The Great Lady Decorators

I want to read this book! I'll let you know what I think when I do.

"Mixing gorgeous interiors with sparkling social history, this is the first book on the visionary women whose work gave us the timeless, essential principles of modern interior decorating." - Rizzoli New York

"The Great Lady Decorators: The Women Who Defined Interior Design, 1870-1955 profiles a dozen pioneers, including Elsie de Wolfe, a former actress with a flare for 18th-century-inspired rooms; Dorothy Draper, who brought Hollywood glamour to her interiors; and Sister Parish, who virtually codified American country style. The book's many photographs are supplemented with watercolors by Jeremiah Goodman." -Elle Decor

Art Education

One of my client's just convinced me to become a docent at the Orange County Museum of Art, OCMA for short. She said that she volunteers to docent a couple times a month, but that volunteering comes with 6 months of really great art and art history training; better than any courses she's taken before. She also said that not enough people go to the OCMA or even know about it, so I thought I'd do a little bit of advertising on this little blog of mine.

Along with the standing collections at the OCMA, you can also catch the following exhibits currently on display:

Charles Long: 100 Pounds of Clay

15 Minutes of Fame: Portraits from Ansel Adams to Andy Warhol

New Art for a New Century: Contemporary Acquisitions 2000–2010

The museum is open Wednesday-Sunday from 11 am - 5 pm, and open late until 8 pm on Thursdays. Admission is $12 (Well worth it for a little culture.)

Visit the OCMA website here, and join the OCMA Facebook fan page here.

www.BrittanyStiles.com

Newport Beach Kitchen Progress 3

When I was younger, if someone would have told me that some day I would obsess and fall in love with things like back splash tile and crown molding, I would have first asked what a back splash and crown molding were, and then I never would have believed them. And yet...here I am, quite obsessed with this marble back splash, in all of its honed and beveled glory. This will be my last kitchen update until it's completely finished, and even though my iPhone photos hardly do it justice, I couldn't help posting up this back splash. I'm in love, and ready for my client to move out so that I can move in. Kidding. (Sort of.)




Designer tip: Take your back splash from wall to wall and up as high as it can go. Here we took it around the window and up to the crown. It makes a huge difference.

See the finished project here.

Suzanne Kasler for Ballard Designs

Suzanne Kasler has a new cool line of home accessories at Ballard Designs. Suzanne is an extremely talented designer and I love that all of the accessories in this collection are versatile and can be used in a lot of different interior styles. Check out some of my favorite things below, or visit BallardDesigns.com to view the whole collection.









Below are some of Suzanne's fabulous interiors...






www.BrittanyStiles.com

Graduation Party

My sister's husband just got his masters degree in sports management, so my sister decided to throw him a little fiesta. She enlisted the help of me and my other sister Mikken, and together we threw a pretty festive party. Melissa wanted to do a vintage baseball theme to go along with Brian's favorite sport and his new found degree, so here's what we came up with...

We printed black and white vintage baseball pictures, posters, and memorabilia on cream paper, combined with other red and blue paper, and then used that for the pendant banners (which are apparently called "bunting" in the crafting world), pendant flags, and we also used scraps of the vintage prints to decoupage the centerpiece pots that we purchased at the thrift store. I arranged some gerbera daisies in the pots and added more pendant flags to add to the baseball theme. Then we added mason jars full of peanuts and licorice to complete the tables. My mom tied the pendant flags into the cupcakes by making miniature ones out of toothpicks (nicely done Mom!).

It was a whole week's worth of crafting, but it was so fun and so worth it! Congrats Brian!

The invitation. I photoshopped over an old baseball ticket...












My sister is quite the baker and she made these adorable baseball bat and ball cookies as a party favor...


www.BrittanyStiles.com

For those who couldn't make it...

I had some friends, family, and readers who weren't able to attend, ask to see photos of what they missed at the Designer Tag Sale last weekend in Brentwood, so here ya go! (Compliments of my new friend Shoebox Decor.)












www.BrittanyStiles.com

Newport Beach Kitchen Progress 2

I swung by the Newport Beach kitchen (see previous post here) to check progress before I headed to Redondo Beach to drop off the wedding flowers. Things are coming along...




www.BrittanyStiles.com

Redondo Beach Wedding Flowers

This past Friday I had the pleasure of designing wedding flowers for a couple who held their reception at the Redondo Beach Historic Library. It's a pretty cool venue, complete with ocean views from both the first and second floor. The wedding colors were yellow and blue. I created the arrangements using yellow China mums, dark blue hydrangea, white peonies, and yellow billy buttons.

Guest table centerpieces:





Head table arrangement:




Funny story when I went to pick up the flowers Friday morning. The woman who runs the flower warehouse asked for my company name, so I said "Stiles Fischer" (my old design company that I shared with a partner, Nathan Fischer, which is the name that my account at the flower warehouse is still under). Then the woman yells out, "Styles For Sure!!!" to the men pulling the orders. I thought she was kidding at first, just trying to be clever, but when I got the flowers and saw the label, I realized she wasn't joking and had misunderstood me when I placed the order and also when I was picking it up. Note to self, the wholesale flower warehouse doesn't double check account names...