Tag Archives: friends

take a picture here, take a souvenir

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The Crew! Photo by the sassy Lucky Red Hen.

The Photo Crew! Pic taken by the sassy Lucky Red Hen.

This is my last post about Alt. Design Summit 2013. I am sure you are all tired of hearing me talk about how awesome, inspiring and amazing it was. The final day has many options. You can take more serious classes like Photoshop, which I had signed up for last year and then realized my brain was on overload, or fun classes like this one. A walking photography tour of Downtown Salt Lake City led by the multi-talented Lindsay Johnson of Cafe Johnsonia. Last year, Lindsay hosted the dinner I attended at The Viking School of Cooking. Everything she cooked for us was so yummy and delicious that I couldn’t wait to meet up with her again! She brought along her friend Shannon of The Lucky Red Hen and we hit it off immediately. Despite the freezing cold temperature, we all had a blast, learned a ton about photography and the history of Temple Square and made new friends. It was the perfect way to spend the afternoon and end Alt. Summit!

How crazy it this frozen fountain at The Grand America Hotel?

How crazy it this frozen fountain at The Grand America Hotel?

We started off the tour at the beautiful City Creek mall in the heart of DT SLC. As you can see it's a dog friendly city!

We started off the tour at the beautiful City Creek Mall in the heart of DT SLC. As you can see it’s a dog friendly city!

This Sephora window was calling to me. I love the hearts and stripes!

This Sephora window was calling me. I love the hearts and stripes!

Looks like I'm peeing!

Looks like I’m peeing! This was one of the many beautiful fountains surrounding the City Creek Mall.

A view of The Temple.

Temple Square.

Inside The Joseph Smith Memorial Building at Temple Square.

Inside The Joseph Smith Memorial Building in Temple Square.

A view of The Temple from the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building.

A view of The Temple from the 10th floor of the Joseph Smith Memorial building.

Bird on a perch from the 10th floor of the Joesph Smith Memorial building in Temple Square.

“Put a Bird on It” from the 10th floor of the Joesph Smith Memorial building in Temple Square.

Bee art at the train stop. The beehive is the official state emblem of Utah.

Bee art at the train stop. The beehive is the official state emblem of Utah.

The old SLC courthouse.

The old SLC courthouse.

The detail and craftsmanship is stunning.

The detail and craftsmanship is stunning.

These scene just spoke to me. I love lamp posts and park benches and they are gorgeous in the snow.

This scene spoke to me. I love lamp posts and park benches and they are gorgeous in the snow.

Me and my new BFF Lucky Red Hen!

Can anyone guess what band sings the song that the title of this post came from? It got stuck in my head as I was writing this and I thought it was appropriate. One of my all time favorites!

alt. 2013 business card round up

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I am finally getting around to organizing myself after Alt. Summit! One of the biggest parts of the whole 3 day, blogger extravaganza is networking, and how do we network? CARDS!!! This year the level of creativity was off the charts! Did you notice the pink fox? Thats a pin! I also got earrings, a caramel, a notepad, a pearl! Wow! So, here is a round up of all of the lovely ladies (and a few gents) that I met this time around!

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I had 3 different cards thanks to the awesome people at Minted!

Jessica Grace
Michael Miller Fabrics
Passion Fruit Ads
The LBeau Room
good heart danica
the Paper Mama (fox pin)
the Freckled Fox
coterie
your yoko
Mindy Joy Media
Lynn Interiors
Blurb
The Renovation diaries
angela pavuk
Tiffany Han
Meg in progress
The English Room
sweet basil
The Happy Family Movement
Melissa Esplin (charm)
Not Merely Living
Mall of America
The New Diplomat’s Wife
Hello Cupcake
Dannielle Cresp
Patti Murphy
Joss and Main
Taylor-K
The Field Trip Co. (notepad)
Lets Neighbor
The Sewing Rabbit
pictilio
scripps networks
Vintage Revivals
gFamilies
the artful Desperado
Elissa Braun
ellinée
Grassroots Modern
Blogging It Forward
Lucky Red Hen
DEC a porter
Jackson Family Wines
Cleobella
A Style Moment
cafe johnsonia
mama loves papa
Moorea Seal (earrings)
see jane blog
Method Tamera Beardsley
Maxwell Handmade
Little Lessy
Restyle Source
the Start Up Couple (caramel)
Citizens of Humanity
hayneedle
My Invisible Crown
Kids Stuff World
beso
Man Made DIY
curbly
plastolux
A Girl Named Gay
Braid
Good Kopp Bad Kopp
The Cuisinerd

