Friday Favorites: Part III

Today is Friday. With a coffee in hand, and an event filled weekend on the horizon, I thought I'd take a quick pause to share some of the wonderful things inspiring me this week!

Friday Favorites

I'm loving these fall wedding color palettes, especially the Plum & Burgundy board. 

This food blogger is TOO cute for words, takes the prettiest pictures, cooks and bakes all kinds of wonderful treats in her small town in grand forks, north dakota. Just look at this gallery of recipes! What!? Why doesn't my food look like this.

Any OnceWed fanatics out there? I am so flattered that little ol' Lucky & In Love has been identified as a top vendor in Arizona! My profile is now up on the website, along with some seriously stellar vendors I love.

I am proud to say I've signed on to direct the photoshoot and styling for the next Ace & Whim fine art photography workshop in Scottsdale! Yay! All my wedding photog buds out there should seriously consider reserving your spot. The level of improvement and skill we've seen from last workshop's attendees is truly unbelievable. Karie & Field are two of the top fine art wedding photographers in our local industry, and the fact that they are willing to spill so many of the secrets that make them great is PRICELESS. Meet new friends, mentors, and expand your network with valuable contacts. I can't imagine not going if I had the opportunity! Okay, soapbox speech over.

Lastly, today is a very important day here in Arizona. The ban on same-sex marriage has been overturned, making it legal for everyone to take part in this wonderful thing we call government recognized piece of paper toting love!! Congratulations to all of the couples who made it downtown today to make it official!

Lots oh love and pumpkin spice wishes, Katherine

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Nailed It - Not Your Average Party Nail

Full disclosure: I am a fancy nail addict. 

It's time to mix it up. Don't get me wrong, I love a party nail as much as the next girl, but the glitter soaked sparkly nail on your ring finger, ever so subtly showing off your sparkly new engagement bling is a thing of the past. 

Get creative! Move that party nail to the pinky fingers if you are using a more complicated design. Make sure it's bold enough to stand out as it's the smallest surface area you have to work with. Thumbs are personal favorites as well.

Fall is here and it's safe to say I can't get enough of the deep merlot & gold color combo, and asked the gals at Teres Nail Bar to spice it up a bit with animal print. The gold striping tape is an easy way to add some detail without going over board, if you need to keep your nails tame for the workplace.

Have you been experimenting with any new nail art trends this season? I am always looking for fun new ideas! 

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Pith + Marrow: Beginning Floral Design

Floral design has always been such an intriguing concept to me. From far away, assembling a bouquet or table centerpiece looks rather easy. You have a bunch of beautiful flowers, you chop the stems at an angle so they can drink water, and you plop them in a vase - easy peasy folks.

Wrong. So very wrong. 

The more and more I play with flowers with Misha & Teresa (the other 2/3 of pith + marrow), the more I respect wedding florists and floral designers of all kinds. This is no joke. Between narrowing down the hundreds, probably thousands, of different blooms out there to select a collaborative color palette full of texture, variety and good smells, to filling out the arrangement with the proper ratio of flower to filler, and doing so one handed as you twist, pull, fluff and assemble to perfect grouping to cut and stick in a beautifully selected vessel. (Don't even get me started on what to put it in - glass, silver, hand thrown ceramic pots, mugs, vintage metal boxes, tea crates - TOO MANY decisions!!)

That being said, I kind of like this floral design thing. What a beautifully tangible item based off of your inspiration, that you create with your own two hands. No two arrangements will ever be alike, no matter how hard you try. They are perfectly imperfect. I'll spare you the life revelations metaphorical joy going on on the other side of this screen right now - but I'm sure you can see where I'm going with this.

In other news, we start our three part more advanced floral design workshops this week at Camelback Flowershop! I'm so excited to meet our new season of students, and to dig in and play. Let's see what we come up with this time!

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