Hiatus-san

Hey there, I'm taking a little break from blogging until the beginning of January! I'm going to get my shizz together while I go home to Panama City, Florida and visit my family, then be refreshed to start blogging again probably January 1. See below for a kick-ass NYE party I'll probably be at! I'll def let you know how it goes.

Blog you next year!

NYE 2007

http://www.clubnycharleston.com/

Cool Holiday Centerpiece

I was surfing through my friend Paul's photos at CharlestonPictureCompany.com and came across the recent Blackbaud Holiday Party at Charleston Place. The centerpieces were so fun and festive! I don't know who planned the party or did these centerpieces, but Feliz Navidad!!!

UPDATE: I found out the fabulous McRae Smith from Blackbaud planned the party and conceptualized the ornamental pieces, bravo!

Photo: CharlestonPictureCompany.com

Fez-tastic!

Friday night I had a girl's night out and we went to Le Club Fez, or just Fez, whatevs. It was REALLY good! The atmosphere was buzzing under the moroccan lanterns, and the rich decor and low-lighting made for an exotic epicurean experience.

The food was tres yummy and though the service was a little slow that night, the free bottle of wine and the attentive management made up for it. I'm even more excited that it's close to my hood on Maybank and the bar scene was calling my name for many future happy hours.

My fabulous lady-friends Maggie and Pam

Identity check

So my goal for December was to have a proper logo made so I can start the year off right with Social. After a couple unsuccessful and "blah" attempts at paying people to design one for me, I got on Illustrator myself and, with the help of my talented husband, I couldn't be happier with what I've created. Not only is it totally "me", but I'm proud to have something I created as a representation of my business. Here's a sneak peak, I'm sure there will be a couple more tweaks, but I think I'm getting it. Thoughts?

Let's go inside this time

Okay, now that I have my head screwed on straight from the gala, I wanted to thank and link to all the vendors that made it possible! We held the event at the Daniel Island Club this year, which is a beautiful space with a stunning view.

Our guests entered to the Kevin Hackler trio playing light jazz music and nibbled on scrumptious passed hors d'oeuvres of beef tenderloin carpaccio, bacon wrapped sea scallops and tomato mozzarella crostini. They viewed the auction items in the foyer and sipped on drinks for the cocktail hour.

After that, we opened the ballroom doors as we asked guests to "board the plane". Tables were draped in luxurious pin tuck linen from BB&J, and hydrangea centerpieces evoking fluffy clouds from Tiger Lily were beautiful in the various sized milky white vases. At each table setting was a gift from Chocolate Perfection with an edible copy of our invitation cover printed on it. OtherBrother Entertainment lit the room in cool hues of blues and aquas to complement the color scheme and provided an inviting all white dance floor. Stephen Duvall Decor created seating areas on each side of the dance floor.

Our emcee/flight attendant Trixie Layover (fabulous actress Mandy Denaux) introduced the evening's festivities with a witty monologue filled with flight attendant lingo. Vintage Velvet played as guests noshed on a four course meal of tomato bisque with lump crab and basil oil, boston bibb salad with goat cheese buttermilk dressing, thyme-roasted prime rib of beef and a duo of desserts of whiskey bread pudding and bittersweet chocolate mousse, for the men and women respectively. On the two large screens I played a looping video of clouds which transported guests through the air -- and the evening.

Doug Warner, Mandy "Trixie Layover" Denaux, and me!

When dessert was served, Doug Warner, our speedy auctioneer extraordinaire, ran through our six auction lots in less than thirty minutes with a few bidding wars over the jet-setter and travel-related auction items. After the auction, guests danced to VV's swanky tunes and made their way outside to the Sky Club Lounge where mod furniture from Stephen Duvall Decor, and OBE's red and amber uplighting on the columns, was the talk of the party.

Thanks to all our wonderful vendors, you ROCK!

Photos by Charleston Picture Company.

Tag, I'm it.

I’ve Been Tagged!

A couple days ago I was tagged by a reader/blogger Jaime from It's A Jaime Thing...

