Ho ho ho!

The holidays are here, and that means it’s time to think about gift-giving! It was also time for me to think about what to do for my KITV segment this week. I decided to share some great gift ideas for the home.

I showed up on the set bright and early as usual at 6 a.m. with a few surprises for Mahealani and Dan. I decided we should be a little festive—it is the season, isn’t it? So I brought cute reindeer ears for Mahealani and me and a surprise hat for Dan!

I started out by showing them a recent discovery. For those who still have shoeboxes full of photos or collections of photo CDs and memory cards, why not turn those precious memories into a special, one-of-a-kind book for Christmas? Wouldn’t this be a great gift for grandparents, or for a family reunion? I found these at a local company, Valenti Print Group. Their custom photo books start at around $30—affordable, practical, memorable, and it looks beautiful on the coffee table!

Next, if you want to splurge and really do something special for someone, how about an antique Chinese wedding basket? This is an Asian accessory that adds an understated yet sophisticated flair to any Island-Asian room. As a gift, you just open it up and place some potpourri inside, and you have a gift basket—easy, beautiful, fabulous! I found both at C.S. Wo: basket for $75 and the gorgeous potpourri for less than $25.

Something a bit more affordable? I love the whimsy of these cupped hands holding tea lights. A fun accessory for a powder room, foyer or even your desk. It’s perfect for the holidays because you could display them with some scented or holiday colored candles, but the piece itself is not holiday-themed, so can be used throughout the year. And it’s only $33 from HomeWorld.

Finally, a really amazing gift that’ll be available for the first time in bookstores: RSVPstyle’s affordable Starter Set! Wow, what a great idea (hee-hee)! It’s $69, three how-to DVDs and a training guide book with fun lessons and tips on home design and décor on any budget. It could save you thousands in mistakes you’ll avoid, plus add value to your home. It’ll be available at Borders from next Wednesday, and in other bookstores shortly after.

The segment wrapped up with my final gift: the holiday hat on Dan’s head, which magically came to life! For a full appreciation of what I’m talking about, you have to check out the video at http://www.rsvpstyle.com/. It was hilarious! People on the set couldn’t stop laughing once the cameras stopped rolling.

We had a ball, another fun segment. Hope I gave you some special gift ideas for the homestyler you love!

What a weekend!

This year’s Remodel It Right Expo is now history, and it was an absolute whirlwind. I went in looking forward to two things: a chance to meet you—style students who’ve been learning through our workshops and website, people who have heard of us from friends or seen our ads or television spots, and those who simply chanced by and connected with our mission of teaching personalized home design and décor. I was also looking forward to introducing our Starter Set, which combines our DVD series and Training Guide in an affordable package that many of you had requested.

Guys vacuuming and working while I eat--that's the way I like it!

The expo was a great success on both counts. So if you were one of the thousands who stopped by, thank you! Did you notice our booth? In the middle of the cavernous Hawaii Convention Center, we were able to transform a 20x10 space into a beautiful sitting area layered with colors and textures. I’ve been teaching about harmonious colors, and that’s exactly what we did—we mixed neutral colors with harmonious greens, darker yellows and creams. We pulled the space together by subtly featuring these colors in artwork, an area rug and accessories. Some of you said you wanted to move in!

Al, Gordy and Nick, aka "The Dudes"--responsible for the construction of our beautiful booth

And to my delight, when expo workers laid down the aisle carpet, guess what color it was? Green! Unfortunately it was a cooler shade than I would have liked, because we decorated with warm colors, but oh well, it was still harmonious. Compared to the bright blue carpet of the BIA Home Show last January, this one was much better!

One of the highlights was when a woman named Kathy came to meet me, which was so nice. She divides her time between Honolulu and Guam because she has a home furnishings store on Guam that also does design work. She purchased a Deluxe Style Kit a while ago and was so happy with it that she shared it with her employees. They all loved it, but what she really loved was that whereas before, she had to train her staff on how to help clients, now she can let me train them through the DVD! She said they feel so much more confident about layering textures and colors and pulling together styles that they’re able to help their customers better. She said who knows? She might even offer, as an incentive for her staff, a Deluxe Style Kit or even a chance to fly to Honolulu to attend one of our workshops.

If any of you have had the experience of putting your heart and soul into making the best product you possibly can—as we at RSVPstyle did for nine months—then you understand how happy I was to hear that Kathy is using our Style Kit and DVD to make her job easier.

Now it’s time to get back to regular work. We’ve got a whole lineup of exciting things coming up. Just wanted to say I enjoyed meeting all of you!

P.S. As I predicted, Jennifer won America’s hearts and votes and emerged as the winner of HGTV’s Design Star. Even though I was so impressed with Matt’s architectural design and his strong sense of style, Jennifer was ultimately better able to combine sophisticated, artistic style with a bubbly personality that just shined on television—even within the impossible constraints that the show threw at them.

I still think that given enough time, Matt could have pulled off much stronger designs. Good design can’t be pulled together in 24 hours. But he still fell short on personality, even though he improved over the course of the show, and in the end the format proved a better showcase for Jennifer’s strengths.

If you watch Matt’s last video on HGTV.com, he says it was an honor to lose to Jennifer. So it was a bittersweet but satisfying ending. You can bet I’ll be watching Season 4!

Come see us this weekend!

It’s that crazy time of year again—expo time! This weekend is the annual BIA Remodel It Right Expo—a time our office looks forward to and dreads. It means three days of nonstop working at the show, tons of hours and no sitting down, barely any meal breaks, but somehow, fun and rewarding all the while!

It’s an opportunity for us to meet face to face with a lot of the people who have been on our website and at our workshops, and who have our products. That’s what I’m looking forward to.

I remember at the last BIA Home Show, one guy came to the booth, whipped out a copy of Homescape magazine and asked for my autograph. That was such a kick! He was sweet.

The expo is going to be at the Hawaii Convention Center from Friday night, all day Saturday, until Sunday at 4 p.m.

This is what our booth looks like today. Come by and see how we’ve RSVPstyled it—it’s going to be beautiful, all drywalled and set up like a living room with artwork and plasma TV and furniture—you’ll have to see it to believe it.

We’ll be in booths 315 and 317 and we are … ta-dadada! … debuting our brand new, affordably priced Starter Set! For people who show up at the expo, it’ll be specially priced at only $49. Regular price is $69, and we’ll even have a special expo price on our Deluxe Style Kit of only $199.

And for people who have not yet registered online to become members of RSVPstyle.com, they can register at our booth for a shot at our $1000 Tommy Bahama rug giveaway. So many things going on I can’t even keep my head straight!

I’ve got to go now, we’re decorating our booth in a few hours. So tell your friends and stop by and say hello. See you at the show!