project!

post wedding i had a TON of metal ikea planters on my hands left over from our placecards/favors. what to do? art project? yes, please! we'd been trying to come up with ways to showcase our A-MAZING engagement photos without making our apartment look like an ode to ourselves. i mean we'd wallpaper every room in them if we could. I loved the banged up metal contrasted against the bright, sunshiny feel of the images and inspiration struck.

the hardest part was choosing which of the images to use. then it took just a bit of crafty fun



and voila! mini photo blocks.

our wedding: DIY pom pom splendor

early in the days of our wedding planning i knew i wanted a festive, fun, playful end to our ceremony. i was so excited when i visited Once Wed and saw this gorgeous image - i knew then we'd be spending the next 6 months crafting hand made pom poms in our wedding colors! my MOH made the trek to Michael's to find out how the heck to make pom poms. We found this amazing invention and there was no looking back.
after enlisting the help of said MOH, fiance, and mother-in-law we had 800+ pom poms ready for the pelting.

next, we needed to make the cones. i bought a roll of kraft paper at staples and made a pattern to cut out the shape of the cone. topher helped with cutting out the shapes, and i glued and stuck on the labels i designed. the night of my bridal shower we had a little factory going - you can see it really was a family affair!


after all the work we put into this tiny moment of the wedding i absolutely ADORE how it turned out. the best part was i completely forgot about the little pom poms until they started flying at us. it was such a fun, magical moment.


oh, and we also made a pom pom string for the aisle so no one would trample Meg's amazing petal design.

hotdogs and babycakes

during our "mini-moon" topher and i took a little bike ride to the palm springs art museum to see the Wayne Thiebaud: 70 Years of Painting exhibit. i've always enjoyed Thiebald's whimsical food paintings (especially those cupcakes), but his use of color is what struck me as we spent more time with his work. from lollipops to hotdogs to landscapes each painting is both vibrant and subdued all at once. he magically layers color like frosting and brings life to the most inanimate of objects. amazing.



we got in trouble for taking this one...but i couldn't resist the hotdogs.


randomly, this painting used to live in my old office. our president is an avid collector and we were lucky enough to be surrounded by a rotating collection of art. he's since retired and had donated the collection to the palm springs art museum.

dear husband....

please make this for me.

from home sweet home

photo booth it: meet the photogs

ok, confession...topher and i are OB-SESSED with our photographers. seriously obsessed. besides the fact that they are obscenely talented and creative they are just a damn good time. these pictures prove it. don't worry court and erin, i'll prove your awesomeness in MANY posts to come. promise.

words.1

via wordboner

our wedding: DIY succulent centerpieces + favors

from day one i knew we had to use succulents in our wedding. what's more "modern organic" than succulents? plus they are native to the desert so it was a nice ode to our love of Palm Springs as well.

topher and i knew what we wanted for the centerpieces and felt like we could do the planting ourselves. after a few rounds of unsuccessful test centerpieces (yes, we somehow managed to kill the unkillable), we finally got it down to an art. we found the grey vessels at ikea (i heart you ikea!) and dealt directly with the nursery buyer at Home Depot to custom order our favorite types of succulents. oh, and the AMAZING table numbers are from the heavenly Anthopologie. swoooooon.


two weekends before the big day, our friends offered up their home as ground zero for Project Succulent. I can't even imagine what a colossal mess it would have been in our apartment! Thank you Mick and Seema! A potentially tedious project turned into a fun day filled with sunshine, a few bottles of Pacifico and lots of dirt!












we were incredibly happy with how they turned out and love that our friends took them with them and gave them a home after the wedding! we've got ours sitting on the coffee table - i smile everytime i look at it.


i'll be sharing the lovely bouquets, bouts and other floral masterpieces created by our florist/coordinator Meg @ La Partie Events in upcoming posts...

adopt me.

meet the brocklingtons.

i'm dying to be a part of this delightful little family after seeing this sweet video they put together.

Meet the Brockintons from ashley brockinton on Vimeo.

via rockstar diaries

a pop of yellow

after 7 years with the boy she loves, a girl is bound to daydream about her wedding day. what will it look like? what will she wear? buffet or sit down? not me so much. the notion of color schemes and invite suites didn't cross my mind until after he popped the question. it wasn't for lack of interest in such things - i've always loved all things party planning and design influenced, but i think my mind was waiting to make it official until it was willing to open up that can of worms. the day after i answered "yes, please" i was off and running, arms flailing straight into weddingville.

i got to work the very next day: decided on a color scheme (YELLOW!), a feel (approachably modern), potential places (swanky palm springs), my mind was buzzing with excitement and ideas. to calm the mental lightning storm I created an inspiration board. i just had to get those visions on paper before they vanished. and although our vision zigged and zagged a bit since it's original inception, the inspiration board was a driving force in the planning since day one.

the key elements of our day were present even then: yellow + gray, modern + organic, lovefest.

SucculentLOVE

I woke up yesterday determined to create some succulent magic. I picked up some new babies on my lunch break, daydreamed about how i'd arrange them in my afternoon meeting, and trotted home with the crate giddy with anticipation. i think they turned out just lovely and I can't wait to gift them to some very special people in our lives...take a peek:

home.sweet.home: i made this to bring warmth to a friend's new house



loving.the.love: this is for a coworker who's about to get hitched



love.goes.with.you: this one will class up my hubby's desk



let's.nest: this one will stay with us in our lil home

new babies!

i should probably explain that title. my husband and i call the plants we grow in our house "our babies". i don't know where it started, but it stuck - and there you go. so, to continue our nesting ritual since the wedding, we decided to welcome spring with some new babies.




topher planted some basil, rosemary and tarragon. i can't wait to enjoy whatever delicious meal they end up in (hint, hint topher)

inspired by our wedding, i've decided to continue my love affair with succulents and plant some terranium style arrangements for our newlywed pad.





and now i'm hooked and working to turn it into yet another passion project: SucculentLOVE. i just love the different personalities of each little succulent and how happily they all live together. i'll keep you posted on my progress....

hello there.

oh boy, how does one write their first blog entry? it's like, where do you start? a simple hello usually works for me in the real world.

so, hello there. i'm kelly.

by day i work for an advertising agency in los angeles. but i'm not one of those gals who's defined by her work. quite the opposite actually. i take great pride in all the things that keep my mind buzzing and musing in those off hours of the day.

over the past 8 months, i've spent my cherished off time designing, coloring, cutting, pasting, writing and planting all in preparation for our wedding day. it was a lot of work and took up a LOT of time. ok, so i made it take up a lot of time because i enjoyed it so very much. now that the wedding is over and i've got all this time on my hands, i'm in search of how i can someday answer those creative sirens and turn my "off" time into some thing a little more full time. it's the dream.

so, come along with me on my journey of inspiration and (hopefully) revelation.