The Brass Petal

BLOG HAS MOVED!!!!!!

2010-10-05T11:23:00.000-07:00

The brass petal is moving. Actually The Brass Petal is dead. Died. Cablooyee.

Here's the deal: it is super hard to explain, pronounce and spell. The whole 'i like brass and flowers' is kinda a weird reason to name your blog The Brass Petal.

SO please go to my new blog:

www.stylebyemilyhenderson.com

why yes, it is slightly pretentious, but it rolls of the tongue and needs no explaining when i'm meeting new people or in interviews, and it has my name in it, which is never a bad thing.

Again, i'm not saying that i have all the style advice ever, or that its my way or the freeway,

but its my style. take it or leave it.

(but please take it, c'mon).

You will have to resubscribe to the RSS feed and any other subscribing stuff. And I have a new twitter:

@em_henderson

And you probably missed the last 7 posts, so get up to date my friends.

xoxoxo

Flea Market Find Mondays ish.

2010-09-27T03:39:00.000-07:00

I've been traveling the last two sundays, so i actually haven't been to the flea market in two weeks. I've been getting the shakes and taking my withdrawl rage out on Bearcat. I'll snap at the smallest lack of purr or start weeping randomly.

Poor thing doesn't understand what is ailing her mother. I want to explain it to her, but there is a huge cat/human language barrier that no matter how hard we try, we can't seem to get over.

but that's another story.

So Corbett and I went to South Bay on Saturday to check out Big Daddy Antiques, which was great in a way, but also every thing was the same expensive John Derian vibe. I thought it was going to be a big junk store, but nope, kinda fancy pants.

So not wanting to waste a perfectly good day of shopping we headed to an antique mall even further south that wasn't awesome, but not terrible. And determined to have something to blog about and to not have wasted 5 hours and a half a tank of gas i did find a few things after like 3 hours.

Why yes, this is a brass tic tac toe set, of course. It was $10, which is probably too much, but I kind of love it. Not sure what i'll do with it, most certainly NOT play tic tac toe, but its my objet-du-jour.

'60's bar set. I don't need, but I love. $5 each.

Awesome little turquoise vase. It's gonna look perf in my shelves, although a bit brighter than I normally go for. It reminds me of this Amazing pottery:

Except decidedly cheaper at $25.

And every house and horse lover needs a wooden foot-thingy to put in her shelves.

It's pretty and rustic and natural and overpriced at $28, which I bought anyway.

And then for future clients I bought these two things;

vintage green chalkboard, 18" $12

and Hugo Guiness-y 1929 original car drawing $16 - perfect for a bachelors gallery wall, no?

It's pretty awesome.

Must run, doing my first series of holiday commercials today for HGTV. Back in New York and shooting at a studio I used to style in for years. Except this time i'm in the hair and makeup chair instead of schlepping and unpacking boxes all day.

So weird. And completely awesome.

I do not look like Judith Light, thank you very much.

2010-09-24T09:00:00.000-07:00

So Ian tells me often that i dress like Angela from Who's the Boss. And then he goes off in Tony's bronxian accent, 'MO..na, JOna...tan..........SamAn........ta'. Which is hilarious.

But saying that I dress like Judith Light is not.

NO way.

Except I just bought this dress which has shoulder pads

(which i wore this week for the blogger lunch and the RUE party)

It's by Joie and you can find it here. Yes its slightly 80's, but not like this:

I always protest and say that I dress more 70's, less 80's and he says I dress like Angela circa '83 but still wearing her late '70's clothes. which i find quite specific, and i don't totally understand. and then i remind him that he is a straight man who wears rodeo pants and gold medallions. everyday.

So in my defense, here are my latest '70's inspired fashion pics. not 80's, mind you, the 70's

Dsqared2 tennis blouse. and can not find where to buy it for the life of me, so if anybody knows, please help me out. I need this shirt.

Emersonmade bluebells. These are on their way in the mail and that makes me very very very happy.

Buy them here

I bought my first vintage coach purse when i was 16 and wore it for 5 years.

I'm not a handbag chick, and i hate the branding aspect of them, but Coach did it so well in the 70's -just leather and the necessary hardware to keep it together.

I still have the one that i rocked for years, but its pretty beat up.

So last week in New York I bought this one:

Pure and simple design and function. and with a bit of brass thrown in there.

And maybe i'll top it off with this shirt from etsy:

With either these vintage 70's frye boots (which i can't find) or these new ($100) wedges from Lucky:

Yep. The 70's.

I hope i proved my point, but pretty sure that I didn't.

Am I the only one that secretly wants to look like Jodie Foster in Taxi Driver?

sans the shirt-thing and the hat, but just the overall vibe, right?

Finally its announced...

2010-09-22T22:59:00.000-07:00

Secrets from a Stylist has been picked up for 26 episodes!!!!!!

Yep.

which is also my age.

or was my age a few years ago. whatever.

So my midnight post is dedicated to trying to find new houses to cast for the show. If your grandparents need a restyling, if your brother-in-law needs a restyling, or anyone really that lives in LA that owns there own place needs a restyling by yours truly, please follow the directions below.

*****UPDATE:
Email casting@triconfilms.com

Here are the conditions: You have to live in L.A. (if the house/people are so great I think we can travel to Orange County or within 30 miles of LA, but really ideally we are in LA)
You have to own your space. I know. I'm a renter too and it would totally bum me out, but this is how it is will all these shows.

If you live in a duplex and are best friends with your landlord then you might be able to swing it, but apartment buildings with a bunch of other tenants create a lot of problems)

We will only be doing 1 room, not a whole house.

At this time we are not doing any bathrooms or kitchens, if that changes i'll let you know. It's not a reno show, its a style show and those are to costly and timely for production.

You will be on TV.
And your schedule has to be flexible as we shoot 6 days a week
(you won't be on all 6, but will need to be available when necessary).

The bigger the personality, the better.

Oh and the room should be 15x20 or else amazing. We need big rooms.

In your email, include pictures of you/your family/your space and info on what your styles are and what you see for the space. And don't be conservative with your personality, bring it.

Everyone that left a comment, just go ahead and email them to casting. I'll try to get back to people, but I probably shoulda just waited 'til I had the proper email to post....but instead I had some sake and was really excited to tell all my virtual friends...

And remember - I want to do anyone. woah...

You might think that your cousin that lives in LA has completely different style than me, but that's what we want. As much I love doing all vintage-flea-markety-hipster, I want to do some traditional styles (shopping from flea markets, too, don't worry) or crazy minimal styles, anything that will make the show interesting week after week.

I can do any style tastefully - because every style can be beautiful when shopped correctly and when mixed properly.

Bring it.
and email
casting@triconfilms.com

GOOD LUCK.

My best friends wedding.

2010-09-22T12:54:00.000-07:00

I know. So pretty if i do say so myself. The bride is one of my best friends, Nicole. I helped her with the vision of her wedding because well.....i'm a bit controlling when it comes with anything flower or fashion oriented (and she's a big Nike exec with not too much time).

The goal for the whole wedding was 'effortlessly beautiful' - no matching bridesmaid dresses or tight perfectly arranged flowers, but of course this doesn't happen exactly 'effortlessly.'

NOPE.

Chelsea from Frolic executed the flower vision perfectly, she went beyond my expectations and styled them even better than i was hoping. And all these gorgeous pictures are by Lisa Warninger

It's exactly what i pictured. Each arrangement is different, totally random and looks like it was just plucked from the garden

The flowers were all in season dalia's, garden roses, and random wildflowers and greenery.

We were at David Hill Winery outside Portland, with a big yellow country house and ridiculously pretty hills and vineyards.

The stems on the bouquets were left uncovered and untrimmed - Chelsea just tied them up with ripped white linen strips and Nicole's was tied with a silk floral hot pink scarf that i've had for a while.

And yes, those are blackberries - Chelsea's idea and right on.

This is a total testament of bloggers uniting over shared taste. I knew that Chelsea has done flowers beautifully and has great taste when it came to styling. So instead of hiring a traditional florist - that might've no matter how much i stressed it - done things to perfectly, through Chelsea's blog (Frolic) I knew that she got the look.

2010-09-22T09:16:00.000-07:00

So sorry. Post is coming. just have conference calls all morning (and a crazy last few days).

But the post might involve:

My relationship with Nate Berkus,

Meeting a ton of awesome bloggers the last couple days - people who i've read for years and love,

or a wedding that i was just in.

Please come back later today.

Por Favor.

Wahoo!!! A New Magazines in the Hizouse. (with pictures of hizouses)

2010-09-16T21:09:00.000-07:00

Ok so in case you are dead or otherwise, well, "working all day" and "not checking the blogs constantly", a new on-line shelter magazine launched yesterday.

Rue Mag

It's awesome. Oh and look....huh, that's weird...what a coincidence....I have a story in it....styled and written by me. I rarely read the articles in magazines myself, i'm a much better "picture reader" in general, but check it out if you are up to "words" and "sentences".

I use very few big words, i promise. Unless you consider 'wallpaper' a big word.

I'm not gonna post the whole story on my blog, this is just the first two pages.

(of 10 plus pages, and a VIDEO)

You must check it out by clicking here, starting on page 138.

In the story you get to see me hang out with some of my best friends: Brian (he's the best of all my friends), our LA best friends Ian, Corbett, Leigh, and their best friends from Texas Anne and Andre, and our other great longtime friend Enver and his lovely lady Christine. There were like 30 people in our teeny apartment with photo equipment, lights, food, fashion, makeup/hair everywhere. Kinda a nightmare production-wise but nobody cared because it was super fun.

Shot by the awesome David Tsay

Fiore beauty did our hair and makeup.

The Life Styled (hi, Catherine) put awesome clothes and jewelry on us.

So please check it out.

And look at the whole magazine.

My friend, Jen's company Ban-do has an alternate reality 80's party story that makes you want to eat sequins and shove cupcakes in your cupcake.

My secret mission in D.C. is almost finished.

I ran into Jason Bourne.

oh, and he also likes blue.

but he does not like princess sleeves. we talked.

What I wish I was wearing today....

2010-09-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

Ever since this whole TV thing happened I decided that I should start to dress less like a crazy person. Don't worry, still slightly cuckoo, just mixing in a little awesomeness here and there.

For the special I kept putting off wardrobe shopping because I was so busy shopping for the house, and then i was out of time.

so this time, i'm a-thinkin' about wardrobe in advance.

Now a lot of you who know me know that I can get very equestrian very fast. Maybe its because one of the few movies we were allowed to watch growing up was 'Man From Snowy River'.

Are you with me ladies? You know you are.

Not sure how that chick was the leading lady....

I can get behind all the leather, tweed, canvas, princess sleeve jackets, denim and brass accents any day.

So here is what i'm thinking: my new dream outfit for work:

Jacket: Emersonmade, amazing. Just perfect. $238 and worth every penny. Many of you might say, 'But Emily, you already have a jacket just like that. You wore it all throughout Design Star'. and I say to you, 'Correctamundo, my friend.' But i lost it the last day of the shoot much to my, and America's sorrow. One less princess sleeved, perfectly fitted vintage tweed jacket in the world.

AND p.s. if anyone sees anybody wearing my jacket in NYC, tackle them take off the jacket and turn them over to the police. These kinds of crimes can't go unpunished.

Ok, i will wear the jacket with these James Jeans (twiggy cut, they have stretch but not jeggings and are super dark and therefore rather flattering) $114 (i have three pairs of these, different colors)

Um, but lose those heels lady, i'm going to be wearing these with them:

My god, you are beautiful. clogs and boots combined! no you di'int.

Anthropologie, $580. What? be quiet. a girl can ~~clog~~ dream can't she?

Oh and this'll be my new bag

From A.P.C. $580. yep, that's not happening any time soon. but i love you.

And dios mio I love Lauren Moffatt. (top $240) Modern femininity at its best.

There we have it folks. And if anybody ever happens upon me in a piano bar after a few too may, ask me to play the theme song from 'Man from Snowy River'. And hopefully i won't, but there is a chance i will, cause i know that one by heart folks.

You know the one.

And if you don't, ask yourself what exactly were you doing in the 80's if not watching period romances from New Zealand? eh?

or just click here and listen to it with a montage from the movie.

i just did. and i cried. seriously.

stupid nastalgia, i hate you sometimes.

Am i the only person who saw that movie?

I Heart Blue Tuesdays

2010-09-14T09:04:00.000-07:00

So in line with making sure my head doesn't explode, but I still keep up the blog i've decided that along with mondays being 'Flea Market Mondays' (I lost the 'find' in there, i could tell you guys weren't digging it) Tuesdays are going to be 'I heart blue Tuesdays'.

I was going to call it 'just because I wear blue doesn't mean I am blue' tuesdays, but Brian nixed it and said it was too long, and then i said 'ah, i think its funny', and he said that it actually wasn't.

Whatever.

Welcome to I Heart Blue Tuesdays. Where i will feature my most beloved color 'blue'.

Starting with Peter Franks den:

Cindy and I shot the Garnet Hill Catalogue probably 5 years ago here at Peter Franks house (via House Beautiful) up the Hudson Valley. It was the first time that I saw (or fell head over oxfords for) blue grasscloth. I remember thinking it is just so warm, but quiet - a texture without pattern.

Peter is a stylist and his house is beautiful in every way, but this room in particular looks so 'weekend' and comfortable but still high end.

Kudos, Pete. Can i call you Pete, Pete?

You guys probably have seen this, but I hadn't for some reason. (via apartment therapy).

I was surprised to find out that it was a home, i thought it was a catalogue for whomever makes those crochet thingy's (is it their home, does anyone know?)

But the colors are what does it for me. And to all of you who think that wood panelling is out, i say to you, 'nay, NAY 'tis in'. Granted i'm the 70's girl, but i love some painted white or stripped and washed wood panelling any day. a la this one:

Sorry no blue in that one.

But i leave you with this happy happy space.

from Patricia Gray's blog

Do we like 'I heart Blue Tuesdays'

and yes it will include some fashion, accessories, links to products, etc. anything i want, really.

As long as its blue.

Flea Market Find Mondays

2010-09-13T10:59:00.000-07:00

Rose Bowl Sundays = Flea Market Find Mondays.

This might be a new Monday thing since I flea market every weekend and I like show and tell a lot - not in a weird way, just in a 'look at my pretty things' kinda way......which is actually kinda weird now that i think about it.

I love me a landscape watercolor. You know it. $20 and about 10x14"

Ethereal, moody yet totally in my color palette and with a ton of age and character.

I shall frame promptly.

Check out these bad-boys. They are old brass English measurers for whey or hops for english beers. They are hand-welded and totally imperfect. I love that they have a modern silhouette, and act as a grouping of sculptures, but are old and could be functional as well.

They will go either in my shelving or just on a console as a grouping. If i feel crazy i might just put branches in the tallest one. who knows. i'm totally unpredictable when it comes to foliage.

looky at the little stamped measuring details on all of them. these were $90 for the six. I know. it was a splurge but I love them very much. They catch the light so perfectly and make a huge statement without being gaudy.

I love an extendable lamp, $30. From the 70's. In brass. Lord how I am obsessed with the 70's.

Perhaps its because I was made in the 70's.

Does that make me vintage?

Wait, does anyone know the guy at the L.A. flea markets that was a hoarder and now is trying to get better so he is selling everything, but before he sells each item he takes a picture of you with it?

he's awesome. And then he hoards the picture. I'm not kidding, which actually makes a lot more sense.

I find it so strange, but incredibly sweet at the same time. I imagine him just flipping through the pictures on a Saturday night, reminiscing on each glass bottle or silver pencil cup, hoping that it has a good home now and fantasizing that they will meet again.

I thought he wanted a picture of me because of DS and SFAS, but nope, he had no idea who i was (as it should be), just wanted one last memento of his lamp.

Let me know if you guys are into Flea Market Find Mondays.

I always like to know what people are buying so i can either scoff at them or envy them, but if you guys don't have the same neurosis, then i won't subject you to mine.

I need a blogging intern. Yes i do.

2010-09-09T17:35:00.000-07:00

I don't know how to do a blog 'button' so I'm just going to dedicate my thursday evening post to this:

It's the new online magazine that is dropping next week. I have an entertaining story in it, and so does my friend's (Jen Gotch) company, Ban-do.

Support people, support.

Pretty pictures don't pay for themselves, people have to read magazines for them to stay in business and for photographers and stylists to keep working.

Ok, my lecture is officially over.

I'M ON THE SEARCH FOR A BLOGGING INTERN!

No, i'm not shouting, just excited.

Someone who knows what they are doing in blogging world. They probably can post videos, get sponsers, social network media stuff and help me blog when i start to get crazy busy.

Unfortunately I need someone with experience and references, in both blogging, computers, photoshop, etc. and they need to love home style. So PLEASE only apply if you have those things - otherwise i would hire my husband....or Bearcat, i need someone with skills that i don't necessarily have, but with the style obsession that i do have - and i know you guys are out there.

I am redoing my blog and web-site right now, thanks to Squarespace, but I know that soon i won't be able to dedicate as much time to it and I want someone who can be my right hand man.

Someone who has been in the blogging world for a while, knows how to research online, post everything, upside down if need be and has a personality.

Obviously this could lead to other opportunities.

LA based is necessary, sorry. If I don't find anyone here, then yes, I will post this again, i promise.

But it would be crazy for me not to try to find someone who i can meet and work with face to face.

It will start as an internship, 10 hours a week, with credit, of course and mad linkage to your blog.

And hopefully it will be a crazy success for both of us and lead to more things.

I set up an email just for this, and will check it often for a while, but it isn't my main email (i'm working on getting one just for the blog as we speak) So if you email this address in 2 weeks, don't get mad if I don't get back to you because i may not check it too often.

thebrasspetal@yahoo.com

As you can probably tell, personality is important and resumes bore me. I'm not saying to not send a resume, but you know what i'm saying - let me know about you.

And most importantly don't forget to link to your blog. and if you don't have a blog, then 'blogging assistant' probably isn't the best fit for me right now.

I can't wait!!!

Ian's master bedroom

2010-09-09T10:55:00.000-07:00

OK. I'm back. and I realized that I forgot to post/blog about Ian's master bedroom redo. The below picture makes me want to build a time machine (as we all know i'm great at building electrical inventions) and go back 6 weeks to style this bed better. I'm not there when the pics are taken, I OK them, and then leave the house to do other around town shots, and then stuff happens.

So I love Ian's bedroom regardless of the messy bed. I really wanted it to feel masculine but not too hotel room and I feel like mens bedrooms can go in that direction really easily. And the more you decorate a man's bedroom, the less straight he looks. But at the same time I still need to 'design' the room. So here's what I did. I painted the walls 'Sandy Hook Gray (BM) which is beautiful, and toom down the window treatments. Ian didn't want any at all, and I agreed. That room doesn't get very much light and is surrounded by trees, so he doesn't have privacy issues.

