Week's Preview: West Elm

Happy Sunday everyone! I hope you have all had a fabulous weekend and have something amazing planned for your week this week! I have been missing the blog, but SO much has been going on. I am up to my ears in home makeover projects, helping my mom come up with ideas to makeover her new place, and have been brainstorming for a new client who has just moved into a large home with very little furniture! To top things off, I will be doing another OlioHop August 27th with the theme of Dorm Decor, and West Elm (one of my favorite brands) has invited me to a preview party for their new store opening! Oh, but did I mention that I also received the sweetest email when I was invited to the party also asking me to come in for a private tour of the new store and to meet their staff because they know I'm a fan of West Elm and they're fans of my blog! West Elm featured my blog on their blog when I posted my ideas for an Outdoor Celebration!
I was honored, and of course said yes! With all the square footage I'm working with between the three current projects, and their fabulous trade program, I'm pretty sure we'll be doing lots of business together!
In celebration of their invite, I wanted to pull together some of my favorite pieces to share with all of you. I (of course) headed over to Olioboard because West Elm is one of their brand partners (I'm telling you good taste is all around!), used some Benjamin Moore paint colors for inspiration, and started pulling!
Enjoy!

I have always been a HUGE fan of industrial looking lighting, geometric side tables, and fun textured decor pieces! Check out this board and shop the look here!

I will be snapping plenty of pictures of the new store, and sharing my favorite picks during the opening! Do you love West Elm too? Head over to Olioboard and make your own room design to share with me! I'm sure West Elm would love to see it too!

Have a great week!!

Mommy Monday - Paint & Playroom

Happy Monday everyone!
It's been a crazy several days, productive, but CRAZY! Our dumpster kitty, Meow, had back surgery last week and is home now "enjoying" her digs that she will have to deal with for the next four weeks.

Also to add to the chaos, we finally had our yard sale this past Saturday!! I felt SO good to purge, and we will donate the rest to one of our local organizations. The best part...we profited over $800!!! The two rooms these funds will go to first in our home makeover are my office and Dablet's playroom! Speaking of home makeover, I painted our half bath! I was true to my word that I'd end up starting with the smallest room in the house!
I used Benjamin Moore Peacock Blue and a lot of 1.5" blue painter's tape! I reminded myself why people often resort to hiring professional painters. It's not that the painting itself it hard, but you spend at least half of your time prepping and touching up!

This was the "before" and the Koi painting from our Honeymoon was the color inspiration

Prep, edging, and during photos

Final look! Amazing how much different a coat of paint will make a room!

With paint on the brain, I think I have a background color for Dablet's playroom! Benjamin Moore's Gray Owl has been one of my favorites for a long time! It's a pale blue gray (at least in my house!) and with all of the other colors I want to use in the playroom, and the chalkboard paint wall, I think it will be a perfect canvas!

Now for those yard sale dollars!! 

I have been browsing blogs all weekend for inspiration and I found some at one of my favorites Focal Point. Lynda lives in Arizona, and I think I might just need to get my butt out there and figure out a way to get these fun finds back to me! It's a good thing I'm headed out that way this October!!

I NEED this for my office!!!

I'm slightly in love with the black and white fabric trim on this chair! 

Photos sourced from Focal Point

Another fun thing I tracked down this weekend perusing IKEA's website for Dablet's Playroom was this:

The bins come in all different colors, you can place them in any orientation with the grooves that you wish, they also have a white frame and you can always paint it! It's from the TROFAST collection and this frame runs just at $114. I can picture putting words and numbers on the bins for teaching not only clean up practices, but also what's what!

Two other requirements for our playroom creation are a reading nook and chalkboard paint!! Here are some of my favorite pins for my ideas! You can find more on my Playroom Board!

See the pin here

See the pin here

See the pin here

See the pin here

I hope you all have fabulous success with whatever projects you have going on, and please be sure to share photos! I'd love to see!