love is in the air

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My favorite holiday, Valentine’s Day, is just a week away and I couldn’t be more excited! I love all of the pink and red heart stuff out in all of the stores, like these fun glasses. They totally remind me of Alison of The Alison Show! When I was a little girl, my mom and I made a big, gingerbread style “Valentine house” that I took to pre-school and all the kids deposited their Valentine’s into it. Then, at the end of the day, I got to play “mailman” and deliver all the Valentine’s to my classmates. It was a super fun and special tradition that my mom created with me. My husband and I have our own special Valentine’s Day tradition of making homemade pasta together and sharing a bottle of champagne. Do you remember last years VDay “booty” post? I got comments on that all year!

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This year we decided to change things up and make heart shaped pizzas. We kept it simple with ready made pizza dough, fresh mozzarella, fresh basil and one special ingredient. For the sauce, we used a jar of tomatoes that my friend Amy canned with her bare hands! It doesn’t get better then that!

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To turn Amy’s tomatoes into a thick and robust pizza sauce we turned to the master of pizza in LA, Nancy Silverton!

Heat 1/4 cup of olive oil in a large sauté pan over medium heat until the oil is almost smoking and slides easily in the pan, 2 to 3 minutes. Add the tomato purée slowly as it will splatter when it hits the oil. Stir in 1 tablespoon of sugar, 1 scant tablespoon of kosher salt, 1 heaping teaspoon of ground , black pepper, reduce to a simmer and cook until the sauce thickens, about 30 minutes. Not putting herbs in the sauce allows you to really taste the flavors of the herbs you top the pizza with!

Making the pizzas together was quick, fun, and delicious! What are some of your Valentine’s Day memories and traditions?

alt. design summit 2013 {day 2}

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swan

On day 2, I spent most of the morning sitting in on a round table discussion involving a new project hosting web videos! I made a submission video yesterday and am keeping my fingers crossed! I will keep you posted! In the afternoon, The Land of Nod took over one of the lounges and threw a tea party with a swan theme. How fun is this photo op?

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These black swan floral arrangements rocked my world, and the black and white napkins…just stop it! Too cute!

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At Alt., it is all about the business cards. The card wall is filling up! There were 650 attendees this year.

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OK, Fridays lunch and keynote speaker Stephan Sagmeister blew me away. You can imagine the rooms surprise when his naked photo appeared on the large screens next to him a few minutes into his talk. He is a world-famous graphic designer, has given TED talks and wrote a film called…The Happy Film. He was hilarious, captivating and super inspiring!

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How adorable is this candy table by Kara? Just incase you needed an afternoon pick me up! The style and attention to detail at Alt. is spot on. It’s like a fantasy land.

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Jessica Alba was there talking about her brand The Honest Co. It was cool to be in the same room with her again! I just adore her and she is so sweet. I met her last year at The Lucky FABB event.

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This was a giant cork board map of the US and everyone tacked their cards to the area they were from! Look, there I am!

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Ahh…the beautiful Grand America Hotel at night, and no, that deer family isn’t real!

