A very special thank you

I’m writing this blog on the road. Kara and I are on a quick business trip, and as usual, things are going a zillion miles an hour. But often in the last few days, my thoughts have been with The Honolulu Advertiser, and the people who have become our friends.

Two and a half years ago, when Lissa and I met Lee Webber for the first time, we were a tiny business with a ton of determination and not a lot of history. He listened to our vision, asked a few questions and while he didn’t say much, from that day he put his support behind us. As we’ve grown, the Honolulu Advertiser has been there, and I cannot say how much that has meant to us.

With his decision, Lee and the Honolulu Advertiser were not just supporting a fledgling local business. Lee also became a friend and mentor whose door was always open for me to get advice from and bounce ideas off. The sale of the Advertiser means Lee is retiring, but to me he will always remain a friend and mentor.

Clint Schroeder, Tom Kunz and his wife Amy, Mark and Sara Platte all have a special place in our hearts as well. In the ad department, Stella and Dora have been more than patient with our many requests for deadline extensions—and believe me, this has been appreciated!

For Lissa especially, having left the Advertiser’s IT department to start up RSVPstyle with me, the end of the paper hits close to home. Like a lot of people, neither of us would ever have believed that our hometown would one day lose a newspaper that not only we, but our parents and grandparents grew up reading. And like a lot of people, we look forward to what the new paper will bring.

As the Advertiser merges with the Honolulu Star-Bulletin into a new Honolulu Star-Advertiser, we want to say a very heartfelt and personal thank you to all our friends at the Advertiser. From all of us at RSVPstyle, best wishes and good luck to everyone.

You gotta love live TV!

So yesterday’s my KITV day, and I’m at the studio bright and early as usual, all set to share a real family’s story about their living room, when oh-oh! A technical glitch pops up that threatens to derail my plans.

As you know, we’re running a $30,000 Style My Room contest along with The Honolulu Advertiser. Every week we’re giving away a runner-up prize, and this week’s winners are the Cadelinia family of Hawaii Kai. Their cream-colored living room carpet had turned more dirt-colored after years of traffic from two active kids, lots of friends and their pet Golden Retriever. They want to make over their living room from the floor up. I’d emailed photos of the room to KITV to flash on the screen during my segment.

Well, as I’m getting miked up just before going on the air, morning co-host Mahealani Richardson asks if I have any photos. They never got my email! My heart just about stopped! I’m a very visual person, and I was counting on those photos to help viewers picture a dramatic before-and-after effect.

Mahealani asked, can you still do the segment? Sure! I said. At least I brought samples of the fabulous European wood flooring that the Cadelinias won from EuroFloor—we’ll just roll with it!

We start the segment, and while I’m on the air, a cameraman notices, lying by my handbag, an 8x10 picture. It’s a printout of the Cadelinias’ living room that I was using to focus my thoughts while I was waiting. He picks it up and starts creeping toward us on the set, just out of camera range.

If you were watching, you probably didn’t notice that while I’m talking, my eyes momentarily dart to the right. Then you hear Mahealani say—quite naturally like the pro she is—oh! Is this a picture of the room you’re talking about? And the camera pans to that printout she’s holding, which is of course grainy and not as clear as what was supposed to flash on screen, but at least viewers could finally see what we were talking about!

My husband Darrell told me later he watched the whole thing and couldn’t tell anything was out of the ordinary. So no one was the wiser—thanks to that cameraman and Mahealani for a smooth save!

To see those actual photos and read the Cadelinias’ whole story, click on Contest in the navigation bar at the top of this page. And if you want to watch that KITV segment for yourself, it’ll be up on our homepage next Tuesday!

It’s showtime!

Last night was the first night of the BIA Home Show. We were at the Blaisdell Exhibition Hall til 9 p.m. and got a lot of nice compliments on The Honolulu Advertiser booth, which we’re sharing with them to promote our joint $30,000 Style My Room contest. I thought I’d share a few photos of our dramatic yet cheapo transformation.

Originally our booth looked like everybody else’s: standard black carpeting and the white drape that serves as a backdrop and separates you from your neighbor. No, no, no, this will simply not do! This kind of décor will not excite and motivate people to enter a stylish makeover contest! Our booth has to have style!