A Clean Way(fair) of Living

I have always dreamed of walking in my front door to a living space that looked like the one I created for the third, and final, week of the Wayfair contest on Olioboard. Why? It makes me say "ahhhh" and relax, but is functional for entertaining with separate but open access joint spaces. Why is that important? Well, in this house you could have several different things on TV, and depending on the groups you may want to be close but, well not so close to the MMA fight on TV!
Here's the design!

Vote for this look and shop its contents here!

I visualize this space to have a fabulous kitchen around the left corner, and an incredible view outside of that wall of windows! It's a dream design so I can do anything I want right?
These weeks of contests have been incredibly inspiring! It's all perfect timing too because I have been able to use my creative energy and actually make decisions about our home makeover, work on design boards for my mom's new townhouse, and seriously purge my home! We will be having a massive yard sale here July 14th (tentative date!) with a bunch of furniture and other fun finds!
Speaking of fun finds, I snagged a $10 organizational bin to help clear the clutter in our living room from HomeGoods today! We have three big dogs, lots of dog toys! Let's face it, they're even worse than Dablet at picking up their toys so I need somewhere easy to toss them!

See how much of a difference something small can make? I love the mini chalk board too!

Another fun find that might make its way over to my house (from my mom's!) is this incredibly cool light!

I LOVE industrial looking metal lighting! I think this brings chic to industrial! My mom told me I would just need to find a lamp shade, but I think I might see how it looks with a frosted bulb and keep it exposed as is.

Keeping the eye on organization and re-purposing, I want to tell you all that I will be a blogger on the 2nd OlioHop coming up next Monday July 2nd with the theme of organization! I just hope I can find a way to use some of my tips myself! 

Hope you all have a fabulous week! I know Dablet and I will! We're off to pick up Fairy Godmommy from the airport for a few days of visiting!

Why I love Benjamin Moore - Reason 1

This may end up being more than one reason if you piece it apart, but let's just say this is the first blog dedicated to why I love Benjamin Moore! Today was a day of local travel. We knocked out the local farmer's market early and snagged some homemade sweet potato gnocchi, spinach/artichoke ravioli, wild mushroom ravioli, fresh sausage, and these beauties

The greenery in the back is actually a fresh basil plant that will live in my kitchen!

After that, I made a delivery for a client, we did some home based things, I "checked in" with my Olioboard for my new home office, and my mom and I went off to our local Ace Hardware Store (closest place that sells Benjamin Moore paint); that is where Steve came into my life. Steve is the paint department guy, and yes, they sell more types of paint in addition to Benjamin Moore. I've been in there a few times and chit chatted with him about the Color Capture app for my phone, but this time we really got to talking.

I showed him my Olioboard design for the home office, and told him about the applicator kit I won by tweeting to Benjamin Moore. His response was, "they're great about promotions and donating, and they have the best colors; everyone should use Benjamin Moore!" I have to agree with him! I of course told him I would love it if they'd decide to donate the paint for my total home makeover...I'm still dreaming!

After he rung me up for my pints, gallons, and a few planters I bought, he told me to bring up some business cards and leave them on the counter for customers to pick up. Then....wait for it.....he handed me two shrink wrapped bundles and said "I'm sorry I don't have any 'Color Preview' extras, or I would have given you all three"...He had handed me the color swatch book for all of the Classic Colors and the Affinity Colors!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Here's a fun trick with the Affinity Colors:

Any...yes ANY....three, four, or five (I'll stick to three) colors you pick from the swatch book will go together! I tried this a couple times by picking blindly, and here's what I got:

I love this second one. It's a little hard to see in the picture but the middle is a bone color and the color stacked on top is a blush, with the bottom a deep purple.

Maybe I'll make better friends with my pal Steve, and maybe I'll get some paint out of the deal so my decorating dollars can go further. If not, that's OK too because I have all of the color inspiration I could possibly need to make this home complete! Thank you to Steve from Ace Hardware for loving Benjamin Moore as much as I do!

