Sunday, May 2, 2010

A heartfelt (and belated) thank you!

I’d have to say this has probably been the craziest month of my life—going straight from preparing for our most intensive workshop ever, right into preparing for a Traditional Home magazine interview, photo and video shoot that I’ll tell you about in another blog. Seriously, it was so crazy that at times I thought I was going to have to be institutionalized!














For us the workshop was bittersweet, because while it was fun to launch our new mini-room demos with new sponsors Central Pacific Bank, whose Blenn Fujimoto and crew were amazing, this was also our last workshop with longtime sponsor The Honolulu Advertiser at our side.



















Another longtime supporter, Macy’s and Deena Nichols, provided lots of props that I used to create the mini-rooms.













But really, there are so many people to recognize. Sam Brewer and Melanie Kyker worked tirelessly for two weeks prior, running around gathering nearly 100 items to use onstage. The two of them really were my left and right hands in pulling together the pieces, and Melissa Daley Shipman joined them in helping me on workshop day. Douglas Simmons put off his knee surgery so he could help out—now that’s commitment! Thanks also to Juan Rubalcaba from Matador Painting, who painted our ‘walls’ for that day, and The Dudes—Al Ness and Nick Ybl—for constructing our set, and Jay Rea and Wisteria Lane for providing our beautiful onstage wood floor.













Helping out at the office were Celsie Day and Chelsea Sponsler. And I have to mention Melissa Blake from Your Perfect Party and Designed to Perfection, who has become part of our events team and who put together the most beautiful flower arrangements for me to use onstage.












Behind the beautiful directory/workbook that everyone got—not one single copy was left behind at the Convention Center, and that says a lot—were WavenDean Fernandez and Mike Portillo from Mana Brand Marketing, and of course Mari Taketa, our editor who is always right!

Photographers David Cornwell and Dave Rezendes captured some amazing images that you can see in this slideshow. And of course James Brennan, our director who has been with us since day one, and his crew did an amazing job with our Jumbotron projection.

Melissa Chang, our Twitter bird, organized a pre-workshop Twitter contest. It was great to see all the Tweets and Twitpics going out from the workshop! Thanks Melissa and all you Tweeters, I loved your Tweets—keep chirping!













I can’t mention all the sponsors who either participated or donated a prop to use onstage in my demos. We appreciate every one of our Experts.

If I missed any of you, I’m sorry, it’s been a crazy month. But it was a great event—thank you all for your wonderful comments and feedback! It’s great to know how much you enjoyed our new format and how many of you said what a difference it made and that you left feeling inspired, with actually a vision of what you want to create at home. I’m so thrilled to hear that, because that has always been my goal!













And finally and most importantly, I would not have my sanity if it weren’t for the insane hours put in by RSVPstyle’s Lissa Rodrigues and Kara Wagner—you guys are awesome!

0 comments: