sorry to miss {thursday + thankful}

sorry everyone, if you happen to look forward to my {thursday + thankful} post, it didn't happen yesterday because i was working the better part of the day to get furniture pieces finished up for the flea market this weekend! i can't wait to show you everything, it's so exciting... but in the mean time i did want to give you another sneak peek at a few other things we'll be selling at the flea market!

if you've ever seen me in action at a wedding while i'm setting up you can usually find me wearing one of these....

it's a girly tool belt, or you could call it a crafting tool belt, or it could be a domestic goddess' housework tool belt... whatever floats your boat, you can call it that!  anyhow, i love these, they are so handy.  you can carry around a pair of scissors and floral shears, pens + pencils in their own pocket, a note pad or two... and there's a little front pocket that'll fit a cell phone perfectly!  i've even clipped a walkie onto the waistband before too!

on the right side you have one loop for scissors or another sharp object, and there's a pocket that it sits in, so the blade isn't moving around, then next to that is the pocket for your paint brushes, pens + pencils... next to that there's two 5" pockets for note pads, i happen to carry fishing line in there or adhesive or floral tape usually...

then on the left side you can see there's the other 5" pocket for larger items, another loop + pocket for any other sharp object... and of course the pocket for your cell phone!  i love having a place for my phone because i can sit it there, throw on my headset and i can keep working if i have to take a call.  which on a normal wedding day you have vendors, bridal party members, and family calling you for random things throughout set up sometimes!

here are a few more colors/styles we'll have with us on sunday!

 i love the pattern combos as well as the teal + brown together

 they have long ties that are really sturdy for helping bear the weight of the stuff you carry around!

coral, animal print + rusty stripe

a flat view of all of them...

 teal ticking, ikat, and graphic pattern

teal + brown geometric pattern, w/ the graphic and funky print

red, khaki + navy typography - for the font lover {like me}

wouldn't this be so cute for a teacher's gift for back to school?

in case you're wondering about measurements - they're approximately 20" wide x 10" long
{not including the ties of the waistband}

hope to see you sunday!

{sneak peek} more items for the IVC flea market

i know i posted last week saying that i'll have a booth at the Irvine Valley College flea market on Sunday, August 7th... well i wanted to show you a few more goodies that we will have available at the market...

lots and lots o' throw pillows!

{left} red + tan ikat linen pillow {right}cute tan + cream stripe w/ red stiched burlap cross

Source: instagr.am via Blair on Pinterest

{light blue + white geometric linen pillows} there will be coordinated lumbars too!

              

Source: instagr.am via Blair on Pinterest

{black + tan} preppy plaid pillows

                 

                                                                              Source: instagr.am via Blair on Pinterest

{and here's my absolute favorite} vintage inspired union jack accent lumbar- it has a heavy linen backer
with white stripe fabric, blue canvas, and cream crochetted trim... i think the next go around i'll get some made with lace, how cute would that be?

Source: instagr.am via Blair on Pinterest

sorry about the funky looking photos, these were all taken on my ipad via instagr.am... but, if you see anything you'd like maybe for your wedding or upcoming event, or even for your house... feel free to email me {blairbrittevents@gmail.com} and i can get you set up with some cute pillows! 


also, i'll have more photos coming after this weekend's event, so stay tuned! 


*blair

{thursday + thankful} support and encouragement

hey there everyone, sorry i didn't write last week, not to worry i was flaking on last week's post

only because i was en route to this gorgeous place...

... unreal right?? so on thursday i took a break from "my blogging schedule," since it's such hectic schedule {oops just a little sarcasm there}, to get to the above location... i'm pretty sure you would scrap blogging for that view too right? 