Dabble's New Office

I recently retweeted the link to my old post Definition of Self and Style. Sometimes it makes sense to go "back to the stacks" and blow the dust off an old blog post to reintroduce it to your readers, or to make sure your new readers had a chance to see it! This post was important to me because it was my "Hi world, I'm Kate!" post that told everyone to define themselves before they started trying to determine their style. Also, in the post I made a list of how to go about designing and decorating a room that is pretty foolproof if you execute it appropriately and put the time into your "homework". In case you missed it, here's the list:

• Go room by room and pick a vision - this can be inspiration boards (made easy by our friends at Olioboard)
• Collect your favorite patterns, colors, furniture....and then do some old fashioned editing
• Set a budget for the entire house - or however many rooms you want to do
• Prioritize the rooms in your house
• Break down your budget by room
• Edit again if needed
• REMOVE EVERYTHING FROM ROOM
• Start with canvas - your paint and wallpaper
• Move furniture back in
• Decorate with accents

Here's the KEY to making this work:

• IF IT DOESN'T HAVE A SPACE IN YOUR NEW ROOM....IT DOESN'T GO BACK IN...IT FINDS A NEW HOME OUT OF YOURS!

Sounds pretty easy right?! Then WHY is it so hard? A few reasons come to mind:
Sentimentality: that "one thing" you got somewhere that you can't get rid of, but never use, or look at until you wonder for the third time this month if you should throw it out
Time: Isn't it ALWAYS a matter of time?
Expense: Somehow what you dream of putting in your room is always more than you have to spend (at least in my world!) That's why I'm bound and determined to pair up with some fabulous DIY experts and "thrifters" to make your dreams come true!
Inspiration: I know it's hard sometimes to pull your ideas together, hopefully the blog can help! Also, take 10 minutes and pull some things together on Olioboard. You'll be surprised how easy it is and how inspired you can really be!

Here's what I have come up with for my first BIG room project: My home office and client meeting space. Yesterday I posted the room layout and some before pictures. Now, this will show you what I've come up with on Olioboard:

You can shop the items in this look here 

Items from CB2, Zinc Door, Layla Grayce, Kirklands, West Elm, Modern Furniture, and Benjamin Moore

I'm off to Goodwill and HomeGoods this weekend to see if I can find anything the budget friendly way! I hope this has sparked a first phase of inspiration, and as always please share your design ideas as well!

Let's Clean!

Today marked a pivotal point in the transformation of my home; we got our carpets cleaned! A while back I fantasized of replacing the "blah beige" carpets you see in all new construction with bamboo hardwood floors, and then the state decided to withhold a large chuck of money from our state refund to pay Kyle's old college bills. Mind you there is an automatic payment on these bills that is automatically withdrawn every month, AND he's back in school so should be able to have all of his loans "suspended"....I'm sure you can imagine that I was somewhat frustrated. So, a couple hundred dollars later our cats got to save what is left of their lives collectively after the destruction they had caused to our carpets and they're amazing!
To make this miracle possible we had to clean out our loft, the room that is soon to be my new home office and client meeting space! I am GIDDY with excitement to design this room, and even more so that I have a blank canvas to work with now!
Here's the room layout:

And here are some photos of what the space looks like...not much yet, but had to share the before photos!

Please forgive the couch in the corner on its side...had to expose the floor space for cleaning! That couch will be in our yard sale in a couple of weeks! I'm starting to think we may need to have more than one yard sale because I'm not sure our driveway and garage can hold everything we have to sell!

After we cleaned we had a mini dinner party! It seems like this happens often in out house. It's not a full blown dinner party because I never have time to really hostess or get fun with it, and it's usually just "family". Tonight it was my mom and my aunt, the "uncles" (Clay and Anthony, our business partners), Clay's girlfriend, Kyle's mom, and the three of us. The starter was an amazing Roasted Butternut Squash and Apple Soup. I could eat this all day! Abby liked it too, so it works as a baby recipe!

Ingredients - 4 servings
24oz. Chicken stock           8oz. Granny Smith apple peeled, cored, dice
2oz. unsalted butter             2tsp. Fresh Thyme leaves, chopped
4oz. diced onion                 1tsp. Fresh Rosemary, chopped
1oz. minced shallot             Kosher salt - to taste
4oz. half-n-half                   Pepper - to taste
Butternut Squash, peeled, diced - 16oz.