After replacing the carpet - OOH i haven't talked about that yet. So replacing the carpet wasn't in the budget, but i insisted on it because the bland beige looked dirty and just didn't work with any of the colors we had going on. I looked at a bunch of options that we could possibly afford and get in only a few days and most of them were either too suburban for Ian or too cheap looking. So we went with this medium toned gray commercial grade. Calm down. Yes, its kinda weird to put commercial grade carpet in a home, but YES it totally worked and looked great. (oh, for the record we got estimates for replacing the carpet with wood flooring, but because of the sloping of the hill and how irregular the rooms were it would have taken 10,000 and 3 weeks to do, so not an option unfortunately).

The carpet was simple and clean and while it was warmer than wood, it still feels modern. And the whole house (including 3 bedrooms, 2 staircases, 2 hallways and the TV room) was $800 - installation was $1200. To get the other carpet that I wanted or to get sea grass flooring - wait is that what its called?- it would have cost 3-4000 just for the carpet, plus installation and i'm not sure that it would have looked as good. This carpet, because it has such a low pile is still cool to throw rugs over.

The bench I bought at a thrift store and had it reupholstered, by the same guy who did the headboard. I handed the guy navy linen with a picture of the west elm headboard:

I like it what I got, but there was supposed to be box piping around the front of the sides and more tufting, same with the bench. Kinda annoying, but nothing you can do about it except learn from it and realize that no matter how much someone says they understand, put EVERYTHING in writing. The headboard only cost $350 for a queen (west elm was $510 with shipping, and no navy fabric). The bench cost $100 to reupholster and refinish - although he was supposed to strip the legs and just treat them without staining so it would be a light natural wood and instead he stained them dark which i don't hate, but i don't like. This is a case of 'you get what you pay for'.

Diamond foam and fabric (where i got the wingback and 60's chair reupholstered) does amazing work but they aren't cheap. This guy has a little shop in Echo Park and came highly recommended and is crazy cheap, but we took a risk, for sure.

The dresser came from Pepe's in Echo Park, it was $350 and its in perfect shape, but from the 60's. The lamps were Ian's lamps already, but in that terrible green color, and for the show we wanted to use as much of the owners stuff as possible, so I decided that the shape wasn't bad - and the shades were great, so we spray painted them. Same with that mirror. It came from a thrift store and was brown and ugly metal. Don't worry, i won't be one of those 'spray paint everything' designers/hosts. But some things just need it.

The Sconces: yes I put goose neck lamps on the wall. because i be kerazy. they look awesome and totally work. For those at home - these lamps have holes at the top, but not the bottom and while they work on the wall ok with just the top being adhered to the wall, eventually with use, they move to much. So you need to drill a hole (with a metal bit) through the bottom, too. These are great for reading, but not good for ambient lighting because the shades are metal and focus the light down.

The bedding. The duvet is from Ikea, we tried to get this one:

But they were out of stock.

For the pillows: we made these gray linen pillows - you might know about my obsession with linen. Its strong durable, textural, cheap and gets softer and softer with age and washings. There are some linens that cost $30-$40 a yard, they are mainly imported from France and Belgian. But the American or Asian linens are great and sometimes cost around $7-$12 a yard. Wash them twice before you use them, so they get super soft and textural. And the throw pillow that is on the bed is a fabric sample from Diamond that I purchased, then put linen backing on it to make a pillow.

I've added an awesome turkish rug in here, and put some art on the wall above the asian chest on the left. It just needed a couple more elements. I'll take pics.

Any questions, folks?

Vacations over, folks. Lame.

2010-09-08T12:23:00.000-07:00

Obsessed with the picture on the right. It makes me want to paint my body orange, and eat an orange orange. Both from Skona Hem.

Right now all i want to blog about is how starting this second i'm on a serious all-you-can't-eat diet. that doesn't make sense, actually. my brain is done, too full of fried foods and booze. point being, my friend Corbo's (click her name to check her blog, yo) and I are going to do some drastic de-toxing for a while.

Summer takes a toll on the body, especially a summer with a lot of celebration and a lot of stress-eating/drinking. My summers are always debaucherous and being the virgo that I am i always insist on going super hard and hitting bottom before the requisite Fall productivity mode. (I do this around the holidays, too....its strangely self-destructive and super effective at the same time)

So my birthday was last week (same as Rachel Zoe's i was not surprised but extremely happy to find out) and I had my best friends wedding over the weekend - which was effing amazing in every way, will post pics as soon as i get them. So, I did such a good job hitting bottom, folks. I mean, i'm terrific at hitting bottom.

And its time to move this pale little bottom into gear.

..... starting tomorrow maybe. I have hours of RHONJ, RHODC, Flipping out, Rachel Zoe, Sarah's house, Real Genevieve, Project Runway and Top Chef to catch up on. Shut up. I used to feel guilty about the amount of reality tv i watched considering my husband is an actor (whose job is perpetually endangered due to reality tv), but now that i'm in the unscripted Hollywood world (thanks to a reality show), i feel its my duty to give hours of my week to the best of the unscripted. For it is thee whom i love the most.

Regular post tomorrow. After a 3 mile run where i will not stop whenever i want to (every other block). I promise.

Check what i'll be wearing, fools.

2010-09-03T11:46:00.000-07:00

No time to blog. But wanted to show you my bridesmaid dresses. 'cause i'm sure you all were asking what i'm wearing on sunday. Each of us have different floral or hot pink cocktail dresses. And I LOVE mine. will wear many an occasion.

it's bcbg, not sure if they are selling it any longer.

But she be KEE-UTE.

Coastal Living, Big Sur

2010-09-02T10:22:00.000-07:00

Check out this story in Coastal Living that I did about a year and a half ago. Sometimes stories don't run for a long time, for whatever reason. It's on the shelves now, pick it up yo. Coastal Living, September.

This house was insanely beautiful -and that view? shut the front door.

These shots were taken by David Tsay, styled by yours truly.

The house was redesigned by Carver Schiketanz. They do crazy good work. But I just came in and added accessories, rearranged the composition for the camera, added flowers, food, shoes, etc.

Yep. it was like a treehouse. Read the story and it gives more info on the architecture. It was somebody stupidly famous, but my little brain no remember details so well.

That's it folks. It was a beautiful house, and the setting was sick. And this was just the guest house on the property. The main house was being redone by the same firm as we shot there and it was - i mean - there are kinda no words to describe how big and awesome it was. But this was more bungalowey and more my style. On the same property there was the kids house.

Yep three houses on this huge plot of land on the cliffs in big sur. It was such a fun 4 days. Brian was my assistant and we were put up at this AWESOME hotel, which i'll get the name of, and ate at all the best restaurants in big sur. Sorry, i hate it when people brag about their jobs, but this one was particularly braggable.

My best friends wedding, part 1

2010-09-01T13:35:00.000-07:00

Hello, Portland.

How are you? progressive? yep. unpretentious? yep. Rainy in August? YEP. Which is actually fine, I don't like hot weather clothes - I love my little short dresses, but only with tights as I am happily very fair, but unhappily constantly bruised because i'm clumsy and have very questionable spatial awareness with my body. Wearing tights in 90 degrees seems weird, but not here, when its 65.

wow that was inane.

In case any of you are left reading, I'm up in Portland for the week. I'm kinda art directing my best friends wedding this weekend and my friend Chelsea (from Frolic fame) is styling and executing the tabletops. and she is awesome.

The bride wants (aka I want) hot pink, random, effortless, imperfect, weedy arrangements on the table. Very loose and organic. I don't do tight. And Chelsea is totally on board. Here is the inspiration picture. I love that some just have greenery, and i get the feeling that down the table every arrangement is different.

I know. its ridiculous. We are using different flowers than these because we aren't millionaires, and peonies in Oregon are like $35 a stem off season. But Chelsea has ordered garden roses in corals and hot pinks (garden roses are in general super petal-y and can often look like peonies, way more organic and sculptural than the ubiquitous rose) and a bunch of awesome weedy greens, dahlias, blackberries.

its gonna be sick.

love this one too, prob not for the wedding because we are using all vintage different mason jars (which we are renting for 50 cents a piece from a 'collector' - craigslist fellas), but it's such a beautiful shot.

Amazing.

These are also up there in flowers that i want to eat i love so much. what if I was standing in the ceremony quietly eating my bouquet. not saying anything about it or acting like it was weird. just picking petals slowly off of it and putting them in my mouth. maybe smiling now again, nodding in agreement during sentimental parts. wiping a tear. chewing the petal, then swallowing.

Love love love.

i think i'm hungry.

Visit Chelsea's blog. It's a daily fave.

Do it.

i'm off to buy more plaid and drink some coffee. 'cause i be in portland, fellas.

More info, keep the questions coming.

2010-08-30T22:34:00.000-07:00

Ok. So I love that you guys want more info.

About the window treatments in the living room. No, Ian didn't want them, and I didn't either. Don't get me wrong, I love drapery. But in this case the views were spectacular (of the canyons) and the drapery is pretty feminine for a dude. We did put very simple blinds in the den so he could shut them to watch tv if he needs them, but you can hardly see them (they roll up to be about an inch at the top of the frame and are white so you don't really notice them.)

OH! here's also why: we all know that drapery hardware can be tricky (read: ugly) - its often over-designed, when i just want it to disappear. I love it best when its almost at the ceiling, but in the case of the living room you can't have it at the ceiling because it is vaulted. So then the hardware adds so much busyness and distracts the eye from the bookshelves, that feature window and the views. Also, the windows open in, so they fight with the drapery. We could have done some sort of wood or bamboo rolling deal thing, but it just didn't seem necessary - he doesn't have privacy issues and would have added a lot of cost. So no. no drapery here.

I did talk about this on the show, but some of the things have to get edited out, so this must have been one of them.

Ok, so lets go through some other pics.

Sorry, this is kinda a blurry pic. This is the tablescape from the 2nd look, and I think i like it the best. I'm not normally a 'set your table 24 hours a day' kinda girl - i think it can be fussy and strangely creepy (like, did you almost have dinner and they you killed everyone?), but it did photograph really nicely. I'm a 'big-vessel-with-branches-and-maybe-a-few-candles-or-candlesticks-tablescape' kinda girl

We actually have now put the bench back in the window at the back (where it truly belongs, just perfectly, from the first look) and used the ming chairs in his 2nd guest bedroom that wasn't on the show (due to time/budget). I bought 6 mismatchy farm chairs (ranging from $5 to $50) for around the table. and i lurve them. They bring so much character and history into the room, and were super cheap.

OH and bells of ireland flowers - so easy to style (they pretty much just style themselves), simple, cheap, beautiful, last a long time and a great pop-o-green.

Here what it the final tablescape looked like (below). And I like it, but Ian really didn't like the indigo runner (in fact he said it made him want to kill himself, now, now, Ian, dramatic much?) - i actually preferred it without the runner, but it needed color for TV. And i wish the lanterns were closer together. It's such a learning curve figuring out what looks good on camera versus in person. And again, i know i have a leg up due to prop styling, but video is different - the light is different and the angles are different and you have less control because you are busy doing shopping segments and interviews, you really have to trust the people you work with.

But I LOVE the toile. And so does Ian. It's Thibault (I know, i know kinda old school decorator-y in a good way, right?) Here's the link

And to the guest bedroom:

Here it was before as a tv room, which would be fine left as a tv room, but due to the fact that we plan on watching hours and hours of tv there in big groups, this no worky for our needs. The 'office' was unused and so much bigger and more inviting. So it only made sense that this be turned into a temporary use room.

And after:

I actually really love this little room. Brian and I stay over there a lot and its like a little happy nook (of nooky). It's super cozy and has a beautiful view, although ***WAY too bright in the mornings, so i have little blinds coming (ones you can barely see). Ian doesn't want them, he loves the view, but its hard to sleep in past 7.

OK Sources: The duvet is West Elm, the wallpaper is Katie Ridder 'Leaves' in grey (I bought it from Harbinger in LA, to the public). It was kinda expensive I think $250 for that wall, but its really beautiful and interesting - a masculine color in a feminine pattern. The pillows were just sourced fabric from Michael Levines ( a toile to keep that theme going, and a silk grey and white stripe), and we sewed them to save some money.

Oh and I do wish I had been there when they took this pic - the bed is messy in a bad way. It's so hard

giving up responsibility, i never thought I was a control freak, but turns out I might have to be.

The trunk was a thrift store find for $100 (its big and old and sturdy as hell). Everything else was flea market (chandy was $20, lamp was $15, mirror $30, little bud vase from CB2 and buttterflies/wall ephermera was random flea market/thrift store 1 and 2 dollar stuff). The bed is an ikea platform base and their cheapest mattress which i DO NOT recommend - way too hard, i'm buying a pillow top to help out.

The paint on the wall is Gray Owl (BM) and was beautiful. It's slightly warmer than the one in the living room and mimicked the color of the leaves. I painted the ceiling gray as well, which i feel like keeps your eye moving instead of stopping at 8 feet high.

Finally i got rid of the terrible sconce and moved the j box (well, I didn't, come now) to the ceiling. I decided not to put the little shades on the chandy bulbs (because a. they are hard to find pretty ones, and b. they add about $100 to the cost of the chandy, and c. they are slightly suburban). So instead i bought little round globe bulbs which are awesome, but need to be dimmed (which we did). I think it makes this antique chandelier look more modern. I found a matching black iron sconce (flea market, $5) that goes on the other side of the room (not-pictured), and did the same bulb-no-shade treatment to it.

I think with guest rooms you can go a bit quirkier. People are only in them temporarily and every time i walk into this room i get happy, it's a fun little surprise. It still feels like the rest of the house, but just a bit more feminine and quirkier. I could have oriented the bed to come out of the wallpaper wall, but it would have made this room teeny tiny, whereas there is still a chair/seating area in the other corner and room for guests to walk. There is a lot of Emily in this room, fo shizzle.

Alright folks. unfortunately i have to run because The RHONJ reunion just came on and its getting ugly really fast. and I have my unfortunate priorities. 'We are in the ok corale? '.

wtf does that mean???

Day after brain-dead-ness

2010-08-30T14:22:00.000-07:00

Ahhhhhh!!! Thank you so much. I don't really know what else to say except that i could have woken feeling like crap today but instead i woke up feeling pretty amazing, although totally tired. My brain is a bit full. it doesn't take a lot, its a pretty small brain, but it might be at capacity right now.

I'm not sure if you guys want more from the house, but i'll just post a couple before and afters here and talk about some stuff that maybe didn't get talked about last night.

Here is his living room, 'before'

After:

Here was my inspiration board that i was working with: Things changed a bit, as you can see, but the general look feels the same.

Ok let's go around the room. The coffee table, sofa, pouf and lamp were all new. Coffee table ($1300) , sofa ($900) from HD buttercup and standing lamp (anthro $398). The pouf was $200 from Mosaik in LA. Everything else is vintage and came from either TINI, Hernandez brothers, 45 three modern and the flea market. So yes, the coffee table and table lamp were splurges, but i saved on everything else - i mean some of the side tables were $20 and the pillows were just 1/2 yardage that I bought for 10 bucks.

I think that coffee table (while i couldn't afford it) was worth the splurge because it completely grounds the room, makes it look high end next to all the thrift store pieces and is heavy, but since its metallic it doesn't weigh down the room. And it has storage.

Oh and In case you don't know my feeling on legs, you should try to have at least one piece of furniture that doesn't have four legs, whether its a really low sofa, or a skirted sofa or chair or in this case a coffee table, it helps the whole space look more grounded and substantial. I forget who said it, somebody from house beautiful, but a designer said that a room with too many legs looks 'nervous' and I totally agree.

The paint color is BM Smoke embers, and i LOVE it.

The artwork is controversial, i know. I think its awesome, while some people think its creepy. Here's the thing with artwork on TV shows: it is super super hard to get things cleared, meaning that the original artist or their family (if they are deceased) has to sign off on it to the network - and its normally super hard to track down who the original artist is - especially flea market art. (this is not the case in magazines, i don't know why). I'm not an artist, so i can't make my own art (although i do have a few ideas of weird collage-y things that I can do).

Luckily Ian loves vintage maps, because those are cleared. And he loves antlers, which worked perfect with the FDR look. oh and to the critics who say that antlers are 'out', i disagree. Sure, they were ubiquitous a couple years ago, but things that are beautiful are never 'out', we just don't need anymore cardboard antlers or maybe high gloss pink antlers. Its like how coral was so huge 5 years ago. Now people are repelled by coral, but coral is beautiful. just buy one natural piece to display, not a bedding set with coral all over it.

Back to the room. Here is the more sixties look.

I actually really like it, although it just feels too art directed. It definitely looks more 'designed' which is exactly what Ian didn't like about it.

And the shelving was a bit west elmy and cataloguey.

That rug is from Ikea, i'm sure you all knew that. its pretty great for $179.

And as much as i like the idea of doing something to the back of shelves, i knew that Ian wouldn't ultimately want to live with it - otherwise i probably would have wallpapered back there.

Ok apparently my brain is too tired to blog today. I mean, what a boring post. Sorry guys, i'll try to do a better one tonight.

2010-08-29T21:30:00.000-07:00

AHHHHHH.. thank you guys so much for all the support. Its so hard to be objective, but the fact that you guys loved it so much means a lot to me.

thank you soooo much.

and in case you want HGTV to know how you feel

you can leave a comment by clicking here

there will be haters. as there always is. and yes it is baffling at times how cruel some people can be. ignore them and just write what you want.

xoxoxoxo

i love you so much

TONIGHT!!!!! My first day on the job. AHHHHH!!!!!

2010-08-29T10:23:00.000-07:00

So picture this: you are a college football coach and you've dreamed about being a sports commentator for years - you just knew you could do it, but no, you actually had no formal training. But one day, you win a position on NBC, during the playoffs!!! AMAZING!! You are terribly excited, grateful and nervous as hell. You show up first day of your dream job, and you are reminded that yes, your first day of your new job will indeed be on national television.

Holy eff balls.

Secrets from a Stylist debuts tonight. I'm super excited (i saw it this week) but I'm feeling pretty exposed and vulnerable, too. Here is how i keep it in perspective:

ahem.

Winning Design Star and getting my own TV show is an incredible new job, a job that was 10 steps ahead of what I was doing before, an unbelievable promotion in every way, but just a job.

The amazing parts of my new job are the creative freedom, daily excitement, immense responsibility (yes, i like responsibility, it keeps me out of trouble), and public effect.

The drawback of my job is that my first day on the job - untrained - is on national TV.

i mean, i know that's kinda the point of a TV show, being on the TV. But still, I'm on TV.

Yep. With potentially a million people watching. (hopefully, but honestly i have no clue how many people watch TV shows, or even how many people 'a million' are).