So out went the black carpeting and in went camel-colored carpeting graciously donated by one of our contest supporters, American Carpet One. Thank you, thank you, David Arita!

Then we purchased from Pacific Home Furnishings a very affordable black fabric that Lissa and her mom stayed up until midnight the night before last to sew up as drapery that would serve as our dramatic backdrop. Thank you, Carol Ing!

Now our color palette was in place: a dramatic, neutral background. It was time to texturize! We took over some white leather chairs and an accent table from our office, and for color and contrast we layered in a green area rug, candles and plants to create warmth and interest in our space.

And with a comfy, stylish chair, a reading lamp, a bookshelf to house knickknacks and Homescape magazines and Renovation supplements, and a glass vase with freshly cut monstera leaves from right outside the Exhibition Hall (shhh! Don’t tell them!), we created a reading area. We were even able to position our banner in the back to look like a piece of art. After all, this is The Honolulu Advertiser booth, and they are a great read!

We did all this using what we had in the office and what the Advertiser had in storage. The bookcase was in a storage locker. We dusted it off and added what you see. Here’s a quick photo I snapped after vacuuming. It looked fabulous. If we could do this at the Blaisdell, you can certainly do it at home!

We do know that Saturday and Sunday will be the busiest days, but still, it was a little bit quiet last night. We need to liven up the joint! We’ll be here all weekend, so come by and say hello!

High five!

Cathy: We did it! What a relief—our contest went live this past weekend and Lissa and I had been holding our breath along with everyone else in the office. She’s here with me and we’re doing a joint blog. Just think, with all the glitches that could have happened—

Lissa: It’s cool to see a contest coming to reality. Remember six months ago when it was just an idea? We were having a meeting in this conference room and James came up with the idea of doing a makeover contest, but one that was different.

Cathy: Well of course James—he’s our video director and the only guy we work so closely with—it all has to come back to him! He said not only do a makeover, it should turn into a TV show. We started brainstorming and one thing led to another, and we came up with the concept that it shouldn’t be just a makeover, the homeowner should be involved!

Lissa: And then as we started plotting out the contest and how it was going to work, Mari was on board to conceptualize the ideas for the website—

Cathy: What’s great about Mari, our editor, is not only does she put words in our mouth, she also puts a lot of food in our mouth! She’s a foodie, and we like that!

Lissa: And all the work that went into the look of the contest, all the ads, that was Katie, our graphic designer.

Cathy: But I have to say, the MVPs of this whole process have to be—

Lissa: Bigger Bird Creative.

Cathy: Absolutely. Annie and Aaron are our web developers and Bigger Bird at http://www.biggerbird.com/ is their company. They’re responsible for the look and functionality of our website. This contest was a whole new ballgame. It’s a whole new functionality—

Lissa: And making sure it was easy for people to enter, looked visually pleasing, going back and forth as the rules were being approved by lawyers from two companies, making sure every page was easy to navigate and user-friendly, right down to the wire!

The contest launched at midnight last Sunday, and last Saturday was amazing, let me tell you, the whole day a bunch of us—Annie, Aaron, James, Mari, Kara, Melissa and I—we were working the whole day doing last-minute touch-ups, proofing, banging out our test system and making sure it all worked, til just about midnight.

Cathy: And amazingly, everybody came through on deadline! Needless to say, it was a huge group effort.

But you know what I’m excited about, Lise? I’m excited about finding a winner. Actually finding lots of winners, because we have the seven weekly winners and the final Grand Prize winner. Seeing the entries that have come in so far, it’s heartwarming because people are saying they really want to learn.

Lissa: And you get to help them spend $30,000!

Cathy: I can do that!

Lissa: That’s going to be a heck of a living room.

Cathy: I can’t do it for everyone, but I can do it for the winners, and it’s going to be documented on TV and that’s how everybody will learn.

Lissa: Yeah, you can’t go to everybody’s house, but with the TV show at the end you’ll sort of be going into everybody’s living rooms.

Cathy: I’m relieved, I’m happy, and really excited about helping some Hawaii homeowners. We wouldn’t be able to do this without The Honolulu Advertiser promoting this contest and really getting the word out.

