Almost Two Months Later…

I feel as though this blog is like a television show that went on an unexpected and annoying two-month hiatus. But after about 7 weeks, I am back in action, with the hopes of being a more disciplined and consistent blogger. There have been a million things happening here over the past few weeks, and it took a lot of stress and lack of sleep to admit to myself that I had filled my plate a little too full. But let’s go backwards and start from the beginning…

Last we spoke, I was within days of leaving for Seattle for Design Camp. After running around like crazy to wrap up all loose ends before departing (including finishing a portfolio submission for a really amazing class at school and getting my finalized business cards printed in time for Design Camp — see which design I picked below!), I arrived in Seattle on Wednesday, May 1,  around midday and took a train from the airport straight to a station at the same intersection as my hotel. Super easy! I spent the afternoon walking around downtown Seattle and doing a little work in a little local coffee shop in Pike Place Market. That night, we had a getting-to-know-you mixer and I got to meet some really amazing people right from the start!

Sorry for the awkward selfie. This is the only photo I got of the cocktail party… my attire. Oops.

The next two days were absolutely amazing. Taking place in the Seattle Design Center, the seminar was comprised of a series of lectures on various topics (from design trends and materials, to business and contracts, to universal and lighting design, to money and billing, to social media and blogging, to being a television personality…. I could go on forever!) every 45 minutes. I could write a blog post on each one if I had the time, but to get a basic idea of some of the things I learned, take a peek at these Decoist articles I wrote following the seminar:

Forecasted Design Trends for 2013

Forecasted Design Trends for 2014

The Future of Lighting, Universal, and Kitchen Design

Top 10 Tips on Designing a Space

The experience was incredible (minus the hotel disaster, as many of my Twitter followers know!). I got to learn from and with people who are also students, those who have just started their own firms, people who are five years in to their business, and a bunch of people who had been doing it for 20+ years. Getting to know everyone’s individual stories about where they are in their careers and why they came to Design Camp was really valuable. Besides the awesome people, the lectures were fun, informative, candid, honest, encouraged collaborative (rather than competitive) designers, and downright inspiring.

See that?! VIP, baby! ;)

Me with Kelli Ellis, Nathan Turner, and Lori Dennis!

At our Saturday cocktail hour with some of the lovely ladies I met! :)

I wanted to pretend like I was presenting a lecture! ;)

As I was leaving the hotel on the last night, I finally met Linda, the other Design Camper who won tickets through Kandrac and Kole!

I’ll be really honest: after announcing the big news that I was leaving my job to work as a freelance blogger and crafter, the panic really set in. I didn’t get any string art orders for the first week and I started to think, “WHAT did I just DO?!” Design Camp came at the perfect time because it put me in contact with 200 other people that had to take some of the same risks in order to get to where they are now, including some of the celebrity and superstar designers you watch on HGTV. Design Camp was exactly the inspiration and motivation I needed to start looking at my grand adventure as a risk worth taking and something I can be successful at, despite some of the “downs” between the “ups.” Design Camp changed my mentality… and I got my first order that very day. :)

While I could really go on forever about Design Camp, I will just say that it introduced me to some wonderful people who had a lot of helpful and encouraging things to add to my perspective and outlook. One of those people is Lori Dennis, co-host of Design Camp with Kelli Ellis, who is based here in Los Angeles. Not only was she a fabulous Design Camp host, but she also offered me the opportunity to do an internship with her, which I started a week later! I have already been to two architects meetings for an awesome commercial project and on two residential install days after only four weeks! I am learning a ton and having a blast working for Lori!

Other than interning for Lori once a week, I have been working my butt off at school for two other days a week. Work-wise, it has been a busy quarter on par with the last quarter. However, as I mentioned above (and have mentioned a ton on Twitter), I was also applying to be accepted into this awesome program at school that really does deserve its own blog post. All I will say was that the application and interview process was rigorous and took up a lot of “spare” time! Stay tuned for more on this later in the week. This week is finals week (yikes!) but most of my big stuff was due on Thursday. So, thankfully, I have a few things to finish today for tomorrow but then I have three weeks off! WOOOO! I will share all of my work soon!

Let’s see… what else am I missing from my hiatus? Walker’s well. Bo’s well. I’m well. Rent’s paid. Car’s dead but I’m working on that. I think that about covers the basics! I’m sure I will think of a million other things to share with you but this blog post is long enough for today. I apologize for being gone so long but I didn’t want to start back up again until I was sure I would be able to recommit to blogging regularly. No more of this sporadic posting crap, Erika! ;)

I’ve missed you all a ton! I have big plans to sit for hours and catch up on lots of blogs this Thursday so I can see what’s been going on in your lives as well! Thanks for sticking by me! Xoxo <3

What didn’t I cover here? Is there an update you’d like to hear that I missed? Let me know below!