Pour stock into 3-4qt. saucepan, bring to simmer over med-high
While that is heating, melt butter in 10" saute pan over med-high heat, add onion and shallot to butter and saute until translucent ~4-6min
Add squash to saute pan and cook for 3-4 minutes
Add sauteed squash mixture to stock. Add apples, thyme, rosemary, and simmer covered until all veggies are soft and tender. ~30 minutes.
Puree the soup in a blender or Cuisinart (in batches if need be) and pour blended mix through medium mesh strainer into clean sauce pan. 
Place saucepan over medium heat, stir in half-n-half, simmer for 5 minutes stirring occasionally.
Season with salt and pepper


This soup is great as a starter, or you can toss in some shredded chicken and make it a meal! Abby loved the flavors, so it gets the "Dablet Seal of Approval"! I think this would be even better in the fall or winter as a warm you up meal!
I am crazy with yard sale things, fun collaborations, and getting mom set up over the next 10 days, but I will be sure to share with you my Olioboard process along the way! Also, I'm taking paint color suggestions for just about any type of room, so leave me your comment with your favorite paint colors! 

OlioHop Nurseries - Girls, Boys, and Twins!

It's OlioHop Moodboard Monday! Welcome to all of the new wandering eyes, and of course "Hello" to my faithful friends! I am truly honored to be included in the inaugral blog feature brought to you by Olioboard, a fabulous design tool that I have blogged about on many occasions! Please be sure to check out the bottom of this post for the links to the other nine blogs featured in today's OlioHop! Don't forget, you can create fabulous designs yourself (just click on any Olioboard link, or the "Get creating here" link at the bottom of the blog!)
When I received the email asking me to participate and shared the topic of the Blog Hop, I reached a level of excitement that is best described by 3 year old girls squealing in tandem over something no one truly understands! So, what is the topic you ask?
Nurseries and Kids Rooms!!!!
Pretty perfect right? After all, it won't be too long from now when I have to look at Dablet's nursery and figure out how to transform it into a room for a little lady! (forgive me as I quietly shed an emotional tear!) It seems as if Kyle and I are surrounded by babies recently. Friends, family, neighbors....everyone is having babies!! It is seriously not helping my case of "baby fever". Although, I will admit that through the last few weeks and the process of perfecting this post for all of you, I have realized that nurseries are my favorite room to design! There is something sacred about the first space your child will call home. Putting together all of the little details, taking your time to plan for the late night feedings, wardrobe malfunctions, tummy time sessions, and reading nook exploration bring an amount of joy to me that cannot be matched elsewhere! I am officially focusing my work to nurseries!!
Enough about me! Let's move on to what you're here for: Nursery design!
Starting "close to home" for me, we shall begin with a room for a little girl!

Find all of the items and shop this look here

The great thing about Olioboard is...well, there are several....but to begin with they have fabulous brand partners! AND you can import your own images and link them back to the store you sourced them from. (This is why creating a virtual showroom for an etsy store using Olioboard will help boost sales, especially when you pin it!)
The paint colors for this room have two different schemes with Gray Owl as the common element in each. Benjamin Moore is Olioboard's paint partner and always provides more than enough colors to choose from! I am a sucker for paint color names. Some of the names seen here are "Little Piggy" and "Funky Fruit"! How fabulous are those for a baby's room?!?! I found the wall art on Etsy! The left three pieces are from Nicole ap, and I actually came across her work through I AM THE LAB featuring a giveaway of her designs.
What I love about this look, as the mom of a little girl, is how it is clean and pure. Sure, it has pops of color from the Lili Alessandra coral pillow from Layla Grayce and the Currey & Co red lamp from Zinc Door, but it is sophisticated. I love modern nurseries! Trust me, your little ones will add plenty of "baby" to the space, and when you start hanging clothes, changing diapers, and adding an abundence of things that say "Fisher Price" and "Playskool" you will appreciate this kind of look fit for a baby!
Now it's time for me to pretend a little...let's talk boys!