So I try to not think about all my friends, family, co-workers, fellow designers, bloggers, readers, admirers and yes, haters watching and judging. (hopefully instead they are laughing and smiling and not wanting it to be over.)

I'm really proud of my first day on the job. And the potential of doing it everyday is insanely exciting.

Do I have criticisms of myself? um, no doy. I always will.

But every time I think about the world watching me, a mini panic attack begins.

and that's when I remind myself:

it's just a great new job, its just a great new job.

- one that I'll get better at everyday - because that's what happens on new jobs. You start out not knowing quite what you are doing - people help you along and give you tips, but there is a lot of learning and troubleshooting. It takes a while to find your rhythm, figure out what things you are good at, and what things you need more help with.

So I want feedback, obviously. But pretend i'm a five year old who just finished her first piano recital in front of 100 people. Sure, you saw some things I could do better next time, but maybe wait a while - after the shows been for sure picked up and my nerves have calmed down to tell me about them. For now, let me know what you like about the show, what you definitely want to see more of, or don't want cut out. I definitely want constructive criticism, too, just not yet. please.

oh and I'm not sure if HGTV reads these comments, so if you feel like it, comment on my web-page on HGTV.

Remember during the show when everybody was promoting their fan vote, and I wasn't? Well, obviously you know why now. But I'm calling in that favor - if you get a chance, and feel like it let HGTV know what you think about Secrets From a Stylist. Viewer feedback is super important to them. Click here, to comment to HGTV.

OOH, also I'm starting to do blog posts for them (which I'm stoked about). And my second one (my first being my 12 most memorable moments from DS, click here to read) will be up after the show - or maybe tomorrow I'm not sure, and you'll be able to comment on that, too. It is 10 tips to help shopping at flea markets and thrift stores.

So watch SFAS tonight at 10pm on HGTV. please please please.

I hope you love it.

And remember, It's just a great new job that I love very much.

And like that football coach turned commentator,

I'll do the best I can, and get better at it every day.

And someday when I'm a total pro (which will happen, just watch) I won't give a sh*t about haters.

Someday.

2010-08-28T10:20:00.000-07:00

Yo YoYO

I've done a ton of blog and radio interviews this week to promote for the premiere of Secrets From a Stylist. I figured i'd start posting some of them here today.

Room Fu - Austin Blogger and Design Star Critic. Click Here

Casa Sugar - a huge great design blog. click here for part one and here for part two

Aphrochic, another super lovely design blog, here

AOL. click here

And Buss Buss (Thanks Kelly for coming to the party!!!) click here

I know there were others who asked and PR is working on the requests. The series won't air for a while so we might want to spread out the press. So you are not ignored, i promise.

I'll spare you the radio interviews, although I do have a 1/2 hour live conversation today at 3pm.

How to Listen:

Friends and family can tune in on the radio in Southern California -980 on the am dial. Or live streaming on the website – HYPERLINK "http://www.kfwb.com" www.kfwb.com – click where it says “listen here”

That's it for now.
i love you guys.

Teaser for Sundays Secrets from a Stylist

2010-08-27T09:52:00.000-07:00

Alright folks, I can't show you pics from Ian's house (although you can see a bit of it above), but I can show you the inspiration pics for his house. These have been on my mood board (or notebook that i carry around shopping) for Ian's house since I started working on it. I love how they feel finished, yet not decorated. Despite co-creating Glee, Ian is a straight dude, so I didn't want it to feel overly designed. Just natural and lived in.

Photo by Mikkel Vang for Vogue Living

In the show I combine three different styles. Very distinct, from different decades or countries.

photo from Emma's design Blogg

But I keep them coherent with the color palette. Which looks pretty amazing in person, and I hope looks as good on camera. I'm learning so much about how things are different on camera. Being a prop stylist for photography helped me because I already know the rules like: shiny things are annoying to photographers (they prefer matte), small busy patterns screw with the camera and 'amore', and mirrors are always a problem. But now I have a whole new set of lessons to learn. Everything from the fact that I HAVE to wear more fitted clothes (my blousey blouses are making me look about 4 months along) to my lipstick should pop more, to TV interiors need a lot of color and even then, the color can look much different in person than on camera.

When shooting interiors for magazines or books, photographers can use natural light with the perfect lens and you don't need color (like above) to make a provocative, beautiful picture. But for TV, they have to put these films on the window so they don't blow out and get really hot (tv speak for blaringly bright) so natural light isn't really an option.

Of course I'm slowly trying to revolutionize this process, because set photography is normally so so so so much less beautiful than this kind of editorial (magazine) photography and being the total photo snob, it makes a HUGE difference to me. BUT, i will say that our set photographer (the guy that takes behind the scenes as well as all the beauty shots) has an editorial background so I have higher hopes.

Ok. so without giving away any of my secrets you kinda get the direction that I was going in, right? Man, I hope you like it.

I'll break it down next week, room by room and show you my detailed process and give you all the sources.

3 days til the premiere of SFAS

2010-08-26T10:04:00.000-07:00

It's no secret that bloggers are kinda taking over the world. And I mean blog readers, too. If we could all come together to decide on a different word for 'blog' that would be awesome, btudubs. It still sounds a bit like a sickness or a real quick little throat gag. blog.

Regardless, some of these lovely blogging ladies are starting a new on-line magazine, Rue Mag, that drops in September and one of them, Anne Sage, who has been one of my longtime go-to's is rad and wears very incredible glasses on her face featured me in her blog today. YES!

I met Anne and Crystal whilst shooting in our apartment a few weeks ago - non-design star related, extra hard to keep that secret then, by the way. And they are both the loveliest.

Here is a sneak peak of the mag (not my shoot). http://www.shelterpop.com/2010/08/19/rue-magazine/

photo by Manny Rodriguez

I know. Magazines are like the 80's. They were almost gone, off the shelves, and then WHAM, they are back, except different, a little reworked. Well, magazines are awesome and the 80's were questionable, but i'm not the best analogy-er.

photo by Manny Rodriquez

Hello new media, you are awesome.

On to other topics. Oh right, i saw my TV show yesterday for the first time. 'I-saw-my-tv-show-yesterday' seems like a very weird thing to say. I filmed it in July, then the film production company (which I LOVED) has been doing their magic so I its been kinda outta my hands and i've had no idea what it actually looked like (or what I actually looked like).

So I was excited to watch as you can imagine. I'm not giving anything away.

And I am DYING to know what you guys think. That's all I'm gonna say.

Except this: Ahem.

Dear readers, please tweet, facebook, and blog as much as you want about 'Secrets from a Stylist' which premiers this sunday on HGTV at 10pm.

It's up against the Emmy's and Mad Men, and I think True Blood, too. harsh. Ian (and Glee), are up for 19 Emmy's so when you are tuning away from SFAS, you best be rooting for my friend.

Wooh, I'm back and almost fully recovered.

2010-08-25T09:58:00.000-07:00

yo yo yo. i'm back. Woah, that was a rough couple days. Besides interviews, i kinda just checked out of life. I've never been so exhausted in my life, strike that, since my honeymoon. It's weird how your body knows when you were stressed even when you don't feel stressed. I had the most low-maintenance wedding ever (we literally had a taco truck cater it) but still i must have been exhausted because i slept roughly 16 hours a day on our honeymoon. And that is pretty much what I did this week, too. I feel better and ready to roll. ish.

I'm working on the new blog (or should I say, somebody else is, to be disclosed soon***update, don't worry it will remain the same, run by yours truly, i just want it redesigned and updated, all fancy-like), web-site, interviews, you know, general 'taking-over-the-world-and-building-my-empire' stuff.

Kidding, well kinda.

The outpouring of support has been overwhelming and so appreciated. I'm just so happy to know that people (not all, mind you) wanted me to win and are excited for my show. I promise it will be unlike any show out there, ever. (aka, the fashion to home thing has been altered to create a more original show....curious, eh?).

Secrets from a Stylist airs this sunday at the same time slot as Design Star - 10pm/7pm. Just a reminder, which i'll probably do everyday until sunday.

photographs are styled by me, in my apartment, and shot by Terilyn Fisher

I heart all of you so much.

Yep, it's all over......well not really.....

2010-08-24T09:04:00.000-07:00

So, that happened. Nuts, i know. I'm crazy excited and so exhausted. I took the day off yesterday to relax, i was pretty wrecked from sunday night. We had a ton of people out to celebrate with us. I'll post some pics as soon as i get them.

My saratonin has plummeted, such a big build up and adrenaline rush - almost like a wedding. I'm probably going to take today off again and go to the beach and relax. because that's what tv stars do.

Oh, and my 'client' (and friend) for the special is the co-creator of Glee, Ian Brennan, so if you like Glee you best be spreading the word about that. He's hilarious and awesome. And single, for all the ladies out there. Just sayin'.

So a lot is going to change here. The blog is going to transform a bit (it will still be a daily style blog), but we are still working out the details.

But for now, thank you guys sooooooooo much for all the support. I can't tell you how much I appreciate it. You feel vulnerable when you are on national TV, and some people you can never win over. So having this kind of fan base that has supported me long before Design Star means a lot.

xoxoxoxoxoxoxo

Design Star, Emily Henderson

2010-08-22T20:01:00.000-07:00

I KNOW!!!!! ITS INSANE!!!!! MUST WRITE ONLY IN CAPITALS FOR A YEAR BECAUSE I'M SO EXCITED!!!!!

I can't believe I won. I mean, i can, but i can't. What a secret to keep, and i'm a bad self-secret keeper. I can keep others, sure. But i have no secrets of my own because, i'm the most transparent person in the world. and i like to talk. a lot. obviously.

So keeping this GOOD of a secret was sooooooooooo hard you have no idea. I feel like lied to all of you, pretending i've been really busy styling shoots, when really i've been creating and shooting my special. (ahem, that airs next sunday at 7pm and 10pm, just like Design Star)

AND BOY am I so excited about that i could wee in my little vintage house dress. Working on my own show was the most fun i've ever had in my life. The hours were crazy and the days really long and I had so much more responsibility than i've ever had, but it was truly a blast and I was sad when It was finished.

And I love how Ian's house turned out and kinda don't understand why its not mine. (cut to me showing up every morning, creepily making myself coffee, signing for packages, DVR-ing Rachel Zoe, marking 'hers' and 'his' toothbrushes...)

But back to Design Star. It was all so surreal. I was pretty calm during the entire studio session (about an hour), i just pretended like they were my friends and i just tried to be myself. To say i wasn't nervous isn't true, but I was just like, 'well its me or not me, but acting differently or trying to impress the judges beyond being myself at this point is only going to make them question me....and think i'm weird'

I remember waking up that morning and thinking, 'ok so today is the day that i get told by the Design Star judges whether I will get my own TV series. Perfectly normal. right so today is that day, huh.' It was like living in a dream. It felt like there was no way this was actually happening, that I made it this far after stumbling so bad at the beginning.

When Vern announced it, I was shocked. I think my hearing shut off and in slow motion i looked over at the screens and saw that only my tv was still on. Michaels was off. I looked back and saw the other designers coming towards me smiling. It was like a car crash, it happened so slowly and my memory is pretty blurry.

But I won, folks.

Of course I knew it was a possibility or I never would have auditioned and left a job (in the middle of a shoot, btdubs) and gave up weeks of work, risked humiliation, etc etc. I knew I could win and I knew that someone should have a style show like the one I am envisioning, but actually winning seemed impossible to even think about. I mean, who wins their own design show?

And it is a big deal. You know, winning Project Runway and Top Chef opens doors and you get a cash prize, but winning Design Star is like somebody is already on the other side of the door, with a big smile and an envelope titled 'Your new job' that could potentially last years and years after those cash prizes are spent. You don't just get a mild form of design-geek fame, you get a really exciting new life and job.

(with lots of free stuff, maybe? ooh, yes, I prefer age-defying beauty products, gold and leather jewelry, vintage blue dresses...who am i kidding, i'm that person at Costco that will eat a sample the baby food or metamucil because its free).

Oh, how life is funny, huh? Two years ago I was struggling to get clients in LA after moving from New York. I was kinda bored and we weren't exactly Scrooge McDucking it in money. But I woke up january 1st, 2010 with less fear than I've ever had. This was my year, I could feel it. I started a style blog (hello), auditioned for a reality competition show, and its turned out to be one of the best years of my life.

So here are the lessons learned:

Take Risks. and Watch HGTV.

I'll have a behind the scenes and post pictures of my space tomorrow,

ooh and pictures of the party right now, post sneaks of the special, etc etc.

But for tonight:

Thank you.

very

much.

I am an extremely happy little blonde.

DESIGN STAR FINALE!!

2010-08-22T14:49:00.000-07:00

TONIGHT!!!

10pm/7pm. HGTV.

Yes, i know its the same time as Mad Men and True Blood. No, i don't care. Mad Men and True Blood can be netflixed, tivoed, rented, hulued, live streamed or downloaded.

The design Star Finale can't.

(well, yes it can on hgtv.com, but a lot of the excitement will have been lost).

Yes i am shouting. out loud. as if the computer is hard of hearing.

i'll have an immediate post at 8:01 pm tonight, and a full recap tomorrow.

No, I don't know why i'm still writing in such a big font.

Oh!, and if you are in LA, join us at Agave, 1745 N. Vermont 90027, at 6pm.

I miss your sweet embrace.

2010-08-20T08:50:00.000-07:00

In two days there will be no more secrets between us. I hate living with you like this. You turn away when i crawl into bed, you pretend not to notice when i take secret phone calls at night. You analyze every word i say, every expression i make, desperate for a clue. And i saw your quiet tears the other day when I said once again, 'I'm sorry, but i just can't tell you.'

The lack of communication is just killing us.

In two days, there will be no more secrets between us.

(**update, i'm not talking about Brian, he's in the loop. I was talking about you and me. clearly it wasn't a very good joke, 'cause people think i'm discussing my relationship. sorry.)

JUST TWO DAYS.

Until then, here is another outfit to room that I did a while ago.

Vanessa Bruno (the fashion) is the shiznit.

And here is a link to an interview that both Michael an I did, same questions, dueling answers.

http://wp.me/pusZv-5CD

HGTV sunday night 7pm pst, or 10pm est and pst.

Win or lose, lets party. hardy.

Viewing Party Sunday night.

2010-08-18T21:21:00.000-07:00

Ok. I've thought about it for a couple weeks and i've decided to have an open invite for the viewing party on sunday.

It's super casual sporty kinda Mexican bar in our neighborhood that has two huge projector tv screeny things and a lot of tequila. (its a bit 'hollywood' for our neighborhood, but when in rome)

Consider this a match against two boxers, but for design geeks.

Michael and I will battle it out. And yes, may the best woman win.

i'll give the play by plan, or behind the scenes or totally shut up, whatever you want.

Besides, I've worked really hard on this blog and I figure now is the best time to try to get to know some of you that would possibly want to get to know me, too.

So you are hereby all invited to come to:

Agave Cantina and Tequila joint

1745 N. Vermont Ave

Los Feliz, CA 90027

Show starts at 7pm sharp, no dvr so if you come late you might miss the beginning.

Valet, i think its only $3 and bring whomever you want.

We will be there at 6pm.

Leave in the comments if you are coming so i can have a rough head count.

And no haters. Don't even think about it.

Because...

'Whether I win or lose, all i need are friends and booze'**

that's just a sampling of the kind of wisdom that could come out of my mouth on Sunday.

** yes i really did make that up.

You guys choose....

2010-08-18T08:48:00.000-07:00

My living Room. Well, my living room a couple months ago.

Those pics were taken by Terilyn Fisher.

Then I switched it up and did this: (crappy photo by me)

Clearly one photo is better styled and better lit, etc, the bottom one was with my point and shoot last week, sans flowers and with some lovely chords. (and brians leg is randomnly in it).

I switched out the hides to this black and white one that I got at an antique store ($200) and put the other hide in my bedroom. Brian misses the warmth of the brown cowhide in here, but i much prefer this one. And Brian likes the swiss flag more than the collection of weird black/grey art - some are crooked, i know. i was only trying it out.

Ooh, and I found those nesting tables on the left side of the sofa at the flea market for 20 bucks, and they are staying because i love 'em. Right now the flag is back up because Brian gets to win sometimes. Like this:

What do you guys think? Swiss flag or weird art? The flag would go somewhere else, don't worry, i'm not getting rid of it. I think the collection of art is more sophisticated, but the cross is much more interesting.

I can't decide, i'm too close to it. Its like how sometimes you need another parent or a friend to tell you how good or bad your children really are.

When you are emotionally involved with something, its hard to be objective.

Yes, maybe i do have a romantic relationship with my vintage pieces.

and yes, I'm ok with it.

****UPDATE: you guys are awesome. You really should try out for a little old show called Design Star, cause some of you guys have some pretty good ideas. The flag is staying. And i'm reworking whats above the fireplace. Thank you sooooooooooooooo much.

Outfit to Room. I'll break it down.

2010-08-17T12:18:00.000-07:00

Thank you guys soooo much for the abundance of support. It makes me feel all warm inside, like chicken soup, or Makers Mark. Seriously appreciated.

Some of you might remember when I posted some fashion to rooms in Februrary - the pictures are just screen grabs, i didn't style them unfortunately. Well, now you know it was for the audition of the show. I, obsessed with being prepared, came in with a bunch of fashion to rooms to drive home the idea to the casting folk, because it was a bit abstract.

By the way, i really wish i had seen the Thom Felicia show now, Dress your nest. Why didn't it last? Did people like it, or no?

Below the pic is a mini-bio, just to pound the concept into your head. Sorry the type is small, it is scanned in and i don't know how to make it bigger. Me no photoshop. My friend Teri did the photoshopy part.

Of course its kinda obvious. But I was afraid of being too nuanced and having them not get it.

To clear a couple things up from commenters on HGTV (which i only glanced at i promise)

1. A uniform is not a style, it's what you are forced to wear to work. So don't worry, you don't need to decorate your home all in camouflage, i promise.

2. You don't have to change your house every time you change your clothes. I'm shocked i just had to actually type that.

3. It would not be a random outfit like your workout clothes or pajamas, the inspiration would come from an outfit that most represents your style.

I'm not saying this is fool proof or the only way to decorate your home. it's just a good way to start if you are trying to figure out your style inclinations.

If you wear a lot of jewelry, then you probably like a lot of decorative accessories. If you don't, then maybe you need your accessories to be functional as well as decorative.

If you tuck in your shirt tightly and where cuff links and the perfect Armani tie, then you might like a more masculine, simple, high end space.

If you wear the same pair of pants everyday, you should wash them, but it probably means that you like familiarity and comfort and you should own a really big comfortable sofa, a coffee table that you can put your feet on and style the room with functional ease.

If you wear stilettos, then you might not mind a less functional sequin pillow, for instance.

Heres another one - I want to be this person.

