Post No. 006: Daily Inspiration

Perfectly lovely. Continued inspiration for Coco Lovely...
Beautiful necklace can be found here.

Post No. 005: Dreaming of the Fall

Bonjour!

I hope you all had a wonderful weekend. It's hot here....like 98 degrees and I have no AC in my car. (Can you hear my whimpers of pure heat overload?)

This is perhaps one of the reasons why I can't wait for the Fall. Besides, not having to melt in my 90 plus degree car, I get to conjure up lovely fall fashion outfits from my wardrobe and create executive looks for work, so much better when all I want to do in the summer is wear flip flops to the office.

Take for instance the Fall line at Banana Republic. C'mon!The fashion is just so much better in the fall...don't you think?

Need.



Really need.



Positively need.

I may not look anything like this model,
but I'm sure I have enough attitude to rock
all of these looks!

Post No. 0004: Friday Donuts

Friday is normally a day filled with lots of joy because it's officially the beginning of the weekend come 5:30pm. But, today all I can say is ugh! The weather here is pretty gloomy, and some weird things are happening at work and I will miss a lot of people. (sigh!) The only thing I can think of that will cheer me up are donuts...

This is my daily inspiration. Sad, I know.

I just need a sugary boost in my day, and really is there anything wrong with that? I mean, pardon my rant but is it just me or does it sometimes seem like your job gets in the way of the things that you REALLY want to do in life? I'm gonna calm down now though and wait for my donuts. They should be arriving at any moment...

post 003: An Office Story

Seeing as how Coco Lovely is officially official {smile} I am decidedly swamped with work. It's OK, I'm not complaining at all, in fact I'm excited to finally have this creative outlet where I can match color swatches, textures, ribbons, create inspiration boards and see what really goes together; what really brings the product together.

With all of that in mind, I am officially swamped with things to do. My first official project is organizing my office area. I have been working from a my tiny Ikea desk in the corner of my bedroom. It's worked for the most part, besides the fact that I am constantly running from room to room looking for supplies. Talk about inconvenient. But, it's not all bad because my apartment does have one big perk....

Huge separate office space with a wall of windows.

  

...and lots of clutter.

My roommate and I have been using it as basically a catch all for everything that doesn't have another place to live but now I need a real office, so let the makeover begin! I will be updating you with projects that I will be trying out. The first of which is clearing out the clutter. Wish me luck!

Post No. 002- Daily Inspiration

Enough said.

Photo found at this lovely etsy shop.

Post No. 001: Still feeling giddy...and lovely wallpapers

Still feeling giddy over the fact that Coco Lovely is a Real business now. I know it sucks that I haven't given you all of the details yet. {I'm such a tease!} But, trust me when I say that it's coming and that I'm working really hard on something that I love and want to be just right and full of loveliness.

In other news...I found these lovely and *free downloadable wallpapers from O-Check. They're not your typical backgrounds either with swimming fish, or cheesy standard graphics. To me they are lovely art for your computer and who doesn't want something pretty to look at when doing boring reports or data entry?

Since I've found them, I've changed my standard desktop background, Stonehenge pic, to the current August graphic and I've already gotten quite a few compliments. Browse through their archives from 2007 and 2008 for more lovely wallpapers.

*Oh, and I decided that since Coco Lovely is "Official" {listen to me already!} that I would start numbering my post so that I could keep better track of posts and so that it would encourage me to post regularly. It's so easy for me think that I'm posting really often and then I look back to see that it's been a week and a half since my last entry. Egads!!

We're Official

Buenos Dias! I have some extremely exciting news. As of Friday, August 8th Coco Lovely is official!!! Yes, Coco Lovely is the name of the business that I have been putting lots of time, sweat, tears and mini meltdowns into over the past few months and I can't even begin to explain how excited and thrilled I am about it all. I'm speechless at the moment actually. All I can say is, just stay tuned....

Julie & Julia...and Lisa

I saw Julie and Julia yesterday and it was amazing. I love love LOVE Meryl Streep. She is perhaps my favorite actress of all times. I mean Bridges of Madison County? Hello!

The film was especially inspirational to me. Julie was trying to find herself and found an outlet of something that she loved, found fulfillment in and pursued, AND she had a blog to release all of theses thoughts, things and experiences. Ok, seeing the parallel? Granted I have no desire to cook through Julia Child's cookbook but I do have a desire to start my own business and the ups and downs are emotional, and you feel crazy and completely out of control at times, but you just know, in your gut and in your heart that it will somehow come together in the end.

Daily Inspiration

I really, really, REALLY need this office.... Or at least one this organized!