These are the rules and I'll be a good sport: Link to the person who tagged you and post the rules on your blog. Share 7 random and/or weird things about yourself. Tag 7 random people at the end of your post and include links to their blogs. Let each person know that they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

1. I drive a pick up truck with a #41 sticker on the back window that looks like I love endorsing racecar drivers, when in fact it's a Dave Matthews Band sticker for the song #41.
2. Sometimes I go for about a 2 month stretch watching shows like The First 48, Prison Nation, and Cold Case Files late into the night, alone, scaring the be-jesus out of myself.
3. My favorite food to bring to parties or pot lucks are my home made egg rolls. Even though I am half Thai and should probably know more about cooking Asian food, egg rolls are the only Asian dish I know how to do... so that's all I ever offer.
4. I know how to tap dance.......................... Bombershay, cramproll, shim sham!
5. I am a hurricane magnet. I don't think you understand, I have been through Hurricane Andrew ('92) while living in Homestead, FL, numerous hurricanes and tropical storms living in Panama City and Orlando , FL ('93-'04, Opal, Ivan, Charley, etc.), and probably the most infamous to date, Hurricane Katrina ('95) while I lived in New Orleans. So naturally, I moved to Charleston, a beautiful east coast city that hasn't been devestated by a 'cane since Hugo in 1989, watchout!
6. I was a cigar girl for 4 years at a private club called the Montecristo Club in the TD Waterhouse Center in Orlando, FL. While there I served cigars to such interesting patrons as Dr. J (that's right, Mr. Julius Irving himself), Mike Piazza, Scott Stapp-- yes, the douche from Creed, Faith Hill, Tim McGraw, *N Sync, Roy Jones, Jr. and other athletes and entertainers. Yeah, college was fun!
7. Dang, coming up with seven things is tough, I'll leave on a high note and say I will no longer be at the Gibbes Museum of Art beginning in January. I will always love the Gibbes and am grateful that I've had so many amazing opportunities presented to me while I was there. I am going full-time with SOCIAL Event Design & Planning and can't wait to see what's in store!

I have tagged: My husband and new blogger Greg Bradley of Being GB, my brother and sister-in-law and new parents to the cutest bebe evah Rich and Em, great friend and woman of style Jesse of Girlbydesign., lovely lady and dear friend Laura Kate Whitney Harlos of Sense Charleston, fabulous band mates and parents-to-be Regina and Frank of Vintage Velvet and their adoption blog Never Say Never, dad-in-law Gerry at The Potato Pastas, and one more... coming soon.

The photos are rolling in!

Chocolate Perfection made our invitation edible!

The Ready. Jet-Set. Go! Gala was a success! Here are some photos and the rest are downloading, I'll post more lata. See them here at Charleston Picture Company, thanks Paul and Andrew for some amazing shots! More photos and links soon!

Above, Tiger Lily's arrangements were fluffy clouds of beautiful Hydrangea

Vintage Velvet was a hit as our in-flight entertainment

OtherBrother Entertainment's all-white Starlite dance floor was beautiful

Photos by Charleston Picture Company.com

Can't get enough of...

The song from the iPod Touch commercial. You'll know the song as soon as you play it. By Cansei de Ser Sexy, a Brazilian band from Sao Paolo, Music is my Hot Hot sex (hey they said it, not me) is the perfect pick-me-up on this "can't wait for the weekend" friggin' Thursday.

The video is.... not so interesting, but I just press play and go on about my work. Music is MY boyfriend bitches, enoy!

Charmer- a practitioner of folk magic

This holiday season a couple of girlfriends and I decided to see if we could put our gift-wrapping and design experience to the test (Dillard's holiday '05, what what!) and make some sweet moolah.

Along with chic and precision wrapping, we'll personally shop for those last-minute gifters (with their sweet moolah, of course), help any procrastinators plan their holiday party, and also decorate the same procrastinator's home or office for the season.

Sounds like a fun idea, hope we see something from it this year, and if so you'll be seeing CHARM again next year!

Hope you can read the above, for more information go to charm.sensecharleston.com.

April Showers

My girl Allison's wedding is in April and her east meets west theme is coming along nicely. I pitched an idea about oragami invitations, how cute would that be? I think it can totally be done in a way where it doesn't look like a 3rd grader's art project-gone-awry. Thick, weathered paper, beautiful graphics and fonts and delivered in an interesting oragami pattern or simple paper crane.... or something that can be folded flat to send in an envelope... we'll see about this one.

For Allison's wedding I'm building my first large-scale lighting design, see my two concepts below. I think we're going with #2, forgive the 3rd grader's art project-gone-awry, but parasols in a beautiful Japanese pattern, above, bringing in her blues and purples will look stunning like this because you will be able to see all the architectural ribbing on the inside. So excited, thought I'd share.

above is a cluster of parasols with a bulb inside to illuminate.

I think we're going to try this, above, with 8 parasols attached in a

large circle and a bulb in the middle somewhere.