So her clothes have a vintage Victorian feel, but she wears them very loose and relaxed, like she doesn't care. She comes off conservative yet, mischievous. (the fashion was from Mayle and sadly she is no longer designing, does anyone know what Jane Mayle is up too?)

Domino's outfit to rooms are the best, i'll scan in a bunch and go through those. The City Sage and Design Sponge also do some as well that are pretty great.

Episode 9, re-cap

2010-08-16T11:55:00.000-07:00

I told you. Ind-a-effing-vidual challenges folks. 'sbout time. and I was ready. I was sick as a dog and had no voice, but i didn't care. i wanted to win. And at this point I started to realize that I had a good chance of doing just that. It was three, now down to two, folks. TWO!!

Ok, so here's how it went down. After we got the challenge and measured our houses, I started developing my concept. I knew I wanted a feature wall with fabric as wallpaper, as I love wallpaper. I love vintage-inspired patterns and I remember seeing this one at Zarin's a few challenges ago and while its kinda nuts and has grapes on it for god sakes, it has a youthfulness about it that I love.

I knew that i wanted to mix my love of victorian with my love of modern. WHAT???!!! ARE YOU NUTS? calm down, no. its not crazy. I'm of the camp that if you keep some consistency through colors, you can mix any styles together. ya heard me.

I knew I wanted to bring in some natural elements, because i'm a little forest girl at heart. And if the room looks slightly '70's, its cause it is, its my favorite decade, where people started doing extra weird things with their decor and it was way less uptight than the '60's (don't get me wrong, i love the 60's).

Off we go to Housing Works (a high end thrift store chain in Manhattan) I grabbed that brass coffee table base, the mirror above the sofa, both lamps, and a ton of books and pretty things for eh shelves. (later i wrapped linen around wood that I cut and made that the top of the coffee table - i loved it)

Then up to DWR where I snagged that awesome green vintage sofa (if its still there, somebody better grab it, i think it was only $1200). I remember thinking, huh, green against that fabric... oh, crazy emily. but it was the risk i needed - and now I can't imagine not having it. The large area rug, cowhide, the string chandelier - which is hard to see, but always beautiful, and the mid-century danish chair and ottoman were all from DWR as well. Casey and Michael were there at the exact same time and there were a few things that we quibbled over, but ultimately i think we have different enough aesthetics that i got what i wanted. step off, ladies.

Then to one of my favorite stores in the world, Penine Hart Antiques. Your welcome, in advance. She has an amazing eye and is perfectly priced. She sells her own art which is beautiful and affordable (I bought my first real piece from her when I was 25, for like $300 and I still love it). So at Penine's I picked up the mirrored side table (gorgeous), the white Victorian chair (beautiful) and the big frames that I leaned against the glass. They were all the perfect Victorian antiquey things i needed to mix with the DWR stuff.

In this pic, above, the room looks really spread out, but it wasn't - its just the lens. It was the perfect little seating area, if I do say so myself.

Finally we went to Andrianna Shamaris, an AWESOME store in Soho (and Malibu) that has a lot of imported crazy beautiful natural and organic pieces, many that she designs herself. From her I got the two petrified stumps that completed the coffee/cocktail tables, the side table next to the sofa that has inlaid mother of pearl shells, and the throw pillows.

I loved everything and i knew i could make them work in a room. My goal was to make a room that felt like me in every way (or how I fancy myself, anyway) - colorful, casual, exciting, a little weird, but well-balanced and somewhere that you can have fun. Would I do it for every client, of course not. But the point was to show our style and i'm kinda a maximalist, and so is this room. so sue me. although i wouldn't recommend it as I have very little money.

My favorite part? ooh, dunno. I love a lot about it. I love the combination of the white victorian chair with the white mid-century chair. I love that brass coffee tabe with the linen wrapped top. I love the bold pattern on the walls and how the cowhide balances it out on the floor. I love that it feels feminine but not overly girly. you guys know i can be super self-critical, overly so at times, but not this time. I still love this room.

Regrets? i'm not psyched about the 'shelving system'. But I couldn't find one whilst shopping and being a fan of open backed display shelving, i needed one. It was fine.

Oh and you can't tell how beautiful the drapery is, but it is. It's just linen, but the way its woven is fairly loose with a 70's vibe. it was a nightmare to cut and sew (I had four 100" panels layed out on the sidewalk of new york) but once I had them up I was happy - they created much needed intimacy. I wish the fabric/wallpaper went all the way up to the same level as the drapery, but it was 90 degrees in the glass house and that was my only source of fresh air.

Ooh, can we talk about my friend Scotty? When I saw him i was first kinda confused. i recognized him, but it had been so long since i had seen or talked to anyone on the outside, that it was just bizarre. I mean, all my friends in New York were within blocks of me this whole time, and now i get to hug one all of a sudden? You can't imagine how happy i was. Everyone should have a Scotty.

He told me later that he was actually booked that day on a job and had to get Cindy (my old boss and friend) to fill in for him on set (he's a prop stylist too), which is a very weird thing to do. it would be like an actor telling the director, 'yo, listen, i'm gonna go ahead and take today off, but i got a friend that looks just like me, he's great, you'll love him'. It just doesn't happen.

Luckily the client had worked with Cindy before, so it was ok. But point is that I owe Scott and Cindy a HUGE thank you. You have no idea how much I appreciated it, and Scott truly was the perfect person.

He works hard and fast, and he has a great eye. When my brain was tired of deciding if the lamp should be on the left or on the right, he would be like 'right!' and i could trust him. and he made me laugh and gave me lots of much needed hugs. I felt so bad that I could hardly talk to him because of my voice.

**I wish they could have taken these pics during the day, the light looked so beautiful in the room.

Elimination. My hosting kinda sucked. i can do so much better than that. but i felt like I was shouting just to get the words out and it HURT. i was super bummed. It would be like a pianist coming down with a 24 hour case of arthritis - it doesn't make it impossible, but extremely challenging.

But regardless of the hoarseness, this is the first time I didn't think i was going home (well not the first time). I loved my room and if I was the judges I would want to see more from me. Candace said it was her favorite room all year, in fact I think the quote was, 'Each year, one room really flutters my knickers, and this is the room'. not sure what that means, but i'm sure its the equivalent of 'knocking her socks off'. and being a Candace fan, that made this little blondie feel good. Genevieve loved it, too. Vern said that he liked it, but it was 2 whiskers away from being the crazy cat lady house, but Vern and I have pretty different styles so i wasn't offended. and i like cats, by the way,

Michael was safe, and It was down to Casey and I. Casey was my best friend on the show. I wasn't sad to see her go, necessarily, but I knew I would miss her a lot. She's rad.
And you should hire her. (www.avenuelosangeles.com)

Final Two. INSANE!

This week will be a good fashion to room week. I'll post some of my favorites from Domino, as well as some that I have put together. I actually didn't know about the Tom Felicia show, oops.

Thank you guys sooooooo much for all the support. You have no idea how much it means to me that people actually want me to win. thank you thank you thank you.

FINAL TWO!!!!!

2010-08-15T20:21:00.000-07:00

AHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!

s'right.

i haven't watched it yet, we are starting it right now, but as i recall - i hope to god i'm remembering it right - i am still in.

FINAL TWO!!!

SERIOUSLY????

WOW, THATS A LOT OF CAPITAL AND PUNCTUATION!!!!!!

i'm pretty happy right now. pretty happy.

check back tomorrow for the real scoop.

AHHHHHHHH!!!!!

- don't worry, those are good ah's, i'm not in pain.

(but for now, know that I know that i didn't come up with the outfit to room concept - there just hasn't been a show that i liked about it. thank you Domino.)

Design Star, Sunday, fools

2010-08-13T11:12:00.000-07:00

I'm getting pretty excited for this sunday. Individual challenge, folks.

I remember getting back to the penthouse after elimination last week and having a total-reality-show-epiphany. I said to Casey in a whisper, 'Um, since I'm here, i may as well win this thing.' The same thing occurred to her, we both laughed and were like, oh sh**. its on. We knew that Michael had his eye on the prize the whole time, but Casey and I just became competitive. Then Michael came back from elimination and while we were and still all friends, there was definitely a different feeling in the air.

because we are in the

FINAL THREE!!!

Its not that Casey and I hadn't wanted to win the whole time, but we were running around like crazy people, glue gunning drapery, staple gunning tables together, dealing with nutty designer personalities that we had to work and live with, and I think we forgot that it was actually possible to win. Casey isn't competitive either, so its not that we were trying to not win, but we were just trying to do good work, have fun and if it happened, great.

I started the competition thinking, sure, I could win, but after the first challenge I kinda gave up on that as a possibility because I clearly didn't work well under the constraints. I was like, nope, its not for me. I didn't think i was cut out for it, and frankly my style is 90% vintage and that wasn't a production possibility (til this week) so i really didn't know how to get my style into the spaces.

I had two rules going into Design Star:

1. Don't do anything that you wouldn't do for yourself or for a real client. In other words don't do something just for the sake of the TV competition, something you would totally regret later and be embarrassed by.

Would i have design the dining room from the last challenge for me? nope, but for the right client i would use that color palette and paint the ceiling, sure.

Would I do what i'm about to do in the glass house for a client? We'll see. I kinda like it,

but that's only my opinion.

Those three people up in those chairs with all the power, might feel differently.

(and I'm very curious what you guys are gonna think, it could be divisive)

Rule #2: I promised to just be myself. no performing. and if they don't like me, that's ok. This was much easier to stick to. much. in fact it was the easiest thing in the world to do.

But back to why we are there. The judges like all three of us a lot.

They like Michael because he speaks the design language perfectly, has great taste and he is confident as a leader.

They like Casey because she's a smart designer and exudes HGTV host, as she is the 'bombshell' (cut to me with a Casey voo-doo doll, chanting 'oh, yes, she will bring in the male viewers, alright' while i rip her naturally perfect hair out, one by one)

ahem.

And with me? they keep saying over and over how comfortable i am, just being me, and how refreshing it is. And they like my style. (and yes, it took hours of scouring Facebook to find 2 pictures that i liked.)

I think they get all of our perspectives at this point:

i'm the unfussy not-traditionally trained kinda bohemian stylist, who likes color and pattern as much as quiet and pretty. (of course i give myself a good description, come now) (pics from my portfolio below)

Casey is the traditionally trained designer that weighs function and quality equally with what is beautiful, and she can draw a space plan quicker than i can reach for my tool belt (which takes a while, because i've undoubtedly put it somewhere random like the dishwasher.)

(Casey worked for HBA - a huge hospitality firm for years, so she can't really 'claim' any of the work for her portfolio, that's why these are just mock-ups. Check out her company's website for an insight into what she does, and click on the little heart to go to their amazing online services. www.avenuelosangeles.com)

And Michael is urban yet luxurious and is unbelievably creatively quick and resourceful - his mirror last week was awesome. truly. (pics from Michael's portfolio below)

As we went to bed the night before the glass house challenge, we made a toast:

May the best woman win.

clink*

and yes we used this joke a lot the next couple days, and Michael ate it up.

Watch me on sunday. 10pm, HGTV - I know you know, but just in case.
p.s. that picture was 8 pounds ago, i highly recommend the reality show diet. its 100% guaranteed. and yes, that is my favorite dress. clearly. (good will, 6 years ago, %150 polyester, cost $5 and hemmed to fit)

I blahg and blahg, and well, blahg

2010-08-12T08:44:00.000-07:00

So Erica, from the blog Design Blahg, asked me a while ago to do a 'Where i blahg' photo - meaning a photo of where i actually blog in the mornings.

obviously.

sorry.

It took me a while to do it, not because i wanted to style the picture (which I did, hello), but because I wanted my friend Teri to take the picture. She is good at it, and i'm not.

So here's what's happening in this pic.

You see my new wingback (its vintage, from Casa Victoria - Your welcome, its a cheap, good, kinda secret store in Echo Park - i'm already regretting telling you)

The mood board is just homasote from home depot covered in Navy linen, cause i'm obsessed with Navy.

Not sure why i capitalize it. weird.

I was at urban outfitters last night and I bought 1 Navy dress, 1 Navy romper and 1 Navy shirt (I tried to find them online but they were all on sale so not there, and i'm anti-taking-picture-of-myself-in-clothes-and-blogging-about-them....perhaps i should put bearcat in them? bearcat effing loves rompers, although navy does not pop against her black fur, which she insists is actually just a really really dark brown. yeah right, bear, yeah right. are you just sick of us pimping you out for halloween shoots? are you?)

The console is from Ikea and if you can't find anything vintage that is also functional for an office and is not a fortune, i highly recommend this one. It has shelves and holes for chords. Its $299, but doesn't look cheap (top pic below,)

and totally beats out the CB2 version that is $499

Other than that everything else is vintage:

That branch is a fig, and a rare find, strangely - hey growers, we want these. grow more and sell them please.

The picture leaning up against the mood board is our wedding invite framed by my sister for us.

Our invite was just a 5x7 photo of Brian and I with a picture of a drawn heart taped up on the wall next to us, and we typed on it:

Hi.

We are getting married.

and we think you should come.

Fair Oaks, Ca Sep 26, 2006

Then we put it in an envelope with an old school index card that had all the pertinent info typed on it. it was crazy cheap and, well i still love it.

Anyway, I don't know how doing a 'where i blahg' turned into bragging about how cute and cheap I think my wedding invites were, but that's my post today.

so sue me.

Episode 8, re-cap

2010-08-11T08:25:00.000-07:00

Alright. Dining room repurposing challenge.

So we woke up and got the call from Vern that we were to go to brunch. hmm.... strange, but ok. i do love brunch almost as much as 'linner' or 'dunch'. (I also love ligers and tigons a little too much) I'm into being out and being served food, but wary - i'm no dummy. The food was delicious, and eating in front of 6 cameras and 20 production members and trying to 'act natural' was strange and surreal to say the least. (i suppose the housewives get used to it, b/c its weird)

So we finish the four courses and Vern Yip rolls in and steals our buzz. It's wasn't just an innocent brunch with 6 of our closest producers standing around, It was also part of our challenge. We kinda figured - four courses, four of us and cameras everywhere - this wasn't Intelligent Star (thank god), but we were smart enough to figure out something was up. Michael and I are teamed up. We totally got each other, we had fun and trusted eachother, taste-wise.

We got into the space and my little brain started a- thinkin'.

I loved the creativity that this challenged forced. For a lot of the other challenges we had pretty pieces of furniture that ultimately go back to the store, so obviously we couldn't paint them or deconstruct them. And for this one, we could go nuts, all Martha Stewart style.

As far as our plan:

Michael and I felt that our food was similar in a couple senses:

They both have bursts of flavors, brightness, lots of textures and acidity. Yep. I'm well aware of how weird and frankly idiotic that sounds, but i didn't embrace the 'garlic' challenge at all and I almost went home, so look at me now, getting all 'huevos rancheros' on you.

So this is what we came up with:

Bright acidy colors - greens and yellows, but grounding it with light grey and accenting with charcoal, black and white. While this isn't what I would do in my home, I channeled my two years working for Jonathan Adler and we kinda envisioned this: (left JA, right Kelly Wearstler)

Uh, i think they would've won this challenge, but with more time....

We painted the walls a light grey (BM grey owl, i think) and the ceiling a bright green. It's not that nuts, i promise. There just wasn't enough art or a rug, so the balance was off (i'll get to that).

unlike these:

Then we painted the armoire and the wingback a charcoal grey (yes, we painted upholstery, and while it will probably flake off eventually, it looked great). We painted the chairs out a high gloss white and reupholstered the seats in gold faux bois fabric.

(all our fabric was from Zarins)

I spray mounted the inside of the armoire with the forest fabric, and while I wish i had time to style it (i actually just placed the stuff in and never had the chance to arrange them at all) I think that it is cute. I'm well aware of how trendy it is, but Its good to show the judges that you understand trends too, and it definitely reads bigger than all my subtle styling moments throughout the competition.

By the way, i know there is a big war out there on the blogosphere of when to paint out furniture and when not too. My opinion? if its crappy wood and less than 30 years old, you can paint it. But if its antique, hand-built and hardwood? Good god just restore it. Add new hardware maybe, and a less glossy varnish. So many pieces of beautiful antique furniture are stripped of whats so great about them when diy-ers paint them, stencil them, whatever. Its like trying to make an 85 year old woman look like Christina Aguilera - the more you try to cover up the age, try to make her look young, hip and shiny, the more ridiculous she'll look. Just help her be her age and pretty - a blow out and some lip stain. that's all she needs.

Just my opinion, since you asked. er, since you're here.

MY, MY I DO DIGRESS, DON'T I.

If you've read my blog enough you might be aware of my serious obsession with flowers, so I gravitated to those plastic things pretty fast. I built this rectangular shade out of pine furring strips and nails, which was actually super annoying to build and took a couple hours - a la Faulty Towers. Then covered it with drop cloth, and adhered the plastic flowers with a glue gun. I still love the concept, but the prototype needed some work. If it was porcelain like this:

only on this:

i might buy it.

Instead it was like this:

eh? its the thought.

I sewed the drapes, and YES! i wish i had not tied them like that, I don't know what I was thinking.

the table was styled with some painted black and white plates - but we needed height, and I wish i had made napkins out of the green fabric. I like the wingback chair and mix of chairs/bench around the table, mucho.

But the room is off balance a bit.

The ceiling was heavy, and we have very few things for the walls/floor. We were desperate for a rug so i started to paint the existing terrible one, but it just soaked up the paint and was a total disaster. I wish granny had a black and white greek key like this:

or maybe that's too hollywood regency themed. Maybe more like this:

That one is from Mansour Modern, one of the best rug stores in the world, especially if you are a bazillionaire, because she ain't cheap. Thank god i'm a bazillionaire.

So here is our final space:

Disregarding my bad art on the wall (weird doily mistake) there is nothing in here that I didn't like. That being said, I wish there was a lot more going on - we needed lot of artwork (and a rug, obviously). If we had 5 more hours it could've been a really great space - it just needed life. To contrast with the high gloss, we put burlap on the table (which commenters online are hating) and I think it created a nice texture juxtaposition. and i say things like 'texture juxtaposition' now. weird

That's my story.

Courtland is out. His sconces were awesome and totally inspired. He will be missed. But he lives in LA, so i think that's not the end of him on TV. While, sure, we have kinda different hosting and design styles (not sure you could call my hosting a 'style') he has a definite huge audience. And I would be one of them.

FINAL THREE!!!!!

Next Week?

INDIVIDUAL CHALLENGE -
2 words I never thought I would be so happy to hear.

2010-08-10T20:58:00.000-07:00

Warning: don't read this unless you feel like getting real real sad right now. no sarcasm, i'm totally serious.