Find all items and shop this look here

For this Aquatic (sounds a bit more chic than "under the sea") themed boys room I had to use colors called "Caribbean Azure" and "Tropicana Cabana" with a little bit of "Calypso Orange" to pack the punch! When I showed this board to Kyle the first thing he said to me was, "that's for a boy? That pillow doesn't look very boy" pointing to the Maze Pillow from One Kings Lane. Maybe he has a point, but until your baby starts bringing in dump trucks (with the sand), and all kinds of things that stick (to everything) I don't see what's wrong with a little bit of sophistication to a boy's room. The trend right now for nurseries has far surpassed the "out of the box" look and moved to something that has elements of purity, pattern, and elegance without all of the fluff. Now, if you can afford to spend $25,000 on your nursery you might disagree with me about the lack of fluff!

Things I love about this look:

The pop of color on the DucDuc panel crib from Layla Grayce.

Nurseyworks changing table, also from Layla Grayce, for all of the versatility (and storage!!) that it offers! How about that geometric pattern on the door too??

The ease with which you can mix geometric patterns with this Roundabout rug from CB2

Finally, another Etsy find, this time from Raw Art Letterpress! The "Breathe" turtle print is something I could put anywhere in my house (just about) and be happy with it. With the amount of money you could potentially put into a nursery, try to think about how you could reuse pieces around your home when your babies grow up!

Speaking of spending money...let's talk about twins! Has anyone else noticed the boom in multiples?!?! When I was pregnant with Dablet, Kyle thought it would be great if we were having twins because we could knock out two at once. Maybe you can imagine who knocked out whom after that..... :) No matter what, twins are twice the blessing and twice the expense. So when planning a twin nursery, it is important to think about budget and sharing spaces!!

Find all items and shop this look here

I wanted to make this look gender neutral so that parents of boy/girl twins could be comfortable creating just one nursery without detracting from any special elements!

Color names: "Warm Comfort" "Fairy Tale Blue" "Bunny Gray" and "Spring Leaf" - great names for kids!

Budget in mind, you could make these curtains out of any fabulous fabric with a great bold pattern that you find! It's not too hard to whip up a nice set of curtains, and they add quite a style element to any room! With twins comes need for even more storage than the normal nursery! The combination of an 8-drawer dresser from Target and the multi-size drawer Skylar Changing Table from Pottery Barn Kids will provide ample space without taking up much of your floor plan.

Another one of my favorite tricks is tupperware containers under cribs for extra toys, blankets, and things you want in the room but out of the way! Crib skits provide great hiding qualities! I also wanted to show you the Kendall Crib from Pottery Barn Kids for it's simplicity. The look in the picture actually shows you how you can have a boy and girl in the same room. Keep it white (or neutral) and add pops of color in their own area.

If you are expecting twins, or any amount of multiples, check out this great program from Layla Grayce that offers discounts for purchases made for multiples (just scroll down ~3/4 of the page!). These ladies know what it's like to plan a room for more than one infant, and will be more than happy to assist you in making all of your dreams come true!

Another fun lady who can help give you a little something extra for your bundle of joy can be found at Ashley Brooke Designs! I am a nut for custom stationary, all types, sizes, and uses! Check out this announcement for twins!

I have always tried to find an extra special touch for clients and a personal way to say thank you to them for allowing me to become part of their lives (even if in a small way), and I think ABD and I are concocting a fun plan to do so! You can have your own custom illustrations done, or shop her ready made designs here. The ladies involved in this company make me feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside, and I cannot wait to work with them on some custom designs! I think an illustration of your nursery is the perfect way to capture your treasure that is sure to change!

Remember, small spaces are FINE for babies! They're small!! It really comes down to the organization of it all. You can get what you want and still afford to send your child (or children!) to college. Prints and photography should tie your room design together. Something like this "Love You Word search" print also found on Etsy by Sydney N Company. Don't be afraid to go bold for a baby!! Above all, find pieces you can reuse later!!