{Photo originally found here}

A Note of Gratitude

I just have to take a moment to thank God for all of the wonderful things that He is doing. I know that you all might not be Christians of believe in God, and I accept that, and would never push my beliefs onto anyone else. But, I just have to take a moment to say that the Lord has really been blessing me, my business and opening doors in all areas of my life and I am so grateful. I serve a wonderful Creator.

planning, planning and more planning

So, I finally got a good rate on my business cards, yay! $150 for 1,000 cards is a pretty awesome deal, don't you think? And the printer is a local printer who my graphic designer uses for all of our office print jobs so I've seen their work and it's pretty awesome.
Also, I am ordering some of the materials that I need today from Sam's online that should be shipped to me next week. And today, or tomorrow I am going to get the other materials from Michael's and perhaps Garden Ridge. So, to sum it all up business is going good!

In other matters, I am having a small going away dinner party for two of my friends on Friday night. One of them is moving to Delaware with her boyfriend where they will be starting up a restaurant. (Well more specifically her boyfriend and his brother.) And my other friend is moving to South Korea to teach English. (sniff my precious friends are leaving me!)

So, I wanted to throw a small get together for them. And by small, I mean that my budget is $30....for everything! I'm thinking of having a light dinner and then going all out for dessert. They are both chocoholics! Here are my menu ideas:

Dinner
~ Fresh salad with feta cheese ($0 already have everything)
~ Orzo pesto pasta with grilled shrimp ($0 already have everything, may throw in few scallops too)
~ Toasted Bruschetta ($ 4)

Dessert
~ Chocolate fondue with mini brownies, strawberries, and marshmallows ($ 10)


How does that sound? I'm thinking I can make the brownies a day ahead and set up everything else day of. I will have plenty of time to set up and cook as I'm taking the day off from work. { I have a wedding that I'm working on Saturday, and sometimes you just need a vacation day, you know what I mean?}

A good chunk of my budget will go towards decor. I want to make a pink and green floral centerpiece for the table with hints of cream and white. I already have this great light green and cream damask table cloth that I will using. {It's actually a curtain that I never hung but who needs to know the difference?} And of course I will have candles everywhere as I love the look that give. I love the idea of making paper pompadours but I'm not sure if I will have the time or money to do so. I wonder if it's worth it, thoughts?

I'm thinking that we will dine and talk and EAT until about 11pm and then hit the downtown area. So, it seems like it's going to be a great night. Just have to finish planning!

daily inspiration

I've always been a fan of peonies but these are just amazing....

{Photo orginally posted here. Lots of beautiful pictures taken my Jane Flanagan.}

work and scones...

So, that was a nice little rant yesterday. {ha!} It’s funny because after I let go of all of those things that I was feeling yesterday, I had an impromptu meeting with my graphic designer and we went over the colors and inspiration for my business cards and for the other print materials that I need for my project. {Ha! Talk about the Lord opening a door for me. I needed that little jump start!} So, that really got me going even though the prices that were quoted to me were WAAAAYYY outside of my budget. Granted my budget is tiny, barely there but still. So, we’re having to go in another direction, with less fancy paper and less fancy colors, which is really fine by me because I want to keep it simple. This project is really simplicity at its best.

After work I went scouting for some of my supplies and found a few things that I thought would work really well and that were an awesome deal. I’m just glad that I was able to take another step forward. Things are coming together, slowly, but still coming together.

I also went home and made a yummy dinner! Spicy penne pasta with spinach.

{ *Hint: I had a small can of V8 juice to my tomato based sauces. You sneak in a serving of veggies that way! }

Then I made scones from a recipe that I found on Heart Of Light, a blog that I read daily and that I love. Rachel warned that these were so yummy that she didn’t keep them around for fear of an expanding waistband, but I threw caution to the wind and made them anyway, no big deal, right? Sigh!!!! They were so delicious that I ate 3…yes 3!!!! I was a total glutton and afterward I was totally remorseful and felt like I should repent or something.

Needless to say I won’t be making scones for a long time and only if people are coming over for a brunch. I just can’t handle the temptation!

sometimes I feel like....

Kelly over at Yes, Please blog had it right. sometimes, I just feel like I just want someone to....

Hickups

So, I've been MIA for a while. My bad. Things have been busy around here. I've taken on an internship with a special event coordinator who specializes in weddings so my weekends have been spent working those events, which are lovely by the way, and my week days are spent at my "day job." Needless to say the blog has been the last thing on my mind. Sorry ladies.

BUT! the business is going well. I am still scouting around for a few supplies that I need. And although it has slowed down quite a bit, I haven't lost complete focus of my initial goals. I'm not going to lie though, it is difficult trying to juggle all of these things at once. I mean I know that I've always been ambitious but it...geez! I seriously look up to people who work full time, who have hobbies and relationships, and try to meal plan, and cook dinner every night and find time to Blog at the beginning or end of the day. Y'all are awesome and I love and hate you at the same time.

I had intially hoped to debut my project on August 1st but um, yeah...that was Saturday and well, it didn't happen. I've got to stay focused. I really want to have things up and running by the end of August so that means that a lot of time and MONEY will be spent within the next few days. It feels overwhelming...but it's just something that I've got to do.

...any advice would be awesome right about now.