I just had one of those incredibly shaming moments. I was annoyed that brian didn't tivo Real housewives of DC and in a bad mood 'cause of some stupid work shit, when i checked in with a blog that i had neglected for a while. I get behind on reading some because i'm busy being some sort of reality non-star and blogging and tweeting like a middle school girl that just became popular. I hadn't been to the blog Holding Court in a couple weeks and was shocked to read what happened. I don't mean to bum you out, but if you are needing some humbling - like me, read the last post. He broke it to her many readers in what is the most devastating post of all time. I don't know this person at all, but I loved her voice, wit and style. My god, i'm so sad for them. is this really how life works?
I know it seems like a super depressing thing to post, but i can't be the only one that needed to be reminded of how good i have it.
You can read what i'm talking about here

I must go now and hug Brian.
Sorry. but perspective just slammed into my face. real hard.

post still coming, sorry.

2010-08-10T07:55:00.000-07:00

First of all thank you, thank you, thank you for all your comments. And thank god for this blog that allows me to see them. I get so critical of myself when I watch the show (aka, i wasn't psyched about my hosting) and accidentally seeing a few comments on the HGTV facebook page wasn't awesome - i'm really shocked how nasty some home and garden viewers can be. It's so weird to be exposed to so many people and left completely open for criticism, but you guys make me feel good and it counteracts all the meanies out there. Truly. (and the always-smarter-than-me Brian has forbidden me (again) from reading any comments other than those here - but its just so tempting.)

I had a crazy nutty shoot yesterday. We had 30 people here for a RUE magazine entertaining story. It was hectic, but totally fun and the images are awesome. My apartment is approximately 46 square feet so having that many bodies was wacko jacko. and now it looks like crazy town. Poor brian.

I have to rush out to work, but I should have my post up by this afternoon, so check back by. Sorry for the delay, i hate it when my real life interferes with my reality life.

Champagne problems, people. Champagne problems.

Episode 8, pre-cap

2010-08-08T23:04:00.000-07:00

Ah, thrift stores. Where my style life started and will undoubtedly end. Ahem.

Let me tell you a little story. It's called 'Playing in questionable locations as a child.' Here's how it went.

When I was little we lived WAY out in the country.

It was idyllic. Truly.

But garbage service didn't come to us, (I told you, way out in the country) so every saturday we had to load up the trailer (not that kinda of trailer) with that weeks garbage and take it to the dump.

Now, there are two dumps right next to each other - the 'icky garbage' dump and the 'unwanted things' dump. This is before everybody took their unwanted items to thrift stores to be resold (in my town at least),
so off to the dump they would go.

While my dad and brother were dumping garbage into the yucky dump, i snuck off and played with the unwanted things. I got so excited to go every week, to play in my secret world and my secret friends - er, i mean, things.

While this sounds cookoo for cocoa puffs, I firmly believe that this is not that weird (cut to me chanting in the mirror as an adult, 'playing in the dump as a child is not weird, playing in the dump as a child is not weird').

Kids love playing with adult things, pretending to be grown up, creating worlds with their imagination, and that's what I did. In the dump there were old chairs, lamps, boxes of dish ware, bikes, toys, encyclopedias, etc. etc.

It was always different, exciting and a universe of infinite possibilities. Everything had a story, a past, a history. Things had age and personality.

(for the record while the dump was not dangerous, my parents did not encourage or condone this and eventually stopped letting me go and instead just took me to the two thrift stores that were in town.

They aren't the weird ones, i am.)

The point? I am super comfortable (ecstatic, really) in thrift stores, junk shops, vintage stores, antique malls,
flea markets etc. etc.

And this challenge rocked my Good Will world.

I still get that same rush upon entering an antique mall or flea market - its half panic, like 'how can i possibly see every booth at the same time, at once!', and half calming, like 'Hello Emily, welcome back home, we missed you. oh and you look smashing'. (yes, the flea market is british). And 95% of my apartment and my sets are vintage, because meloves vintage.

I remember walking into the thrift store designed space for this challenge and knowing that with enough time I could do a number on all this stuff, 'cause i've played in this world before.

It knows me, and we like each other. a little too much.

But with these kind of expectations of myself (and now your expectations 'cause i hyped myself all up), can i deliver? I've been on the bottom twice now and I think the judges are awaiting my real arrival into this competition. I think they trust my taste and they like me personally, I haven't won a challenge. I have very few regrets, but also very few standout moments.

Whats gonna happen, yo? whats gonna happen?

**update. no spoiler alert, but i'll post my review of tonight, tomorrow. stay tuned.

TV interviews

2010-08-07T12:22:00.000-07:00

Alright, my first three TV interviews are done. I was super nervous because two of them were live, meaning when i said 'good to having me,' instead of 'good to be here' or 'thanks for having me' i don't get to re-do it. Shucks. But i did actually have a lot of fun. And then i had a note session with myself where I make promises to: speak slower, wear my hair down, sit up straight and get that snaggle tooth fixed, for instance. (although Brian refuses to let me do the last one).

So in case you wanted to see me ramble in person, here ya go:

AM Northwest

and

Studio 6

Don't forget tomorrow night. Down to four.

Courtland, Michael, Casey and Me.

Who's going home?

The other team: Alex, Casey and Michael

2010-08-06T07:10:00.000-07:00

My gosh, they are ugly. i mean. geez.

It was hard enough to be around them, but now, ick. stick a fresh direct paper bag over those fools, cause they be hurting my eyes.

kidding, stupidly handsome they are.

Here is their kitchen:

Maybe im totally biased from being their friends and knowing the constraints, but i kinda like it. Having the contrast between the white cupboards and the flooring helped so much, whereas ours failed.

What I wish we had seen more of is Michael's table. The picture would have been more successful without the table full of stuff in the foreground, but as an design element i think that he made the prettiest thing in the room, for sure. I wish we had seen more of him making it because it looks really aged and old - without looking intentionally aged (an enormous pet peeve of mine). It was just pine planks on a table base, but it did look rustic french country and really pretty.

I think if they had got rid of the table situation and went in tighter, but opened up the island then they would have probably blown us away. Their kitchen was prettier than ours, but their photo was much worse, just an opinion.

Casey chose the 'bread', Alex chose the 'corkscrew' and Michael chose the 'escargot'.

Watching it, I thought that Michael sold his story best - the whole rough encasing with jewel inside thing cracked me up - he must have been dying inside. But I did see the communal aspect of Casey's with all the propping. Michael could have won this week in my opinion.

Or maybe i'm just jealous because Casey got to call her husband.

At this point it has been, ahem, a long time without phones. You'd think we would obsess about it, but there isn't any time to, and besides if I did get to call It would be weird because you can't really give any information out. Hearing that she got to talk to her husband made me want to soooooooo bad. I missed Brian.... uck, i kinda can't think about it without tearing up, but man it was really really hard to go through something so foreign, exciting and challenging for so long and not to have a phone call or a hug from your best friend/family..... ok. and the tears...

So there was a bit of tension between Alex and Michael. As Alex put it, they have worked together 5 out of the 6 challenges, and if i read right from their dynamic Michael doesn't trust Alex design-wise and Alex is too quiet to really give a lot of assertive input, which creates a bad cycle. Watching Alex now on the show I wanted him to stay longer, but at the time, I remember thinking that it was his time - i sound like he is 85 and been on his death bed for 10 years. He's got great potential, just quiet and probably does best on his own, or leading the team and not having to fight for leadership - something i totally understand.

Ah. Hello, elimination. i haven't seen you in a while. Here is how elimination goes down. The judges make some big statements about the overall designs and then they critique each one of us individually. What you don't see is that after the judges are done with us, then we have to critique each other. At first, this was super super super hard, but then we all just made the pact to just be honest. And you can't get mad at people for just being honest. Nobody was cruel or rude, but it wasn't pleasant either and you always ended up feeling bad.

Alex and Michael had had it with each other and they got into it a bit. I totally understand both sides. I've worked with Alex and while he works super hard, he is too quiet to assert his design ideas and gets relegated to being an assistant. I've worked with Michael on the Trump/FDNY challenges, and yes, he can a bit bossy and dismissive, but he's also really talented and smart and you see that in every challenge.

And while Michael looks and sounds like he takes himself way too seriously, he doesn't. He laughs at himself a lot and he kinda knows how bitchy he is and it cracks us all up. I hope we see more of that in the next episode, because when he's just being himself he's amazing and totally hilarious.

Back to elimination:

I talked about how i'm not the biggest faux finish fan, but Court and I worked as a team and we used each others strengths. Court said that I was hard to shop with because i was slow, which frustrated me because I am a very fast shopper and relatively decisive considering it takes time to make good decisions. But, I will say this: I can get scattered when rushed and its not pretty, and that is what frustrated him. Shopping with a whole crew of cameras and producers following you is really weird. I like to look at things closely and make smart decisions and you just can't when so many people are starring at you with cameras and you have 1/2 hour in a huge store.

At elimination, the whole thing was super respectful and we both went on and on about how much we loved working with each other - which we did, which I think ultimately does matter to the judges. Think about it, if you are hard to work with then why would the judges or HGTV want to bring you on as a host that they have to be around?

Down to Alex and myself. Not surprised, but at this point very little surprised me - we all are a bit immune. It's like. yep. totally. i'm in the bottom. that sucks.

Alex's hosting video was great. Warm, inviting, smiley. He was so quiet and serious around us - he didn't really engage with with other designers much, but he came alive in his hosting videos and interviews. He's pretty awesome, overall and he's clearly gonna go far.

Down to four. duh duh DUH.

off to portland

2010-08-05T14:31:00.000-07:00

quick trip. tv interviews. in case you can't get enough of my awkwardness and blabberings, you can catch me on am northwest at 9am tomorrow, or Koin channel 6 at 4:30. My first T.V. interviews ever.

thank god i was unsuccessfully in 'The Cinderella Pageant' when i was 9 (the most not-so 'beauty pageant in small town oregon ever). I knew those poise lessons would come in handy.

Martha and Mormons.

2010-08-03T09:33:00.000-07:00

So I got all your comments about me doing personal blog posts and
I seriously, seriously, seriously appreciate them.

I agree with the commenters that suggested to keep the personal stuff still design related. I definitely don't want this to be some sort of journal where i tell you things like, oh say, how happy I was last night when Ali chose Roberto (and how hilarious it was that Brian showed up to the finale party dressed as Chris Harrison, carrying red roses and did mock interviews with everyone in attendance).

I'm sprinkling in some photos from a Martha Stewart Wedding shoot i did like 4 years ago. It was one of my first jobs on my own. Shot by Lucas Allen, i think. Wondering why i chose these photos from this shoot? i'll give you a two word clue - Martha Stewart and Mormons. (er. 4 words)

Where to start, where to start...

I'll start with a frequent and lovely commenter 'Lashley''s astute observation/question that still fascinates me, too.

Why are there so many Mormon or Ex-Mormon Design bloggers?

I knew there were some, but it wasn't until I got a drink (i got a real drink, she got a non-drink, first clue) with one of them. We talked about blogs and design and after a couple of real drinks and non-drinks it came out that I was raised mormon. She said, 'I knew it!' and i was like, huh? from my blog? Then she came out as an ex-mormon, too. Then she went down the list of all the mormon or ex-mormon blogs that blew my mind and made me want to purchase a new mormon-dar because clearly i've spent too much time out of the game and can't detect anyone anymore.

(i've been a heather armstrong fan for years and an often checker of the Neinie dialogues, but they are out and obvious, it was all the in the closet design blogs that surprised me)

So i did me a lot of thinkings. hmmm...(tap finger to temple) Why Mormons? and why blogs?

and here is what I came up with (i'm sure i'm not the first person to have these theories, but we all like to fancy ourselves astute, no?)

I'm about to speak in stereotypes for sake of well, making my point. Sorry if I offend anyone.

God invented stereotypes for a reason, right?

Its no secret that Mormon's are productive (and reproductive) people. I mean they built a HUGE religion (and is still the fastest growing) in less than 200 years. Growing up Mormon I only saw my parents relax and rest on sundays - they were always working, playing, cooking, journaling, teaching piano lessons, doing yard work, yes, refinishing furniture, just a constant flow of 'getting things done'. Likewise, I can't just watch a movie, i'll be sewing or mating socks or cleaning at the same time. It's like if you have free hands you should be doing something with them. Being productive can be a bit of an addiction and it definitely creeps into the rest of our lives, so blogging makes total sense to me.

In my early twenties at one point I had 4 jobs - walking dogs on the upper east side 3 days a week, bar-tending on the LES 3 nights a week, working at Jonathan

Adler on the weekends and teaching piano lessons.

Don't worry, i also prioritized plenty of time to get into trouble.

PLENTY.

And i'm not the only one who was raised like this.

So there are a lot of women out there who probably had kids early-ish (or me, who hasn't yet) and well, blogging is something they/we can do that feels productive, can potentially make money for our families and can be done from the home at any time. And there is nobody controlling it, no limitations, no bosses - its productive but totally independent and 'ours'.

Oh, and heres' the other reason - we are raised as big journal-ers. I have 10 journals filled from my childhood, so the idea of documenting your life is not weird, it actually comes super natural. My parents felt it was really important to have us do it, and i'm sooooo glad I did. I mean, re-reading my junior high stuff is priceless.

(Dear diary, Casey (by accident or maybe not!) touched my hand at the basketball game today. i love him. Dear diary, i'm so white that somebody told me today that i look like powder. do i?)

It's awesome to be able to go back and read what i wrote at certain ages, and potentially understand and feel empathy for my future kids about stuff that we kinda forget as adults. and yes, past Emily, you did kinda look like powder. and still do. thank god pale is back in (or so i keep telling myself). my teen years were R.O.U.G.H.

But why design blogs?

Hold on to your special underwear people, i'm about to rock your world.

Mormons, in general have a lot of kids, and kids are expensive. Continuing with the 'over-productive' story, there is a 'why buy when you can make' philosophy going on as well. So while mormons in more urban settings may not have been like this, I knew a lot who grew up yes, canning fruits and vegetables (and tuna in our case, we lived in a coastal town), sewing clothes or deconstructing hand-me downs, quilting, crafting, gardening and thrifting. My parents had 6 kids and were both teachers so we weren't billionaires. We went to thrift stores LONG before it was cool.

And I swear on the Book of Mormon, that is where I got a lot of my creativity and style. We could buy whatever we wanted because back in the day thrift stores in Coos Bay did the whole, 'everything that fits in a brown paper bag for $5' thing. and thus my addiction for vintage clothing, furniture, jewelry, ANYTHING began.

Sure it was a secret, I didn't tell my friends when they begged to find out where I got my clothes.

(ok, begged might be an exaggeration, they probably just casually asked because they were curious why as a 12 year old I dressed like Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany's or the kids from Sound of Music, oops still do)

So I was able to get creative with the clothes/tchochkes and furniture that I bought

and I started repurposing at a very early age. badly, might I add.

I knew I wasn't alone, but check this out:

Martha Stewart? full of 'em.

When I started styling in New York I worked a lot for Martha (Marty, i called her) and the first time the elevators opened onto her notorious 9th floor, i could smell it/them and I knew I wasn't alone. It's everything from the way they dressed to the way they spoke (you know, the funny mormon language where they say 'feck' or 'fetch' instead of, well, you know) to the diet cokes littered on all the desks, to the complete lack of hangovers - and everyone was just so unbelievably effing nice.

Yes, folks, there are a lot of mormon and ex-mormons working for Martha Stewart.

Its like Home Ec Grad School. It's the best of the best of DIY-ers, crafters, sewers, etc.

Oh, me? I got my doctorate in decopauge.

And they/we all have blogs.

Hey Geraldo, check out that expose`.

BOOM.

So on the Design Star last week i talked about being raised Mormon while they showed me doing bad crafts.

Its almost as if how we are raised effects our lives forever, eh?

Next week on the show you'll see A LOT of my craftiness. It is my favorite challenge BY FAR.

Why? because it involves thrift store stuff that we can repurpose.

hello, comfort zone i haven't seen you in a while.

Episode 7, Kitchen Challenge

2010-08-02T15:55:00.000-07:00

Bon giorno.

Oh hi. Sorry about that one last night. That sure was uncomfortable.

I've been pretty terrified of the kitchen challenge since first year of design star - its a tricky one. So when it was announced that it was kitchen challenge and a 'photo shoot', i was nervous.

Here is what I wish I had done:

Or this:

or this:

Or This:

or this:

It's just not how the kitchen challenge works - if you watch seasons past they have the same challenges.
I'm an open shelving girl, lots of white marble, rustic woods, and...

Wait. Backup.

Change of Teams. I'm with Courtland. I hadn't worked with Court yet, and we aren't roommates (Casey is my roommate, all dorm room style) So I really hadn't gotten to know him. I knew that he was super handsome and liked American Apparel but there are times when he would say somethings that bordered on parmesan cheesy. I was like, who is this kid? is he for real?

Well, yes, people he is for real. He was super frustrated with his previous teammates and you saw that on camera, but he is truly just a really really earnest and very sweet guy. He became one of my favorite people on the show, and working with him was awesome. I LOVE YOU, COURT.

I mean, look how happy we are? ridiculous.

OK. So we chose the Italian basket, not sure why. I actually struggle with a lot of italian design and style - it can often be garish and overworked and trying really hard to look expensive (which in turn makes it look cheap). BUT, there are some new more modern designs coming out of Italy that I love. I wanted to do the kitchen that Dolce and Gabanna would have had they just designed a house in Capri. Modern, fresh, with rustic woods and bright mediterranean blues and whites, propping with alessi and modern espresso makers, etc etc.
Maybe with tiles like these: (i'm well aware they are turkish, but its a similar idea)

or this:

in a setting like this, sorry so blurry.

When people think of Italian design they immediately go to garish crown mouldings, faux finishes, burnt colors, gold carved furniture - all these inspired form Old World Italy. like this:

(gagging, barfing noises)
But here's the deal, we are in Modern America and the more you try to make something feel old world, the more (in my opinion) it looks cheap and tacky. Courtland thought i was crazy for wanting to go modern, he has done a lot of Italian families kitchens and he was picturing much more traditional warm family oriented kitchen. We have pretty opposing styles. BUT you can do Italian in a modern way. and make it still feel rustic and warm, like this one:

I showed Court this picture and he totally agreed - modern meets traditional. The furniture and colors are more traditional, but there are still a lot of clean lines in the kitchen and warm, rustic, not garish at all.
A compromise, yes, but we went for it.

I almost cry with laughter at my former self, did you really think that was going to work out, Emily? Did you think you could create a beautiful kitchen like the one above in 2 days and 2 stores?
HA!. silly little Emily.
Here is what we did instead:

I mean, its virtually the same kitchen, no?

First we chose our three finishes from our three vendors - flooring, countertops and cabinetry - we had three different options for each one. We realized that we chose the exact same as the other team, so we had to switch to the light wood cabinetry so they weren't identical. - HUGE MISTAKE.