With all of this nursery planning it probably won't be too long before Dablet gets to share her expertise with another little one, but until that time I cannot wait to design the perfect spaces for the little ones sprouting up all around me! Do you have little ones sprouting up around you too? I would love to hear about them! Also, don't forget that Olioboard is SO easy to use, and offers FREE membership!!
Get creating HERE today! Do you have a design you'd like to share? Post the link in the comments section, I'd love to see it!

Please take a moment to check out my fellow bloggers featured in today's OlioHop!

-  Design Magnifique  -  Fashion House Interiors  -  Focal Point Blog  - 

-  Jennifer Reynolds Interiors  -  Pinklet and C  -  Push Interiors  -  Selma Hammer Designs  -  

-  Stacy Naquin Interiors  -  Swaygrl  -

Thank you again to Olioboard and all of the amazing brand partners on the site for this opportunity and the tools to create visions of creativity perfect for little ones!

Sunday Fun-Day

It's always bittersweet when Sunday rolls around because it means the weekend is drawing to a close, but I am about to start a new week of possibility! Sunday also means softball! I got into a coed league with Kyle this spring to get some activity and it has been fantastic!
Today I am full of inspiration! I have been asked to be one of the first ten bloggers to participate in the inaugural Blog Hop with Olioboard called OlioHop. If you are a follower on twitter, you will get a lot of buzz about this all week but I am very excited about the topic! I have used Olioboard a lot recently for our home makeover, and shared my work on the blog a couple of times. What I find so fantastic about this tool goes far beyond the amazing brands it is partnering with and into the community it is creating! I cannot imagine a better space for designers to show project ideas, share inspiration with other designers, and engage directly with the brands we use to decorate our homes and lives in a way that is mutually beneficial to both the designers and the brands! Just a single click and you can shop any item, you can set project budgets, play with Benjamin Moore paint colors, and import any of your own items!
In other exciting news, West Elm is coming to Durham, NC! I am SO excited, yet slightly nervous to what this could potentially do to my attempt of budgeting!
Some of my current favorite West Elm Items:

Tall Grid Tufted Headboard

Organic Blown Glass Pendant I love this industrial look!

Elephant Ceramic Vases provide a perfect pop of my favorite colors!

This Baltic Double Lounger might not fit on my back deck now, but would be fabulous when I get my dream of expanding it to include a stone patio!

I will be working on a post to show you some of my favorite houses from Bald Head Island, and some fabulous room designs I think you could find inside these houses! If you ever have the chance to visit this amazing place, TAKE IT! 

Until Next Time (with some bumps and bruises from softball!)

Dabble

Color Chaos

I don't think it's a secret to anyone that choosing paint colors can be a daunting task. There are color professionals in the industry of interior design for a good reason...someone needs to make sense of all this chaos! I had intended to start this process this weekend, but was only able to play with my Benjamin Moore Color Capture App on my phone, not actually get to the store. Side note: If you have an iPhone "run" don't "walk" to the app store and download the "Color Capture" app. It's FREE and allows you to not only browse all of their paint colors by name/number, but you can take pictures and pin point matching colors from their availability. I recently took a picture of Dablet and it told me that her skin tone was "Ciao Bella". Hello beautiful is right!!

I cannot believe my little bear is 8 months old today!

Anyway, I finally made it to the Benjamin Moore selection at my local paint store and this is what lay before me:

Daunting, intimidating, chaotic (in a perfectly organized way!), and completely inspiring! I wanted to spend hours perusing through the color choices, but I think the nice man working at the hardware store didn't know what to do with the girl and her iPhone app! I made my selections (for round one at least!) and this is what I came home with:

It's probably a good thing that Kyle is at school because what happened next might have caused a few "what in the world are you doing" looks. Everything requires visualization for me, that's just how I pull things together! This fact of my personality is one of the biggest reasons why I LOVE Olioboard, and have recently  gone Pro! Before I start painting my color samples on the walls I needed to at least narrow down the options a bit! 

We have this great little "art nook" in our main entry and with the potential to have soft gray walls around it, I felt that the inside needed just a soft warm color. This is "Opal"

Next Came the half bath on our first floor. The paining in the picture is an original watercolor we bought on our honeymoon in St. Lucia and I have always loved the color combinations in it!

