what to wear no. 073010

The Cute Husband and I are going to celebrate two people's achievements in study this weekend! I could seriously hardly make it through four years of the study part of college (could have hung in there for the social part with the best of them) and I was taking classes like screen printing and costume design and fiber arts and watercolor. Hard stuff here, friends. These friends of mine - both dear to me - have taken science-y, think-y, study, lots of papers-turning-in-y, test-y classes for longer than I can even imagine. I mean, seriously. They most definitely deserve parties. Lots of them. With all of the adult beverages and all of the snacks a person could want, if you ask me. Tonight we will go bearing wine and congratulations for a house party celebration and tomorrow we will head to New Jersey bearing swim suits and smiles for a pool party celebration. Here's to wonderful friends who have worked oh so very hard for all of those very important letters that will come before and after their names now! You guys are fantastic!

retro swimsuit | blue romper | gladiator sandals | laurel denise smile necklace | odetteny earrings

studio tour no. 073010

Here are a few studio photos...or general "in-the-life-of-laurel-denise" photos from the past week or so. Many people ask me what being in a showroom is like...I try to tell them it's like being in a store...only the store only carries about 20 lines or so and the designer is there selling each customer their line and their line only. Kind of an odd store, but maybe it gets the idea across. That third image down is of the laurel denise table in the Sarm & Nastovski Showroom in Chicago. So that's where I stood and sold with floating (and awesome) sales reps for a few days. So nice to get to know the friendly and fierce sales staff that will be behind my jewelry in Chicago.

Shipments of late...
-Quintessence (Northbrook, IL)
-The Keeping Room (Long Brook, IL)
-Chasing Fireflies catalog (with exclusive custom leather bracelets)
-Lou Lou (Middleburg, VA)

and i'm back

Holy cow, I've missed you, dear blog readers. I've missed my house and my Cute Husband and my routine and my computer and my google reader and and and... I guess when I said that I might not be posting a lot while I was away, what I really meant was that I wouldn't be posting at all. Because, man, even though part of my travels was a vacation, traveling can take a lot of out a gal! Funny how that tends to happen. Things were great at my trade shows in Atlanta and Chicago - can't wait to send you all information on the fun new stores that will be receiving Laurel Denise goods in the near future. As time these shows tend to always do, I've come home full of ideas and inspiration for new designs. Between shipping to all of the new stores and trying to get samples made of new designs before I leave for New York Gift and Seattle Gift in a few weeks, things are going to be, um, busy. But good, great, fabulous busy and I'm happy to be back in my happy little c'ville life doing these busy things.

(Hello letterpress print here from Hijirik on Etsy)

tour de gift show

I leave tonight to head to Atlanta for the Atlanta Gift Show (I'll be with the Simblist Group showroom - Atlanta Mart, suite 1621 - for all of your store buyers out there) where I will stay for a few days selling some jewelry and laughing with the great people behind this line and this one and I can't forget this one or this one either. These shows are so much more fun when you have such kindness to hang out with while standing on your feet for oh so many hours in a row - I'm thankful for such a great group. After my time selling, I'll hop on over to the Outer Banks for a Cute Family vacation (filled with many second and third desserts, thank you very much) and then I'll head directly to Chicago for more gift show madness (I'll be with Sarm & Nastovski there, buyer readers of mine - Chicago Gift Mart Suite 1574) where I'll hang out with one of the fabulous gals behind this line. All of this means that posting, if there is any, will be very spotty. I'm sure I will update the Laurel Denise Facebook page and probably throw up a tweet or two during my time away so become a fan or follow me and you won't miss the updates that I know you dream about with anticipation every single night. Right?!

In the way of shop shipping announcements, I shipped some great leather bracelets to Chasing Fireflies this week (if you don't receive their catalog, go online and sign up to receive it...especially if you're a momma. They have the cutest of cute things for moms and kiddies) and some more leather bracelets to New Twist. It's been a leather bracelet kind of week, I suppose!

hammered poetry

Sorry to just post about something that another blog has done (and, while I'm apologizing, sorry for my lack of weekend photos yesterday, too!), but this is just too good to pass up. Design*Sponge featured this amazing coffee table by Liz from Sticks and Bricks and it made my heart happy. I kind of melted...like, a lot. It's beautiful, isn't it? I've gotten approval from Cute Husband to do this on our dining room table (!!)...now I just have to pick out the right words. Any ideas, friends? I'm so excited.

what to wear no. 070910

Cute Husband and I are heading to Warrenton, Va today for a wedding weekend with college friends. I'm not at all wearing this dress. In fact, I'm wearing this one (only I promise it's not that short on me), but the images that Urban Outfitters has on their website don't really show the actual clothing...like, at all. So I picked this lovely number from Mod Cloth out instead. Isn't it light and airy? Makes me sort of wish that I was going to wear the outfit above instead of my dark, fall-ish dress. Ah well. Definitely makes me wish I had those heels, that's for sure. Love, love, love.

dress | heels | earrings | laurel denise simple joy necklace

studio tour no. 070810

I decided to embark on a new york gift show wall-building endeavor this week, friends. It's been quite an adventure and has taken just a little/lot of every second of my life, let me describe it in that super mild way. So, this week, although I'm sure I've done some other laurel denise things, the wall pictures are all I have to offer on this studio Thursday. These panels will hopefully create a seamless 8x10 wall structure in my new york gift show booth in August...that's the intended plan. Now if I could just stop having anxiety dreams about it not working or the panels breaking during shipping or how it will look every single night, that would be fantastic. Because, really, it's just a wall. No need to think about it between the hours of 11pm and 7am.

ps - some fun new store shipments coming up that I will announce next week!