But we had already chosen our paint colors - the BenMoore 'Parmesan cheese' and BenMoore 'kinda-looks-like-the-grapes-in-the-basket-purple. So now, we can't go back and change our paint colors, we were stuck with them and we BOTH knew that we were in trouble on day one - all our colors were beige, basically. ugh.

We went to Sears and bought all our appliances. The other store to shop at was Gracious Home which has very little furniture so we bought these two, well, japanese stools at Sears and I struggled to un-japanese them by upholstering them with Bubble Wrap. I can't wait to do a video tutorial on how to upholster furniture with bubble wrap.

I really have my finger on the pulse of style and trends, people. Bubble wrap is the new batting.

trust.

Court and I are getting along super well. Having fun despite us knowing that we have already set ourselves to fail with our finishing choices and paint choices. We are off to Gracious Home to get all of our pretty things - which is where I found the $300 table cloth that I ruined by upholstering those god-awful stools in. Styling sacrelige. At least they showed me knowing that i was doing something terrible.

Then to tile. Court and I have different opinions on tile - i wanted something hand-painted with a pattern, (like the blue above) but he wanted something more traditional. We bought two options - white carerra tile and the larger scale 'garlic' tile. I think we would have chosen, the obviously MUCH MUCH better choice (carerra marble) had it not been for my garlic. I had realized at this point that I hadn't thought about my inspriation for garlic at all yet, because frankly I was not inspired by garlic. So I blew it with the tile. I was trying to bring in my inspiration. i've obstained from garlic since this challenge, angry at what it made me do on national television. Screw you, garlic. stink up somebody else's breath, you tiny little white stupid piece of food. you.

At Gracious Home about an hour before the end of shopping one of our producers called us over and said 'you guys know you only have an hour before the store in queens closes.' We literally had no idea what she was talking about. We refered to our dosier and it doesn't say anything about a third store. I guess that they had announced it, but Court and I were too busy trying to change our finishings and we didn't hear. We both vaguely remembered the announcement, but it definitely didn't sink it. We didn't make it to the store, unfortunately.

Who knows what else we could've found there. Oh well.

DAMN YOU KITCHEN CHALLENGE

(fists in air, charlton heston voice)

We get back to the Studio and Court starts fauxing the wall. You probably know how I feel about faux finishes - i'm not the biggest fan, but he is really good at it, it is a team challenge, and at this point we had already decided on the compromise of 'modern traditional' (???) so I was like, go for it, whatever, see you back in LA. - i figured i was gonna be outta there tomorrow.

I paint the chalkboard paint on the wall and then, get this, I paint the brass chandelier black. I know. it was super hard to do because it was beautiful as is, but we were desperate for contrast so it had to go black.

Now for styling. Yes I over-styled. And I would do it again in a heartbeat. Why? because with little propping in this kitchen it looked like the most depressing, tacky, dead, studio kitchen ever with very little contrast (thank god for the black paint). The 'photographer' had no lighting, no bounce boards, nothing to make it look pretty and dreamy.

Heres' the thing:

A good photographer can make a beautiful photograph out of a white things on a white wall.

Like so:

It's all about the light and angle - and if you don't have natural light to make it look like this:

Then you have to create the look of natural light. And it is very very hard.

It's why photographers get paid a TON. We were trying to do rogue lighting with lamps and using sheets on the ground to bounce light into the room. I mean, it was pathetic. I was upset to say the least, so i added stuff to try to bring the kitchen back from the dead. Its like I'm the guy who puts makeup on corpses. But it helped a bit and i would do it again.

Court totally stepped up to the plate and dealt with some of the lighting/lens problems - he has experience taking pictures. Its funny, you would think that I would know exactly what lens to use, etc, but as a stylist working with amazing photographers, you would never be like, 'hey, what lens ya using'. That is there job, their domain it would be like a nurse asking the surgeon during brain surgery 'hey, doc, whatcha gonna do next'. But for this challenge they weren't aloud to help us at all. We had to be the photographer, too!!???

Also here's the deal, you can see all the appliances perfectly. and that's what we are selling. so while i liked the other kitchen more, ours was a more successful photograph in my opinion.

Calmate. Calmate.

So yes, i overstyled, but that kitchen needed life. and color.

Oh the purple? I think we bought a quart of it because Courtland wanted to do an art piece on the far wall, but we realized we wouldn't see it and desperate for color, we put it on the front of the island. Neither of us really liked it. But once you make your paint order you can't go back and add more or change it. You have to work with what you have.

Looking at it now, here is what I wish we had done with the same resources: Stuck with the white cabinetry, had the much darker flooring (which we thought we ordered, but we realized we never changed it on the form) painted the walls a bluish grey, used the same marble countertops that we got (it was the best choice) used dark/light blue alternating subway tile.
eff.

I liked the other teams kitchen much more. I liked their white cabinets and their tile much more than ours. we blew it.

OK, hosting videos. I hope you are all aware that we go straight from judging into hosting - there is no time to prepare, no starting and stopping, no writing things down. It's nerve-racking. And if you fumble, you just have to keep going. I ran out of time which is why i rushed the end so much. But

waddya do? forget 'bout it.

Tomorrow i'll discuss the outing of me being raised mormon -which i thought was a strange time for it. it made it seem like mormons all reupholster furniture, when really i was talking more about my family and what we did growing up. I'll explain more tomorrow.

Oh and i'll talk about the other team too, this post is long enough.

2010-08-02T14:22:00.000-07:00

Sorry, its' coming. I'm having technical difficulties - clearly it's not my week already.

but for now I sure wish I had done this:

Not so Italian, i know. But i'm not so Italian.

Episode 7, pre-post

2010-08-01T22:17:00.000-07:00

Still he-re. i know. a styling competition and I didn't win.

I'll tell you why tomorrow

If only RHONJ coulda been the guest judges, Theresa would have LERVED our kitchen.

Working on 'my official' post right now. stay tuned.

Should I get personal? big question for you guys.

2010-08-01T08:27:00.000-07:00

Tonight. Design Star HGTV, 10pm (or 7pm).

anxiety, anxiety. ick.

There is a lot of the criticism of the show that you don't know who we are as people or as designers. And that sucks. Being a big 'take other peoples small perception of you in your own hands' kinda person, I'm wondering if this week I should help you get to know me.

Most of you who read this probably get my style as a stylist or designer and if not, check out the blog archives, starting January 1st, 2010 (otherwise known as the-day-I-woke-up-and-decided-to-stop-caring-about-what-other-people-think-and-start-to-take-control-of-my-career, you know, that national holiday.) From January to June it was all about style and design - and since June i've done frequent behind the scenes, design star posts as well.

But, as far as who I am as a person??

If you want:

It's gonna get personal.

i'm talking details about:

growing up way out in the country in a coastal town with 5 siblings in Oregon,

growing up Mormon, (and how me becoming um, un-mormon went down),

What i did, (and didn't do), while living in New York in my 20's.

and why the he** I live in Los Angeles.

Does this interest you? Or is it too self-indulgent?

Should I keep this blog only style/design-based?

episode 7, new teams

2010-07-31T08:40:00.000-07:00

Check it out: New Teams.

I wish i knew how to write in shaky letters. If I could, I would write

THE KITCHEN CHALLENGE

in shaky letters.

also there is a twist this year.

Here's the 'Caption This', this week (a picture taken and commenters guess what we are thinking):

Dude, that means I got 2 of the 7 caption this's already. I would love to talk about it but apparetnly i've cut off my own lips.

Oh, and Farrah called, she wants her hairstyle back....ah, c'mon emily, too soon, too soon.

If you would like to guess what I was thinking, click here.

Or just comment here.

mistakes have been made, but good news of a new magazine

2010-07-30T08:33:00.000-07:00

Remember when i decided to paint my wall turquoise? (i understand if you've blocked it out, i wish i had). Well we (in television, that's right i'm in television now, need proof? sunday at 7pm HGTV) have a word for that - or an anagram, called PDSS - Post Design Star Syndrome (its a rare and non-terminal syndrome, could result in fame or a boost in ones career and possibly a lot of temporary fast design decision making). i suffered badly from the last symptom when i returned - although now i'm suffering from the 2nd one (boost, not fame, please), which is awesome.

When I got back from filming I had a bit of designing-for-a-competition hysteria and i needed "BIG BOLD COLORS" and I needed them NOW. (picture me enunciating the 'B's really loud, blinking my eyes really hard and flashing jazz hands while i say that). So I woke up one morning (at like 6, btdubs) and went to the paint store, waited for it to open like a crazed 'one day sale' at Macy's shopper the day after Thanksgiving - NO- the midnight before the day after thanksgiving, re-enacting the 'open open open' commercials from the 90's, and bought a gallon of BM Caribbean Azure and painted it that day.

huh.

I loved it for like 3 hours, and i have been living with it ever since. I hate it. really hate it. There are a few things wrong - the color is too turquoise and not enough peacock blue. It's too bright, too bold for me. I could handle it at a restaurant, in a hotel room, in a hallway, or at my beach house in Mexico (cut to my british accent: oh i do need to visit soon, its been just way too long). But I can't live with it in my 1 bedroom apartment in Silverlake that doesn't get enough light.

Yes, its the color above, styled for a test shot, taken by Terilyn Fisher).

It is actually making me angry.

Don't get me wrong I love turquoise, but its in the wrong place, mixed with the wrong things and in order for me to truly make it work it would take more time, effort and money than just painting over it.

So that is what is about to happen.

I have a shoot here next week for the new and potentially extremely fabulous RUE Magazine - that's right MAG-AZ-INE - i know, that word sounds familiar and i get strangely nostalgic saying it, its been a while since i heard that a 'new' one was coming out. Check this out: I heard an old wives tale that we used to have shelter (home design) magazines sent to us in the mail! can you even imagine! magazines with pretty photographs of aspirational homes for us to flip through actually came out monthly and we could buy them for almost nothing! (which, HELLO, clearly might have been the problem, i didn't go to business school, but should great things that cost a lot of money to make be virtually given away for free?? seriously???)

ANYHOO. Well now they are back, just on-line. Adapt we will.

VERY VERY EXCITING INDEED!!

And i'm gonna be in it.

YES!

It's gonna be a party, and I love to party.

Back to my paint problem:

I have the rest of the apartment in BM november rain, which I loved, but I want something cooler right now.

Point is:

I need light grey paint color recommendations.

I want it to be fairly color-less - no hints of green, purple or brown, it could go more blue if it has to. Just picture the perfect gray (reminds me of one of my favorite blogs, 'a perfect gray' perhaps she also was in search of this perfect, yet elusive color). I want it to be as if pure black was mixed with pure white. But fairly light. Maybe even just a tone.

Your challenge begins today, and you have until tomorrow. Don't let me down, people.

re-birth of the catalog? uh. gross.

2010-07-29T11:41:00.000-07:00

Oh, hi. We all have hoarding tendencies, right? shut up. Remember this post? yep. well I used to hoard catalogues, too - under the guise of 'i need to know what the style trends are'. But i've backed off for a while. i've been keeping the anthros and jcrews and garnet hills, but ditching all the big box stores because they are always the same - oh and also because i'm trying to create a pathway to get to my kitchen . BUT, this came in the mail a while ago and i will be hoarding it - nothing weird, not in my bed with me, its not like i'm going to make love to it, but i'll put it in my new 'hopefully-catalogues-will-be-more-like-this' magazine box.

(p.s. i haven't worked for West Elm in 5 years, since i was an assistant, i have no loyalties, and i definitely prefer their accessories over their furniture, this is about the styling)

Robyn Glaser is the styling mastermind behind this catalogue (i've heard). And it was totally obvious to me - she's insanely good.

Here's the deal with styling catalogues jobs. There are a lot of great perks to them - they are well-oiled machines, they pay well, its a big chunk of days in a row, decent budgets and great travel - the locations are always really pretty houses in idyllic locations.

But here's what sucks about styling catalogues - you can only really use what they sell - meaning every piece of furniture, rug, accessory, tchotchke has to be from that store. And this is why they look like 'catalogues', boring and predictable (hello bridges, i hope i'm not burning you).

When I worked for Garnet Hill doing the home catalogue, they were great because they don't actually sell much furniture or accessories so we could shop outside and bring in vintage - and recently with the Pendleton fashion catalogues that i've done, too. But Crate and Barrel/Pottery Barn/William Sonoma need you to stay within brand (which i totally understand - why use a vintage vase when you could use a product). And so its hard to shake things up, make it look lived in, give it more personality, take risks and really be 'stylish' when given these restraints.

(although PB kids i think has a lot of fun with them, fyi)

The go-to props (non-products) that are always safe are organic things - aka pretty rocks, driftwood, the ubiquitious manzanita, balls of twine, antlers, etc, - these are considered 'safe' because they clearly couldn't come from a competitor - and consumers don't call wanting to buy that branch, thinking it is a product - or maybe they do, who knows. But after a while, styling with these does become a bit predictable, too - although a pretty branch will always be a pretty branch in my book . So, if you have always wondered why there are so much of these kinds of things in catalogues, that is why - same with food props and newspapers - it tells a story without being too distracting and off-brand. YES, i'm a huge fan of Catalog Living Blog, and we all wish we had thought of it, she's hilarious.

(side story, i remember at one point shopping for pretty rocks in New York for a catalogue and paying, i sh*t you not, 5 dollars a piece for river rocks. I needed 20 of them - different shapes/size/colors and I left the store, carrying a super heavy box of rocks, minus $100 - insane, right? Attention all river rock importers (if only i had a nickel for how many river rock importer readers i have i'd be a nickel-naire) head to the city, you can swindle those urbanites into buying ROCKS FOR FIVE DOLLARS A PIECE. funny because its true)

ANYWAY

HELLO. WEST ELM. nice to meet you again.

they be shaking things up, and it looks awesome.

Here's why - i think, anyway. It looks like 1/3 of the accessories from the new West Elm catalogue aren't from west elm - they are vintage and probably from Robyn Glaser's incredible Prop house in NY. And mixing all of these vintage pieces in, makes me want to be this person and I NEVER say that about catalogues.

I am often repelled by the catalogues, even though i like a lot of the individual products because the lifestyle they create is so suburban and perfect. (no offense to people who live in suburbs, or people who are perfect - although if you are sooo perfect you probably wouldn't take offense anyway, because oh, good for you, you're soooooo perfect. suck it)

But this looks effortless and natural, it sells the lifestyle first, product second - which is ultimately i think what makes this work. This person isn't perfect, they are interesting and messy. This is what Anthro does most of the time - you can't even see the details of the shirt through the blurry over-sunned photograph, but you want to be that person twirling on the boat in the lake, so you buy it - or it drives you to the store to buy it.

So kudos, West Elm - (and Robyn Glaser and i'm assuming photographer Roland Bello). I feel sorry for your catalogue phone people as i'm sure there doing a lot of 'well, that's not actually a west elm product' speeches, but you made me look twice - and hoard it. And where oh where is that wallpaper from, does anybody know? its perfection.

I hope this is the track they are staying on for a while, because me likey.

Dan's weddin'

2010-07-28T11:24:00.000-07:00

Looky looky what I found. Dan Faires and his couldn't-be-lovlier betrothed (i told you i was gonna bring that word back) Dasha got hitched last weekend. I couldn't make it due to an awesome bachelorette weekend in San Francisco for my besty, but man....I'm speechless, this looks so amazing. All the men in overalls, all women in white and no shoes. America, eat you your heart out. They are high school sweethearts, planned the wedding in three months, it couldn't look less pretentious and more fun. I'm just so happy for my friend, Dan. So happy.

I know, i know. She is ridiculously beautiful. I do love a happy ending. I do.

PLEASE check out Dan's blog (click on the highlighted words) and website. Buy his awesome furniture - handmade, all reclaimed wood (I think, Dan tell me if i'm getting anything wrong) - a full Arkansas and Brooklyn style merger.

I remember once on the show we were all sitting in the van waiting for something and Dan, after a long producer induced silence, said in the most from-the-heart-way, 'Megan (one of the producers) can i please use the phone, I really, really miss my girlfriend and my mom'. Needless to say we all melted and almost broke down, at that point it was like 2 weeks without a word to our loved ones. They got engaged right after the show.

And don't forget to vote for him for fan vote. Why not me? Well, because viewers haven't seen much of me on the show recently - its all in the editing room, so i feel weird asking people to vote for me if i'm not knocking my own socks off.

Oh, and also because i'm not delusional, i'm at like 2 percent and Dan is over 40%. If its not me, then I want it to be Dan - I mean look at how happy he is. And he has a pet pig named Trudy. I'm not kidding. Trudy.

Traveling today, i'll get to questions when I get home.

Episode 6, the red team

2010-07-27T08:54:00.000-07:00

You guys rock. Seriously thank you for the support. I thought about not addressing it (the cruel anonymous comment yesterday, click here), but, well, that felt lame and way too passive. Really glad to know that you guys have my virtual back. Thank you, thank you.

Now on to the Red Team.

You weren't the only ones shocked about the double elimination this week. oh no. We, the blue team, got our little reality worlds rocked when Courtland walked through the door and shut it after him. alone. He then very theatrically fell onto his knees, dropped his bag, opened his arms and shouted happy obscenities. Always the dramatic, that Courtland.

So now for the Red Team. You should know a couple things - these people are my friends which makes me biased, and i like them all personally.

Heres' what i like about their space. Probably more than you think. i like that they played with mixing styles, too, but kept it high end. Their furniture had a much better scale for the room, that tufted bench is super pretty, that coffee table grounded the space and adding in a round black leather pouf created contrast in size, shape, color and brought in a bit of youth and edge. My, my, don't i fancy myself some sort of design expert. What makes me worried is the rug. ish don't think so. I do love that rug, but we actually had a ton of rugs to choose from this time, so not sure why they got one so small. And the angle, don't want to beat a dead cow, but the only rugs i like to angle are hides. I like the modern glass/metal table mixed with the traditional frenchy chairs, and their color palette wasn't altogether different than ours - but no, i wasn't crazy about the yellow walls. I actually think the red team has some much needed color contrast in the furniture choices, however, that our space lacked - I think the person that lived here probably didn't spend too much time here and maybe never fully moved in, but they had good/weird taste in furniture. I feel like maybe the judges aren't as interested in mixing styles as much as we are and they saw things as concept-less rather than an unfinished good concept. What do I know.

Yes, of course they needed art and accessories - a lot of them. But we didn't have the budget or clearance for that.

I don't totally get this tall table thing. Sorry.