Lissa: And making that great full-page ad—

Cathy: And also KITV for agreeing to air the program in June.
It’s been a tremendous team effort, so I just wanted to give credit where it’s justly due and let you meet some of the people who don’t get the recognition, but who play such a huge role behind the scenes.

Great job, team! High fives all around!

Have you missed me?

I know I've been MIA from my blog lately, but it's not because I haven't been working. In fact, Lissa, Kara, Melissa and I have been working waaay too much! All that hard work paid off this past Saturday at our Invitation to Design workshop at the Dole Cannery Ballrooms. I am sooo tired and so glad it's over. It could not have gone any better!

To my amazement, there were 75 people standing in line before the doors opened at 8:15. We set up for 320 attendees, and we even had to bring in another table. In today’s economy, we were thrilled that so many people decided to spend most of their Saturday and their hard-earned money to attend.

I always start my workshops by sharing a little about my background. For the first time, I shared a few photos from my childhood in Pearl City. I wanted everyone to see the not-so-stylish home that I grew up in. From the boar head hanging in the living room to the Korean lacquer furniture to the water buffalo carving from the Philippines, yes, it was a very eclectic home...but not in a good way. (Sorry Mom and Dad!)

The energy from the audience was amazing—everyone really seemed focused and ready to learn. Early on I talked about putting textures and patterns together, then gave people a chance to work with their tables to try their hand at it. It was great to see how excited and involved everyone was. But that involvement is always heightened when there’s a prize on the line.

I am a total believer in games. I think that learning should always be fun, and adults love to play too! They key is to create a game that can be a fun learning experience. The first table to successfully put together their dream space with the materials at their fingertips—color fan decks, books of fabrics, samples of granite, carpet and wood flooring—plus complete a mock ‘mortgage application’ would win. The winning table was loaded with guys from American Carpet One! Each received a $100 gift certificate from Honolulu Lights.

Just before lunch, I introduced our presenting sponsors, Amy Kunz from The Honolulu Advertiser and Nelson Oyadomari from Primary Residential Mortgage. They were both so great to work with. Not to mention, they are both a lot of fun! Amy left her husband home to babysit so she could come with her mom. Nelson, who is such a clown, came up on stage dressed all in black except for a red napkin hanging out of his pocket—he said it was his pop of accent color!

The final part of the day was a segment on staging a home. We had a lot of Realtors and their clients there. As I was asking the audience questions, most everyone was responding...and with the right answers. I always love this part. I call it the part when the light bulb goes off—it's the moment when people realize that they are learning, and it does make sense, and they are really getting it, and maybe they can learn to decorate after all!

When the workshop was over, there was a line of people waiting to talk with me and give me a hug. That was when I really felt that all the hard work was worth it. Everyone was so sweet and their thanks so sincere. I was really touched. It made me feel special. It almost made me want to do another workshop...NOT!

Next: Moments that will make you say ‘Awww…’: the human side of the day.

Living with Style: a parallel blog

Sorry I’ve been so MIA lately.

I’ve just been enjoying my last bit of slugdom. I’ve been talking to The Honolulu Advertiser, one of the presenting sponsors of our workshops, and they asked me to be one of their bloggers. My first reaction was joy and my second was dread. What a fabulous opportunity! Just imagine all those eyeballs reading my blog! OMG! But then I thought WHAT? All those eyeballs reading my blog! OMG!

That’s why you haven’t heard from me, because I knew this time was coming. I’m going to have to work much harder to keep up with the Advertiser’s schedule. The good news is I’m going to be much more consistent and post at least three blogs a week, so be sure to check in more frequently, and feel free to make a post or comment here or on the Advertiser blog. Doesn’t matter, I just want to hear from you!

My Advertiser blog is titled Living with Style. Here’s a link if you want to check it out: the first one went up this past Tuesday. http://livingwithstyle.honadvblogs.com/ From here on out these blogs will be twins, posted both here and at the Advertiser’s website. But there will be times when we’ll just blog here with information for our members, whether about RSVPstyle updates or upcoming events that you need to know about. Or if I really need to rant and rave and can’t do it at the other place! Thanks for being so patient with me, and stay tuned!