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Myself and the lovely Tamera Beardsley at the Friday night mini suite parties. The entire 3rd floor of the hotel gets taken over by sponsors who create themed mini parties in the suites. It is so much fun! This year Better Homes & Garden hosted the Color Pop Dessert Bash, Blurb hosted a Reunion Class of 2013 party, Flipboard’s theme was Rolling Out the Red Carpet, Go Mighty + Red Envelope had a Crush on You Party, Hayneedle hosted a Great Gatsby Lawn Party, Method + The Girls with Glasses hosted an It’s a Mod Mod World dance party, Vecco + Brita Olsen had a Tinsel & Timber party and Weathermob had a Weather With Style party. It was an amazing evening of food, fun and lots of giveaways!

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This was the photo booth at The Hayneedle party where we ran into Lia Griffith of ellinée.

So, who wants to come with me to Alt. 2014??!

alt. design summit 2013 {day 1}

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book

I just spent time in Salt Lake City, Utah at the Alt. Design Conference, which is a magical couple of days full of bloggers, networking, classes, parties, dinners and a lot of business cards, and I can’t wait to tell you all about it. Heck, even if I didn’t have a blog I would want to be there! It all started last Wednesday night with a kick off dinner. There were several restaurants around town hosting small groups of bloggers. This year I chose a cozy little old school spot, Lamb’s Grill. They are known for their rice pudding (which I loved) and a friend commented that her grandparents had dinner there on their wedding night, too cute. The evening was sponsored by Blurb, an awesome company that prints books, magazines, ebooks and much, much more. They gave me the opportunity to create a book from my blog (above) and it was incredible to see my photos come to life in print. I was so impressed with the quality compared to other photo books I have made. I can’t wait to get creative and maybe make a cookbook or Lipstick & Leopard Print the magazine? The possibilities are endless!

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Every year Alt. SLC is held at The beautiful Grand America Hotel in downtown Salt Lake City. I was thrilled to be able to stay there this year. The rooms were gorgeous and this was our view! Wade makes this a ski vacation during the day and then comes out to party with me at night. It’s perfect!

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Alt. began on Thursday morning and I just couldn’t help myself…first stop, the HP booth. You know how I love a silly photo op!

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For my first class of the day, I chose The Reality of an Everyday Video Series with Sarah Carey from Martha Stewert. I thought this would be interesting because I have a lot of recipes on my blog but have never thought about doing a cooking video…until now. Sarah Carey was hilarious and I left the class feeling totally inspired. Later in the day, I was approached by a woman who was interested in having me host a web show. Crazy! More to come on that soon!

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On Thursday and Friday, Alt. hosts a formal lunch in the Grand Ballroom and the food is delicious considering they are feeding 650 people at the same time. The keynote speaker on Thursday was best-selling author Chris Anderson, who spoke about the power of invention. I really enjoyed his presentation, especially when he showed us what a 3-D printer can do! You can make just about anything with one of those. Now I want one!

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Thursday evening was the Clue themed party complete with taxidermy animals as you entered the event. I searched high and low for the right outfit and ended up as Professor Plum and felt fabulous! Wade looked pretty darn handsome in his suit and Professor Plum tie too!

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Wow! Look at those teeth!

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I found another Professor Plum with the same fluffy jacket!!! The lovely Lia Griffith of ellinée. It was fantastic and everyone at the party thought we had planned it!

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These ladies looked perfectly themed together. I especially loved Miss Scarlett and her matching hair! We have Lindsey of lindsey bee as Colonel Mustard, Patti of Patti Murphy Designs as Miss Peacock, Allessia of Little Lessy as Professor Plum and Laura of the lbeau room as Miss Scarlett.

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Look! It’s me and with one of my favorite LA food bloggers Kristin of The Cuisinerd.

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I just loved meeting Amber of damask love, she was so adorable and full of energy. I was also thrilled to see Rachel from Handmade Charlotte again. We met last year at Alt. Summit 2012 and she was one of my faves!

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Meet Tamera Beardsley. We bumped into each other on the elevator the first night and it was a girl crush at first sight! I am a sucker for bold jewelry and tulle and she had it all. We couldn’t get enough of each other and had Wade take our pic almost immediately! Wait until you see us the next night!

More of Alt. Summit to come this week…stay tuned!