.... ok, so the reason i'm writing these {thursday +thankful} entries is an attempt to be real with my readers and to share a little bit about who i am for those of you who haven't had the "pleasure" of meeting me in person {uh oh, there goes that sarcasm again} =)

but seriously though i truly love when i am given a chance to "get to know" the bloggers that i enjoy following, and when they share about themselves it gives me a glimpse into who they are as people and makes me feel like i'm reading an update from a friend... so my hope in sharing these things is that those people that google analytics swears visit my blog every week can get to know who blair britt is just a little bit better.

this week thursday july 21st i'm thankful for:

                             

of course returning home from vacation i needed to get my bearings again life, family and of course business-wise... which if you're a small biz owner you know how hard it is to take any time away because you always seem to pay for it after you come back... anyhow, i figured since i had such a wonderful trip i'm paying for it now.... after an emotional week, a series of frustrating events in the past few days i reached my boiling point today! go figure i would "break down" on the day that i post my happy thursday + thankful post.... after getting out of the house for a few hours and getting away from the things that were threatening to rob me of my emotional stability {well not totally}, i realized as i have many times before.... i am SOOO incredibly thankful for the support and encouragement i get all the time from my amazing friends and family.  God really, truly has blessed me with a pretty rad support group {that sounds odd, huh?} scratch the group, make that support system!  when i had reached my limit today i called my mom and she helped talk me off the emotional ledge, consoled me and helped try to encourage me through what i was seeing as a MAJOR disaster, but was really just a minor blip in the big picture.... she's done this repeatedly throughout my life and has been my perma-cheerleader, and has believed and encouraged me in everything i've ever pursued... and i know that's not just the case with my mom, but it goes for my whole family.  we may have one big crazy family, but we all love, care and support each other.

after i got out of the house i talked to a friend, one that i know i can always confide in and i told her about the past few days i've been having and she was so positive and complimentary of some recent projects i've worked on and offered to pray that the rest of my day would go uphill... it's one thing to have the support from your family, but they're family you would hope they'd always be there... but friends get busy, you don't talk as much as you'd like, but it's so humbling to know that i have friends that i can be 100% myself with, loose it for a few minutes and they'll still love me even if i am having a "moment."  again its such a huge blessing to know that i have strong friendships to the point that they'll help get me back on my feet after falling down and going boom.  

i figure i could be headed off to bed right now saying how brutal today was, but ending on this note helps try to even out the tone of today from one that caused me to be super bent-outta-shape to one of thanks and gratitude.... not for the negative in today, but the positives that seem to be forgotten on the "good days."

i found this quote on pinterest recently and "blair-ified" it, i thought it was pretty relevant to the topic of this post.

{pre-vacation distractions} pins of interest

i have to say i absolutely have a love/hate relationship with my pinterest account... so thankful for all the amazing images, ideas, and inspiration that site provides me with... but.... i hate how much time can be consumed by scouring the site looking for fun new things, discovering new blogs i had never stumbled upon before, and obsessing over finding every known washi tape pattern under the sun!

i seem to do a lot of my pinning right before bed, which i'm very seriously considering changing that habit seeing how i have a very creative brain and here's what happens when i sift through hundreds of images that get my creativity going right before bed.... story of my life!

Source: allamaduck.tumblr.com via Blair on Pinterest

since i'm getting ready to head off to Jackson Hole tomorrow, i of course would rather do anything but pack {i.e. blog, pin, go to the pool} so i thought i share some of my favorite pins from my pinterest account... lucky you =)

here's something i'm hoping to try out for an upcoming event i'll be vending at

                                                    Source: bungalowblueinteriors.squarespace.com via Blair on Pinterest

i absolutely ADORE these shelves constructed of crates, so much visual interest! 

                          Source: greenwellies.tumblr.com via Blair on Pinterest

i just love all the quotes and statements i find to pin, especially this one... there's something to be said for an "old school" work ethic... i know it did my self-made grandpa a lot of good as an entrepreneur too!

Source: google.com via Blair on Pinterest

while i do love the South, i don't believe it'll rise again =)... but there is something really special and beautiful about this feminine union jack pillow - love it!

                                                

again, another inspiring quote, this one is showing off on a favorite of mine {a gold ornate frame w/ a chalkboard in it} i also dig the roughed up dresser, and the awesome little accessories used to 

style the shot

                                Source: missmustardseed.blogspot.com via Blair on Pinterest

and now this one.... now that i'm off to take a break from some work {poolside} i'm going to paint my nails like this... but with blush pink polish + gold glitter

     Source: tickledwhimsy.blogspot.com via Blair on Pinterest

.... and i'm going to make one of these for myself by the pool!