OK. I think that we all agree (including Stacey) that this bed needed a mattress as well as maybe to get rid of that black dead animal at the foot of the bed. BUT, the bed itself is beautiful. I like the trunk side table, not so much the lamp, it reminds me of my hotel lobby days....woah woah, i was a cocktail waitress (queue my lady of the night music). As far as the drapery goes: I actually thought that incorporating the taxi-cab paraphernalia into the drapery was interesting in a deconstructed way. It's not like we had fabric stores to choose beautiful drapery from. Drop cloth canvas was our drapery and Stacey thought that drapery would elevate the room. Of course you can rip it apart and say how crazy she must be for putting drop cloths in a luxury apartment, but keep it in perspective, people. We were also given plastic souvenirs to work into the luxury apartment, so excuse us for not being perfect and for perhaps not totally understanding the inconsistency of the challenge. I like the color of the room, the idea of the drapery, that beautiful bed, the pillows and the trunk. Again, needed matress, art accessories, life.

Ah, the notorious blueberry bathroom. What's the big deal? So it's blue walls? It's not like every guy in town hasn't had blue walls at one point or another. I'm a Tom fan, through and through. And I understood what he was going for, although, yes he made a mistake in the color choice (hello, mistakes are made every 10 seconds when working under this kind of pressure). I think a dark bathroom can be weird and cool and cozy, for a guy, or a club, or a smurf brothel. The fact that it has no natural light is the exact reason why you should embrace a color (although maybe not a saturated color) and not just paint it white like we did. Without natural light, white can look bland and unfinished - but paint a room blue and you have yourself a mini statement - a little surprise when you are on the john. And who doesn't like a surprise while on the john. Let me be clear: no, this did not look amazing, but relax, everybody, its just blue walls. Geez.

Elimination. My, My it is getting heated up there. At this point I want to press stop and rush to Chicago to give Stacey a hug. I know that you guys didn't get to know her, but she was snarky as hell. She had good taste. Not perfect when it comes to teamwork and competing, but someone you wanted around all the time because she is just overall rad. I'm sorry that you didn't see that.

Stacey looked pretty broken and sad and done. I wanted to reach out and hug that little hot pink bundle of snark. I've been there. You just want to give up and go back to your happy life. I think that Stacey was ready to go home. At this point we could each go home for anything, so its not that its arbitrary, its just that we are getting down to the nitty gritty. Working in groups is stifling. it just is. Her 60% comment was probably true, she was just done. I missed her a lot.

Tom!! Talk about ready to go home. Don't feel bad for this guy, he has a crazy amazing job and was ready to get back to it. He did this for the adventure, not the career, so he felt like he had enough and was ready to head back to real life. Sayonara reality. Off to his summer house on shelter island - where i will be joining him next year, he invited me... and i'm a big taker-upper-on-middle-of-the-night-kinda-drunk-invites.

Not everybody got to know Tom like I did, but he'll always have a place in my heart.

Courtland's video was shocking. I'm glad that he apologized beforehand, because man that was...um....not nice. at all. Courtland is a nice guy, he must've just had it up to his v-neck with his teammates.

Down to five. Kinda nuts. And at this point while we are still sad that people we like are gone without a proper goodbye, we realize that the less people around means the less people to compete with. So I guess a double elimination just makes the whole thing more efficient.

On to the kitchen challenge. May you all forgive me.

Edward to the rescue, again.

2010-07-26T21:43:00.000-07:00

Check out this gem of an anonymous comment I got yesterday.

"Anonymous said...

3 weeks, wow, lucky you haven't been kicked off yet. The amount of talent and will you have could both fit in a tourist gift bag. You're a poor excuse for a contestant, "limited" is an understatement. I wouldn't watch your show with Stacey's glassy eyes. This series somersaulted over the shark when they ejected Nina, and the ratings show that. Entertainment Value = 0. Those of you who remain are the least capable group I've seen in all seasons of DesignStar. Good luck and (hopefully) good riddance to you next week."

Hmmm...Thanks so much, 'anonymous'. Thanks for making me feel a little bit nauseous and pretty sad for a couple hours. But here's something you should know about me. I have 10 dollars. and a car. and a mother-in-law who insisted I spend 2 hours with some old friends, Edward, Bella and Jacob, watching them battle immature bloodsuckers, much like yourself. (Stop judging, Twilight is intellectually indefensible, but unapologetically addictive). Since leaving the movie theater, i feel so much better. You should be ashamed of yourself, anonymous. This is my personal blog, its not the HGTV website where people spew hateful words all day long. It's just me....a person. Shame on you.

oh and by the way, 'anonymous' I've got a message for you.

In the words of Bella,

BITE ME.

HARD.

Episode 6

2010-07-26T12:22:00.000-07:00

Trump.
I'm jumping straight away into the behind the scenes.

OK. We get the challenge and run off with our souvenir bags to New Jersey. But we take the ferry in the rain, which was fun, but wet - rained the whole way. I thought for sure they would show us in the rain, so i would have an excuse for my Lion Mane of hair, but they didn't. Also, sorry for wearing a 90's grunge shirt, i got confused, oh and stopped caring about how I looked. It seems weird, i know, when you are being filmed 24 hours a day and you know it will be on national TV, but you don't notice it after a while and its just like normal life where some days you put effort into vanity, and some days you don't. Also we ruin all of our clothes with paint, so i tried to just wear the same jeans/shoes on prep days so i didn't keep ruining my fancy ones. which i eventually ruined, don't worry.

Ahem.

We run to sears, grab the electronics and paint first.
Then off to one of the best stores in the world, ABC Carpet and Home. I was super super excited about this having spent probably a year of my life in this store at this point. Its amazing, but spendy so our budget went quickly. We were way, way, way over budget when we checked out so we had to put back almost all of our accessories, which you'll find is obvious. We shopped well as a team-ish. Michael and Casey are the most vocal, Alex is doing a lot of the notes/budget-y things and i'm in the middle, loving some things, disagreeing with others, but as Courtland says, it's a democracy....hmm...is it Courtland? is it? But in general, we were having fun and excited to shop somewhere with so many beautiful things.

But here is the general outcome: I love love love the sofa. I would own in yesterday if I could. It was supple grey leather, modern tailored shape, yet masculine. But the coffee table, i like somewhat on its own, but Ish don't think so with that sofa. I was super afraid that it would be two big grey boxes next to each other, no contrast in color, size and shape. But Casey and Michael have both worked on Trump designs when at their previous firms, so I felt that they had a better handle on what Trump would want. If it had been a different sofa, it would have been fine, but I still don't like the two of them together. That being said, Casey and Michael have amazing taste, this is just one point that we disagreed on.
Maybe its what Don Jr. liked the most, who knows.
As far as the rest of the furniture.

We wanted to leave the window open so we chose that amazing metallic linen daybed. Looking back, we didn't have enough contrast in heights, i wish we had something that wasn't so low and boxy. The 'dresser' was meant for the bedroom, but ended up in the living room because it was too big for the bedroom. And the lamp in the corner was this beautiful modern cut crystal lamp that got no due attention.

The rugs were so beautiful. The one in the living room was this goldy toned persian that brought in the grey tones of the room. It was unexpected with the modern furniture and totally warmed the room up and created a great contrast between the modern metallics, with a traditional rug. The silk rug in the bedroom (that you can't even really see) was ridiculously beautiful and soft as well. ABC Carpet and Home knows what they are doing, people.

As for the dining room: I like the juxtaposition of the modern glass/metal table with the traditional frenchy chairs. I'm not over the moon about it, but I like it.

So leaving ABC, i felt we had some beautiful pieces overall, just worried about artwork (per usual) and how we were going to cover up that coffee table. We had plenty of furniture, just not enough accessories. at all. and no access to flowers.

Paint choices:
We worked as a team to choose our palette which was a light grey/lavender which was super super pretty (in the pics it looks beige, actually everything looks beige) but in person it was beautiful. Our trim was a dark eggplant in semi-gloss. Casey really wanted to do crown moulding and I totally applaud her for it. We should not be expected to execute carpentry perfectly. Even though it took all day to do and undo and do again and wasn't executed well, it did do a lot for the room, so thanks Casey, and sorry i didn't believe in you. It helped the room look more high end and finished. And had we had a carpenter to help, she probably would have won. Alex did a lot of the cuts, and i'm telling you, that kind of math with all those weird angles WHEN YOU ARE IN A HURRY is enough to send me into the back room to collage a subway tee-shirt onto a canvas.

Ahem.
Speaking of. Heres' the deal I had a subway tee-shirt, a canvas bag and an oven mitt. The reason that I chose the subway was because I like the fonts and knew that I could do something with the graphic lines of the words. You can hardly see it in the pictures, but here's what I did. I built a bunch of large art frames using 2x3 plywood, stretched canvas over it, and built an outer frame with more 2x3's that i then painted black to make it look more finished. I used a chop saw, nail gun and drop cloth canvas. I'm getting better with the fancy tools this week. So I cut out all the subway stops 'Prince' 'Union Square' all the little round numbers, etc, etc and collaged them on the canvas in the shape of the island of Manhattan using my BFF, spray adhesive. You didn't get to see the final product for some reason (WTF?) but I actually liked it more than I thought I would. (you can see both of the pieces kind of in this pic below). It looked downtown and hippie, but it looked like me, finished, in an unfinished way. Remember, and i'm sure you are already on board with this, it is super super super hard to make something cheap look like something luxurious - and in fact, it is my pet peeve. I hate it when cheap things are trying to look expensive ( a la pleather, gold-leafed tables at Home Goods, gaudy accessories). This challenged seemed SUPER difficult to me from the get-go. So I chose to deconstruct them and have it look intentional, rather than try to make them look fancy. Clearly not the best approach, since I didn't win, but it's the best I could come up with under the many time and resource constraints.

I butterflied my subway oven mitt and opened it up so it looked well, kinda like a butterfly - Casey inspired this idea, shout out, Casey. I built a shadow box and pinned the mitt in the middle. It was hokey for sure, but I thought it was actually a decent way to use a subway oven mitt - if one is forced to make art out of a mitt - not sure if you've done that before. It was a play on all the found-object-butterfly-collection trend that is uber-in right now, but a little subversive. Or so was the intent. I'm not saying it should be at the guggenheim, but it wasn't just an oven mitt. But no pictures (barely, see above) or footage of that either, unfortunately. Hey, Mark Burnett, why you hating on my souvenir art, eh? Or Michael's table? or Casey's pieces? I'm kinda bummed with how little they showed this week on our team. You see the crown moulding, and Alex's pillow, but besides that, the audience has very little idea of our actual process.

So we all picked out the furniture together. Michael decided to make this canvas covered parsons console table, which I love in theory for sure, he's got great ideas. But we didn't need the table. Dear Michael, to respond to your 'big picture' comments: I love you but i think you were more 'big table' than 'big picture', don't hate me. And the 'so annoying' comment that i made? I don't remember what it was about. Probably the fact that I had to make art out of a tourist tee-shirt. Working with friends is always tricky. Working with friends and competing against them is MUCH trickier. So yes, at times we got annoyed with each other, but at the end of the day we are friends. in a reality show competition. being filmed 24 hours a day. totally normal.

Michael, i love you and think you are crazy talented. and a wonderful lover.

kidding. er, maybe not kidding, you probably are a wonderful lover. but i haven't had the pleasure. yet.

Here's the thing with me. And i've known this for years, unfortunately and am now really really working on it: I know my limitations, and knowing your limitations can be a huge limitation. I know that if i tried to build a parsons table in a few hours or cut and install crown moulding in a few hours, i will be unsuccessful at it, so i would never try it. BUT, knowing this is a huge hindrance in the competition and life, really. I mean then what do you do in a few hours to make a huge impact in the room? The things i'm good at take so much longer to do (except sewing, which i can't do again nor did we have Zarin's this time) - for instance i'm good at vintage shopping and mixing styles together - but there is no opportunity for that. I'm good at refinishing furniture, but there are no pieces of furniture to refinish, nor is there the time. Sure, i'm good at making a room feel lived in and personal, but its really hard to do under these constraints. So while yes, Casey and Michael bit off more than they could chew, at least they bit off something big in the first place. I didn't. I limit myself too much. Stupid fear of failure, i hate you. They are better risk takers and should be totally given more credit for that.

Alex and I brought up the majority of the furniture from the basement and while his pillow was hokey (he'll admit this for sure), it was silver and I think that is why Trump picked him. Silver equals luxury, no? I honestly don't know who should have won. Everyone worked really hard and brought a lot to the table either with creativity or labor. I liked my subway art, but it was more hippie-weird than luxury, and I liked Casey's skyscraper art, and Michael's lamp was surprisingly functional. Watching it objectively, I still don't know who should have won. It was a challenging challenge. I thought there were very pretty elements in our rooms, but overall underwhelming.

We ran out of time, that is why it looks unfinished. It was unfinished. We didn't have enough accessories and my fake art above the sofa looked exactly like what it was - a last minute or LAST SECOND effort to put something above the sofa. We always run out of time, there is just not enough of it. And luxury is hard to do in 2 days. Really hard. Impossible, possibly.

When the judges announced that one room clearly beat the other rooms, I knew we had won because there is no way that ours 'needed carting out as we speak'. Relief again. But not proud of what we did. In theory Michael's table rocked, Casey's crown moulding was spot on, everything in the space was tasteful, there just wasn't enough life or contrast or style.

This is my third week in a row without going to elimination. That makes this design star real happy. Can I make it four weeks in a row? i wonder. well, i don't wonder, i know what happens next week.
But do you wonder?

uh oh.

Episode 6.

2010-07-26T09:23:00.000-07:00

A lot to take in from last night's episode. I was pretty shocked by a few things. But i'm working on my post right now, so stay tuned.

Were you guys shocked who went home? Who won?

for me to put my pretty things in.

2010-07-22T09:55:00.000-07:00

My friend just bought an awesome house with a dated kitchen that we need to update with not a ton of money. It's from the 1920's and he's into vintage look, yet modern - or i've convinced him that he's into that, because that's what i'm into. The house closes tomorrow and then i can take pics, but being obsessed with the task i've already found some tears to show him.

His kitchen already has subway tiles, so we could just replace the shelving and countertops and have it be affordable-ish.

This one above is pretty, but too country.

This one is pretty beautiful. It feels old and new at the same time.

Ah, Amy Nuensinger's kitchen. Perfection. All while marble, open shelving, a huge open layout, and floor to high high ceiling glass doors that opens to an overgrown patio with canyon views.

These photos were taken by Amy, obviously. And she designed the house, because she is super woman, apparently.

Serious question for you:

I need to find a contractor for my friend to do the work that he needs done. Does anybody know anybody in LA that they feel good about recommending?

2010-07-21T12:42:00.000-07:00

I scheduled a day of watching TV today. all day. can i return your phone calls? nope, sorry i'm booked. meet for lunch? oh i apologize, but i'm unavailable all day. i'm not even allowing myself to leave the sofa. the amount of television i'm about to watch is gonna be sick. i just finished When in Rome (being a huge veronica mars fan i can't say no to the adorableness of Kristen Bell). it was certifiably indescribably stupid.

i started 'The Bounty Hunter' but i couldn't last 20 minutes.

help me help me.

i need movie recommendations. i prefer something where pretty people fall in love. or cry. one or the other. ooh!! or dancing. a la Step Up.

nothing with words at the bottom of the screen. nothing with comic book heros. and if ryan gosling or robert pattinson happened to be involved, i would be very grateful.

and for the record i worked like 23 days straight. i deserve this day- which is what i keep quietly chanting to myself. over and over.

****update. i watched Remember Me. ugh. so stupid, although Robert was brooding and angry, just like i like him. Thanks for the suggestions everyone. i still have 4 more hours of tv watching til i'm off, for now it's HGTV, giving holmes on homes a look.

Episode 5.

2010-07-20T12:10:00.000-07:00

I had a friend once return from a world tour of Europe (er, a european tour of europe....) and when asked how it was, their response was, 'amazing, just amazing. if you ever the chance, you really should try it'. uh yeah. 'if i get the chance' to take off a year and float around the world, i'll totally 'try' it. thanks so much for the advice. now that i have the recommendation i'll go ahead and book a ticket today.

But seriously.

if you ever get the chance to play fireman for the day, you should totally do it.

so fun, so scary, so hard to hold up the 30 plus pounds of uniform. And that fire is hot, my friends. When we were doing the drill it did start to get really really hot, but you can't feel that much because of all the gear. but the second i took off my helmet when i was far away, i could feel the heat and it singed my eyelashes it was sooo hot. We weren't terrified because we knew that obviously we were in good hands, but I could never do it for a living. i'll go back to sewing pillows. in 72 degree weather. with bearcat.

So this weeks challenge was to design a common area of a firehouse. We were at firehouse 18 which is in the west village and super old and historic. During 9-11 all the men that were on duty that day died on ground zero, and without killing your tuesday morning buzz i'll spare you how sentimental that made me feel and just say that i loved loved loved our guys and it truly truly truly was an honor to get to know them and design a room for them.

Our furniture came from some online store that is below by canal street called 'contemporary furniture nyc' or something like that. They guys requested leather, because dudes be loving leather. and they said that they don't really like to cuddle with each other so club chairs were better than sofas. so we bought club chairs. six club chairs, actually. But the store didn't have any coffee tables that we thought could work (wherein i formed my ridiculous idea to build a table, because i'm a furniture builder, right? right? wrong).

So, the furniture came from the 'contemporary' store and accessories came from Surprise Surprise, which is a where NYUers buy dorm room accessories. The other stop we made was a lumber store for lumber to build my coffee table, Casey's canvas and Michaels desk system. Those were the only options for shopping for anything.

For the record i drew a sketch of the table this time and while it is visually unimpressive, it isn't going to fall apart soon, i hope anyway. i'm not proud of the design of it, it did look like a kindergarteners table (thanks MFAMB for pointing that out, i was was thinking 3rd grader, but i can go younger), but i am still proud of it.

In defense of my table:

Obviously my 'signature element' was less about a coffee table and more about what i wrote on it. Inside the fire house the only decorations they have are what people send to them to thank them. They are all over the walls, quilts, framed letters, pictures from kids classrooms, plaques, etc, etc. Its unbelievably touching and totally appreciated by them - they care way less about the perfect accessories in the room and more about remembering why they do what they do. The love from the public is a huge source of pride to them, so I wanted to give them my version of that. You can go ahead and call that cheezy, i don't care. They lost 7 of the 21 guys in 9-11. best friends. so, no, I wasn't worried about it being too sentimental for a reality tv show, it wasn't about me. I didn't expect to win for best coffee table design of the year. i just wanted them to like it and to hopefully make them laugh.