For this the front runners are "Flame", "Hot Spice", "Peacock Blue", and "Capri Seas". Right now I'm leaning towards "Peacock Blue" and finding something in the Coral family for a fun mirror frame.

As with anything design related, the possibilities are endless, and a slight change in the tone of a color can change your entire room. For example, I'm looking at some brown grays and some steel or blue grays. Kyle understands the difference, but with my obsession over grays lately he's expecting our whole house to be gray. A lot of it very well might be....but not all the same tone!

More color chaos to come!

Dabble

When a Godmommy becomes a Fairy

The last several days have been a whirlwind to say the least! When I started this adventure in reinvention (or at least redefinition of myself...not trying to recreate the wheel) I decided that I would put myself out there and let my passions take me where ever they decided to take me. Don't read this as a passive action (in case my former English professors are reading), because if you follow your dreams you are the one getting yourself there! My biggest problem was that I had SO many dreams and passions. After realizing that the best thing for our former printing company would be to sell our production capabilities, I was daunted with the possibility of working on my own.
I interviewed for a fantastic position with a brand that seemed to suck me in (in the BEST way possible). While I wasn't offered the position, the entire process that I went through taught me more about myself and what I REALLY wanted to do and how I wanted to follow my passions. For that I am eternally grateful. Since then I have poured myself into how to define myself as a brand. Dabble in Chic has become more than a crazed working mom trying to find a few moment each week that truly make her feel amazing, Dabble has aesthetic.
Dabble in Chic is now connected to all types of social media, most importantly Twitter and Pinterest. The community I dived into on Twitter is full of incredible Interior Designers who are not only talented, but truly care about each other and the collaborative efforts that can grow out of social media in real life. These amazing people have helped me double my interested followers in the last week.
Recently, I was part of a chat about how blogging defines your brand. Most of the advice was to be yourself, after all when you're a designer you ARE you brand, and to keep your posts short and sweet showcasing your photos and designs. Maybe by a vote I'd be "failing" at the second, but sometimes (as we all know) a design has a story behind it.
When I was pregnant with Dablet Kyle and I went through the process of picking Godparents. He got to pick the guy, I got to pick the girl (and he's had his guys picked out for YEARS). It didn't take me long to decide on the perfect life and style role model for Dablet, someone I knew would teach her all of the important things in life, like where to get discount Tory Burch shoes! Also, it didn't hurt that Dablet's Godmommy has a fantastic sense of style and attention to the details (like these that she pulled together for my baby shower)!

Yes...I finally got to the pictures, but it will all make sense I promise!

As any pregnant lady will tell you, food is KEY! And these mini cupcakes from The Cupcake Shoppe in Raleigh, NC were amazing! (I even had one the day Dablet was born...just not from the same batch, and it was full size!)

Every good shower ends with the person being showered in a hat of bows!

Once all of the mayhem settled down it was time to have a baby! As soon as Dablet was born Godmommy got all of the pictures and heard her make her little noises on the phone and even though we're in NC and she's in NY she couldn't help herself and flew down to escort us home from the hospital! 

Dablet's Godmommy became OUR Fairy Godmommy because no one can make crock pot meals like she can, find the best designer deal, take an iPhone photo that flatters you, lead me to baby clothing sales Dablet "needs", pour me just the right amount of red wine at just the right moment, hide the chocolate chip cookies in the place I'll know to look, watch BravoTV marathons, or understand what it means to balance a marriage, baby, career, home, and all of the creative passions we just cannot live without! So of course, she had to have her own room (the one she's always stayed in) designed with her in mind!

This is everything fun and feminine that reminds me of our Fairy Godmommy from the fabric bed to the pale pink linens and the ruffled light!

All of the items in this board can be found here including some of my favorites from Layla Grayce, West Elm, and paint from Benjamin Moore!

Every room has an inspration, and I couldn't think of a better one than a person who inspires you!

Until Next Time

Dabble