                                 Source: designsponge.com via Blair on Pinterest

i hope you enjoyed all my random pins, and if you'd like to follow me on pinterest you can {find me here}... if you need an invite to join just leave me a comment with your email address and 

i'll shoot you an invite!

happy wednesday,


*b

{thursday + thankful} vacations and relaxation

{PS. i'll have you know that i posted this at 12:02am... man i missed "thursday" by 3 minutes, maybe next week i'll get this written in time!}

today, july 7th, i'm very thankful for:

while these two words may see a little frivilous, but to a self employed individual the are not, they are actually two things that are very hard to come by... any other self employed folks who agree that when you decide to create a business to call your own that you find yourself caring and working so much harder than you ever did for a J.O.B.?  i believe because we are so focused on building something of our own that we pour 110% of ourselves into our little businesses... and that's not even counting the other areas of life for us multitasking ladies... you might be married {so there's a hubster and a relationship that needs your daily attention}, you might be a mom {with little ones who need attention in addition to your hubs}, and then there's your household {which i think we all know is no easy task to keep up from one day to the next}.... the list could go on to list a day job, pets, carpool, etc, etc, etc...

needless to say after rambling off that list of life's areas where you commit yourself, your energy and attention... it's hard to imagine anything else sometimes!  no matter where you find yourself i think we can all agree that vacations + relaxation are essential from time to time! everyone needs to take some time for themselves to sit still and recharge the batteries.  for some reason when i think about vacay + relaxation i'm always reminded of the verse in Pslams that says "Be still and know that I am God..." and in a place like Jackson how can you not to that?

and.... for me vacation and relaxation is one week away! hooray!!! this time next week i will be en route to my husband's family's place in Jackson Hole, Wy... if you've never been, you must! it is amazing there and so different from the hustle and bustle of southing california, and that my friends is a wonderful thought right about now.  Jackson is such a special place, since my hubby grew up visiting there every summer of his childhood, and then when we began dating i too fell in love with it.  then in summer of 2007 my family and his were there when he asked me to marry him in that special place... and sadly i've only made it back once since 2007, since summers have been getting busier with weddings and events, so i'm beyond excited to get there and do a little relaxing.

here's the view from where we stay/where my hubs + i got engaged...

photo shot by my BIL, he takes pretty sweet photos!

yeah, i know... it's a rough view =) i'm so thankful to be visiting again this year, i can't wait!

new blog topic {thursday + thankful} healing + remission

so in an attempt to create better blogging habits for myself {since i post so randomly + not so consistently} i thought i'd post about what i'm thankful for... i think it's way too easy to look around and make note of the things that aren't going right in life, and it really takes a BIG effort to notice the things in our lives that we're thankful for! i know some people do WIWW {translation: what i wore wednesday, check out my SIL's posts, i admire her for posting about it, but that's a whole other blog post} and so on, so i thought i'd start {what i think to be} my own little creation, "thursday and thankful"... it has a fun ring to it!

so like i mentioned, sometimes life and circumstances can really get you down... but after doing a little reflecting {and listening to some advice from mom} i agreed i've gotta focus on what i have, rather than have not, and i encourage you to do the same as well... your outlook will be so much healthier for doing so!

this thursday, june 30th i'm thankful for

those are two very important words to me especially today because last year on this date i was with my mom in the mall going for our mani + pedi date when she got a phone call that she had been diagnosed with lymphoma.... that's one way to ruin a mom + me date!  needless to say we still went for our girl time, and cried most of the way through it... but even in those first moments that seemed so scary and so uncertain while my mind was racing a million miles a minute, i had to remember that God has the power to do anything, including healing my mom!

i know i haven't really mentioned much about this on here, but this past year has been quite interesting because of this, it's put a lot n perspective for me, and it's made me even more thankful for the parents i've been blessed with and the relationships i've made.  and i'm even more thankful that fall of 2010 we got the news that a healing had taken place in my mom's body and that her stage 4 lymphoma was already in remission... we don't know why God allows us to go through certain trials, but we do know that when we get to the other side of them we can be thankful that He carried us through it.