So I taped out the letters FDNY (sticking with our graphic theme) and wrote inside them, in black permanent market, then poly-ed the whole top so it doesn't get ruined. it was total stream of consciousness, clearly i won't remember it exactly what I wrote, but it went a little something like this:

'oh, hey, squad 18. wait, how did you get such big muscles, again? i mean, the level of brawn in this house is ridiculous. it's almost as if you just hang around and work out all day, but nope you are busy saving lives. literally. saving human being lives. while i'm annoyed about having to carry 6 shopping bags, stressed about lampshades, angry at the long lines at ikea, you are running into burning buildings to save human beings. Where normal men are terrified and run out away from fires, you guys run into them and that, well makes you so much cooler in my book. Was it something you ate as a kid? drank? i mean, where did you get that bravery? '

'I often contemplate dressing up in a cat suit (not like catwoman, more like a furry) and getting myself stuck in a tree just so you would rescue me. And i know you would. even though you could tell that i was clearly just a crazy fireman-obsessed woman, you would still rescue me because you are that nice. But, I can't help myself. Because women, well, we love you. and its not just the uniform thing, we don't go nuts for postal workers. its the bravery thing. you can't bottle it, you can't touch it, you can't explain it, and we all know it. it's not something we have, or most men have. just you guys. and thank god for it and for you'

It went on and on like that. Its not going to win the pulitzer, i know, but the intention was that it would make them smile, feel good, feel proud and laugh. that was my signature element, not the coffee table.

OH MY GOSH, i can't believe i haven't talked about the joy i felt about mixing the teams up, yet. 'joy' doesn't really describe it. 'ecstasy' gets a bit closer. with the loss of Dan, i was terrified of another week with one of my teammates. (not terrified in a 'scared' way, but in a 'i might just walk out of the competition and go back to my very pleasant life' way). So i am now happily still on the team with Casey, with the addition of Michael and Alex. And it was very very very pleasant indeed.

We get into the firehouse and instantly ask all the requisite questions. 'how do you use the space?' 'what are your exact needs' and color preferences, etc etc. They already have a big hangout room with all their recliners and tv's and stuff, this was more for drills and tests. We knew we wanted to keep it simple and functional. Nothing too decorative. So we decided that anything decorative we decided to do would be in big graphic elements. Alex wanted to paint skyline which i think was great. remember people that there are no art options, so had he not done that it would have been a huge blank wall. and I thought his mural was totally appropriate, graphic, made a huge statement yet simple. kudos, Alex.

We first decide the wall color - which we knew needed to be masculine, but light because the space was so dead. no natural light at all. we didn't want to go grey because it can be depressing if we couldn't get any color any where else in the room, so we chose 'feather grey' (I think) and its a really grey light blue that we were super happy with. Then we tackled the floor, which yes, was a nightmare. because we decided to polyuerethane it we weren't able to use that space for hours and hours. but i'm glad we did it, because there were no rug options or any other flooring solution. We decided to patina it in a way that if it scuffs up, it hopefully will look interesting and old, not cheap and gross. next time i'm in the city i'm going to stop by and check it out and say hi to the guys. I'm curious if it held up. oh and i want to see my firemen.

Alex helped a lot with the cutting of all the wood - he learned fast the first few challenges to be comfortable with the power tools, whereas I'm still slightly afraid of using table saws when i'm in a hurry. as to not have any major accidents.....which leads me to Michael. Michael took on this desk shelving system which looked like a good idea, but a lot of construction. those nail guns are scary, and yes it went completely through his thumb. he was a TOTAL champ and as they were carting him away he was yelling out suggestions, which was effing hilarious.

Alex took over and saved the team. He put together Michaels wall system sooooo fast, i helped as much as I could, but he should get all the credit. he is such a good guy and works insanely hard. as much as i adore my good good friend Casey, in a way i think that Alex could've won this challenge because the impact he had in the room was HUGE. but again, the judges don't see any of this, which is unfortunate.

Casey. Dude. that girl kept quiet about her art school years. After building the canvas, which took a long time because it was so big, she whipped out the painting really fast and it turned out perfectly. it was a big graphic, yet personal element in the room and grounded that wall.

So did that room blow my socks off? no, not really. We didn't have the resources to. But it was a big pleasant, functional, comfortable room for 6 dudes to watch TV and study for their tests. And while it wasn't 'decorated' per say, it had a lot of artistic and personal elements in the room that will keep them interested and talking for years.

Nina was eliminated. 'Relieved' is the word that i shall use. ahem. But really, i don't really have to say much. it would be like me doing a post about how america has economic problems. it's like, yeah, no duh, everybody knows because anybody who watches the show sees for themselves what she's like and how it all went down. You don't need little ole me to say it. besides i'm just from Oregon. and people from Oregon and Arkansas are different.

ah, self restraint. how i loathe you sometimes. not nearly as much fun as what i'm really thinking.

read roomfu's blog with her interview.
i'll blog about the other team tomorrow.

FDNY

2010-07-18T20:55:00.000-07:00

ok. a few things, real quick like. purely objective. using my reality-tv-watching-instincts.
1. Courtland should not have been in the bottom two. wood paneling can be awesome.
2. Alex saved Michael's life. he totally put that shelving system together when Michael was relaxing with a nail in his thumb. probably drinking brooklyn lager. watching the much missed, much talked about 'television'. lazy lazy michael. i mean, i miss RHONY too, but i wouldn't put a nail in my finger just to be able to watch it in the waiting room. or maybe i would've. we all have our priorities. in case you don't read my blog often, i'm justa kiddin'. but Alex rocked this week. and totally saved the day.
3. my table was weird, BUT necessary. we didn't have a table. and i couldn't leave it plain and have that be my 'signature'. oh and what i wrote on it (graffiti like) i'm hoping will keep them laughing and smiling for years, and that was the point. i'll explain tomorrow.
4. Reese should quit the acting gig and start painting instead. she whipped that fireman silhouette out quickly and it really was pretty. (er. casey)
5. thank god we have new teams. i was about to throw myself into that fire.
6. my kryptonite has left the building.
7. i heart firemen. very. very. much. so handsome, so brave. you can't bottle that sh*t. and if they could, they would make 17 trillion dollars. 'cause every woman wants them and every man wants to be them.

because they are awesome.
my 15 day shoot ends tomorrow. i'm hoping i come back alive because i is a zombie. 14 hour days with an hour commute. sucks. be prepared (this time i promise) for some DS posts. the obsession is full force after tonights episode. so much to 'splain.

2010-07-18T06:21:00.000-07:00

Sorry for being so MIA. i've been shooting a fashion catalogue in Malibu which grants me a lovely hour and fifteen minute commute each way to add on to my 12 hour shooting day - darn you summer for having so many hours of light. but the shoot ends tomorrow, so i'll be back, obsessed with Design Star and my impending fame.

tonights episode has to do with firemen. it is one one my favorites, for sure. I love love love firemen. When we are all running outta the building, they are running in. just that general concept amazes me. Cops give you tickets or break up the party, but firemen just help when needed. they are universally adored. thanks FDNY.

sososososososo excited.
E

Sorry it took so long....

2010-07-15T05:50:00.000-07:00

I'm still sad. about Dan. my friends are sad, my family is sad and america is sad. I'm pretty sure that guy is not going away quietly and i'm predicting a Dan spinoff show or something (I think he's still dominating in the fan vote polls so vote vote vote if you want him to win - i'm a real bad 'vote-for-yerself girl' so i've been doing few for me, then switching it up between Dan and some of my other faves which i'll highlight later).

First of all here is our space:

There are some problems, yes, but overall i like our space. Let's start with some behind the scenes.

1. there is a bit of a war on the blogs about who's idea the swing was. it was mine. kidding. It was Nina's idea, she said she's done it before and that she knew how do to it. BUT, she did want to paint it silver and use chain to glam it up (which could've looked good, too) but as i remember, Dan wanted to keep it simple and natural. maybe Nina could've hung it properly, but fact is that Dan did it. there. I liked it, she claims we all detested it, but thats not true. i think it did look playful, gimmicky yes, but interesting.

2. Fake applied moulding. I'm still conflicted about this one. It did a lot for the room, but the part of me that isn't into faux finishings isn't into this either. i feel like its a good option for a 24 year old renting an apartment, Its a lot of bang for your buck, as it has a lot of impact. It was Nina's idea and Dan, Casey and Stacey helped her do it. Again, it was a lot of wall to cover and no artwork so we had to do something. I was a busy sewing bee and not so good with straight lines so i sat out the taping situation.

3. Stacey's stories. Stacey is getting a lot of flack out there for her carnation story. Was choosing the carnation a risk? of course. she knows its not the most popular flower, but that is why she chose it. her stories are a hard sell, but she sells 'em. The desk/office area was cute,

I like the mismatching lamps, the ghost chair is what it is, but, my what an adorable little pillow for you to rest on while you are sniffing your carnation. me likey, stacey.

I was so happy that Reese Witherspoon was on my team again. Its so great that she can take away time from legally blonde 3 to do what she really loves - painting walls. and she is super down to earth, no weird famousy pretentious, she won't even answer to Reese if you call at her. She just wants to be one of us.

Ahem. You didn't get to see a lot from Casey this week, but she did a lot behind the scenes. Casey wanted her part of the room to feel like a watercolor painting, so she did this effect on the walls. She kinda washed the walls with this blue. it was pretty. I made those pillows, but she styled the bed.

We upholstered a headboard in linen to add structure. this rug was supposed to go in to the living room but it didn't work, that is why the living room has a kinda nuts carpet. And while i like the lamp, now the room looks a bit off balance because of it. oops. But i like the little chandy. its cute. Overall, i think its a sweet room.

We all got along so much better this time. i didn't resist any ideas, i started my 'just let people do whatever they want and hopefully it will make the room look better or they will go down for it' strategy. I'm not competitive, so i had to have some sort of strategy and while this one seems apathetic, i think it actually makes the most sense. I am not into the wall art at all but cared more about having a pleasant day than to say anything. I figured it it made the room look better, great, good for everyone on the team. but if it was bad then someone deserved to be criticized for it. I don't actually think that being competitive is that good of a thing unless you play sports, by the way. Why compete? Whats the point? I don't compete with my friends (even my fellow freelance prop stylists when we are up for the same job) my siblings, my cats, nobody in my real life, so why would i magically become competitive just because i'm in a talent competition? I tried, at first, really. but no puedo.

I think that is one of the reasons that Dan went home. He wasn't competitive either, just a great guy trying to help make a great room. Had we had somebody (an extra carpenter) that could help out, Dan could've focused on his design. Sorry, Dan. again.

So did I just sew? yep, mainly. Not totally proud of it. Of course I helped with all the shopping and styling too. I guess that if i hadn't sewn none of those pillows on the sofa, swing or bed would be there (and obviously the curtains wouldn't be there). I love the pillows with the rug. I don't mind the pillows with the wall moulding. I don't mind the wall moulding with the rug. But all three elements together is a bit overkill - a lot of really strong patterns in one room. It does, however, look like a room that I would love to have a cocktail party in. it has fun energy and a lot of life. I remember right before the judges came in, thinking, there is a good chance that a crazy person would live in this room. i love crazy people, but not sure if the judges do.

Those curtains, by the way, took me forever to sew because they are so long and wide so just measuring them and cutting accurately was a huge time suck - it was like 20 yards of fabric and doing this in a teeny space where everyone else is trying to work and paint is a big ole pain in the arse. They were white hankerchief linen, i didn't want a pattern, i didn't want any distraction, just natural organic fabric that would fall naturally, let the light through and look romantic. I wish you could see the fringe better, it definitely gave it that hippie vibe which i love.

That's it for now. gotta run.
To answer a couple questions:
No we can't hear what the judges are saying up there. but yes, it is very uncomfortable.

i'll talk about the boys tomorrow.

Chivalry didn't die, but he did just get eliminated.

2010-07-12T19:41:00.000-07:00

Yep, it was a surprise for us, too. For the record I agree that the wrong person went home. I'm aloud to disagree with the judges and this time i do.

Dan. Oh, Dan. There's a lot of splaining to do, I know. And i know you guys aren't seeing what some of us have done design-wise so i will break it down for you, designer by designer (at least on my team). There are still 9 people in the game, so they can't go into detail on each one of us, there's just no time - but I can. ALSO, WE STILL WORK IN TEAMS!!!! so yes, its hard to have a breakout design when all the decisions are made together and they HAVE to be made together in order to create a pretty room.....

OK. Flower district. Fischer and Page, i've been there 4 trillion times and am actually pretty friendly with Chris the manager (btw, hey single ladies, if you want to meet a man that works hard, can lift heave stuff, knows what is pretty, and smells good all the time, go to the flower district - the guys that work there are all awesome and done with work at noon).

We didn't have the world of flowers to choose from, but even if we did I would've chosen a wildflower because I love them very very very much. They grow anywhere, don't need any care, are effortless, loose, are always sculptural and under used.....oh....and super cheap. wild and cheap. like i like my men.

After getting our challenge, we all get our flowers and get into the van and start conceptualizing. I wanted to do a billowing curtain around the bed to create romance. Yes, Nina wanted to do fake applied....WAIT!!! WHY DIDN'T THEY STOP ME FROM CHEWING GUM IN THE VAN!!!!! good lord that is not a good look for me. how embarrassing. Anyhoo, i'm not the biggest fake applied moulding fan, its a bit store display for me. But whatever, it did add impact to the room. Fact is that art (purchased) is not an option because of clearances, etc, so you have to do some sort of treatment on the walls or they will just be painted, then empty. It was very very time consuming, however.

Ok, so back at the apartment we formulate the plan. I'm going to make the room divider, Casey's going to do the wall treatment in the bedroom, Stacey is creating an office, and Nina is doing a coffee table and a piece of artwork. Dan talked about logistics and how its all going to get done.

We start shopping. We go to Bo concept, Zarin's fabric, a really good furny store downtown that i'm forgetting, and Gracious HOme (Dear gracious home, i love you, why can't all hardware/home stores have your selection of great things?...seriously, why?ooh, also if you want to sponsor my blog I would accept, it's about time i put it out there) We get back to the space around 8:30 and start taping and painting. Everybody is working together. Dan helped me put up my rod for the room divider, which was necessary for everyone and for the room. He volunteers to help because he is soooo much faster at everything so I agree to do clusters of pillows for him. We are all just helping each other, worrying about our individual designs later.

We wake up the next day and I have a bad feeling about Dan. Dan and I had a conversation in the kitchen where we talk about the fact that he hasn't decided what is specifically 'his' design yet. He keeps saying that all of it will play to his flower and that he's not worried about it -not in a cocky way, at all, just in a 'guy-who-hasn't-gone-to-elimination-yet' way. He hasn't been grilled by the judges yet on what he individually has or has not done, so he doesn't understand how important it is to make sure that you can defend yourself. We tried to explain it to him and he might have thought we were being dramatic (which I would've too, i'm pretty sure we said that going to elimination is worse than sitting in friday night west to east traffic on the ten which is the 11th circle of hell, 15 miles that can take 2 hours).

Anyway, he helped sooooooooooooo much because he's got mad skills and is fast, efficient, works hard and is insanely pleasant to be around. He's the most chivalrous guy i know, and insisted on doing a lot of stuff that he knows how to do so well - the hot macho guy stuff (he's getting married in two weeks and i had the priviledge of meeting the lovely bride to be - more on that this week).

Here's the deal, its hard to stand out on teams (unless you are a mural person) so you end up kinda falling back and doing what you know you are good at. I know that i'm good at fabrics, textures, accessories and sewing- so i sew a lot of the accessories. is that a copout? I dunno. I'm not sure what i would've done different. Dan knows that he is good at implementing designs (and YES, he is great great great) so i think that he stuck with that. AH, i hate thinking about it. When the judges came into the room they asked us each what our flower was and how we implemented it into the room. That was our chance to sell our selves and our flower (yep, i guess i talk like this now) into the room. Dan didn't really know, so I think it tipped the judges off that he might've not had much of an individual design concept. Again, the judges don't know what we do during the challenges, they only see the result (which is good and bad).

I can safely say that he is the one person that I was legitimately shocked and sad about. Everyone else so far seemed like it was their time, but for Dan....it was too soon.

I have to go to work. i would love to call in sick and blog about design star all day long. but money doesn't make itself and mama wants a new pair of APC shoes, so i has to goes to works.

Because i'm a die-hard, frankly obsessed, Design Star fan I will be blogging about it everyday this week. i'll explain what each of us did in the space, how we got along or didn't and why Dan ended up in the bottom two.

I'll also post all the behind the scene pics which i don't have time to down load right now. I'll answer any and all requests for DS info so if there is something you are dying to know, ask it and i promise to address it.

I also promise to never ever ever EVER chew gum on national tv again. It is not helping my hillbilly reputation (although I had sweet, minty-fresh breath, yes i did).

Tonight!!!!!

2010-07-11T10:28:00.000-07:00

tonight tonight tonight tonight.

how do you all live without being able to see yourself on tv? its like the whole tree-falls-in-a-forest-thing, i'm not totally sure that i'm alive until sunday nights at 7 or 10. then i tune on to HGTV and.....

Ah, here I am.

Down to nine. who do you guys want to go home? who do you think is going home?
come back for the scoop tomorrow - or tuesday. got an early call time tomorrow so not sure i'll be able to wrap my little foggy brain around it at 6am.

Design Star tomorrow night. we go to the flower market.

2010-07-10T07:08:00.000-07:00

It's been way too long since the last Design Star. I mean, how are you all getting along? finally, my reality life can live again tomorrow night. Meanwhile i've been watching to Top Chef and Work of Art and loving them per usual. At the flea market last weekend I ran into just-offed artist John Parot.

it's funny, if he was Ryan gosling, (my true obsession) or any other actor or musician i would never have come up to him, but Bethenny(RHONY) and Jeff Lewis should expect an invite to coffee from me. I feel like reality show people volunteer for it, so its ok ish.

So i came up to him and was all, 'Hi, John?' and he said "You're Emily!' and we both just knew each other from the shows that we are on. so weird. we talked for 1/2 hour just about the whole experience, figuring out how to compete under pressure as creatives, etc. it was weird 'cause i did feel like i knew him. we actually do share a friend in common, who just had a baby, way to go Jen! nice job making another human being. still not sure how that is possible. but, i made a throw pillow yesterday by the way. just sayin.

Watch Design Star sunday at 7pm and 10pm on HGTV. It's challenge #4. watch the preview here, if you want a sneaky peeky

my non-mood board.

2010-07-08T08:20:00.000-07:00

working like a dawg. sorry, this week is n.u.t.s.
here's my mood board right now, in case that is interesting to you. it looks a lot happier than my exact mood right now, my new printer breaking is killing my morning organizational buzz. i suppose i could call it my inspiration board, but that doesn't really sound like me. maybe its just a 'cloth-covered-chuck-of-homosote-that-i-put-pretty-pretty-things-on-that-make-me-happy' board.

Its just a sheet of homosote from home depot wrapped in Navy Linen. I change the linen every couple months. It took me WAY too many years to figure out that Navy looks good on blondes, but once I did i haven't turned back. Navy, I love you, you sophisticated color that works with anything, you.

My friend Terilyn Fisher took this photo when she was over the other day. thanks Teri.