i love you mom, and i'm glad we could celebrate this milestone with our mani + pedi date without crying our way through it! =)

and because i can't help sharing a photo, here's one of my mom and i on my wedding day in 2008.

photo courtesy of memories by michael

{101 goals in 1001 days} goal no. 28 - Nashville, Tn - part 1

well, as promised i said i'd be back after yesterday's wedding, and here i am... i wanted to catch you up on my trip to Nashville, Tennessee... which is also my goal #28 in my 101 goals in 1001 days.

last month my mom and i took a girls trip to Nashville, a place i've dreamt of visiting for a very long time, i'm a HUGE fan of country music, and so a trip to music city sounded like such a great idea! so here are some of the highlights from our trip...

broadway - the main drag in nashville where all the honky tonks & bars are

{the stage is actually in the movie Country Strong}

we took a carriage tour around downtown with Bill and Blondie 

{i trust you can figure out who's who} ;)

she was such a pretty and sweet horse

the country music hall of fame museum is neat... the windows are meant to look like keys on a piano

inside this rotunda of the museum is the actual CM hall of fame where all the plaques are hung...

and the notes around the top are the chord to "may the circle be unbroken" which has become the anthem for the music city since the big flood the city experienced this time last year.

below left is the Hard Rock gift shop {had been totally flooded out} below right is also a street where all those bars, restaurants and shops had been flooded out too, so sad

                 

at Roberts you can buy boots, a meal, a beer and take in live music

also on broadway is Hatch Show Print... 

one of my favorite stops during our whole time in Nashville!

Hatch is one of the oldest letterpress shops in the country and specialized in posters for the music industry, any artist who has posters pressed by Hatch knows they've "made" it once they've had Hatch make a concert poster for them!  i seriously was in heaven in here since i do design paper goods in addition to my events business... and i would LOVE to have my own letterpress to work with. so needless to say we spend some time in here watching and even getting an awesome behind the scenes tour from Cathy {their accountant}. 

since i'm such a paper nerd, here are some of the shots from our little tour

they have posters all over the walls showcasing work they've done over the years

below left: the walls are filled with tons of vintage wood carved blocks of type in all sizes and typestyles... this is what attracts clients to Hatch... below right is one of their many small presses 

               

here are some of the plates set with the type for each job... you can see who these jobs are for 

{not just country music stars, they had just finish lady gaga posters for her upcoming show in nashville}

one of their old, old presses which they run the old school huge hand carved wood plates from 

vaudville days, this place really is a studio and museum! and true to form, artist work here obviously given away by all the piles everywhere {that's just how us creative people work}!

one of the employees inking the plate prior to running it... what i would give to be able to have had an internship with Hatch!

this poster was way in the back of the shop and it was for a taylor concert than happened last year on my hubby's birthday... i love taylor's music, loved the colors, and the awesome orchids and when i asked if there was any way i could buy it they said the boss man keeps extras to give away to charity auctions and couldn't sell it... i was bummed, but totally understood... so i took a picture hoping that would help...

 we went back in the day we were leaving town to get something we had been thinking about, and one of the employees that i had been chatting it up with on our first visit saw me on my phone in the crowd upfront and came and asked if i got the Taylor poster, and i knew he knew i hadn't, so as i started to tell him "no they wouldn't let me buy it..." he was rolling it up to give to me! i seriously was ready to cry, that was so cool that he had asked and just gave it to me because he knew how much i had wanted it so badly! the people who work there are so nice... and that's really true of pretty much everyone we encountered while we were in nashville!

to find out more about Hatch Show Print go here

well, that's all for part 1 folks... i'll be back soon with the plantation tour and tour of President Andrew Jackson's home, the Hermitage... and of course our trip to the Grand Ole Opry!

{101 goals in 1001 days} goal no. 47

so a little while back i posted about the 101 goals in 1001 days that i'm doing and here's my first official post about one of the goals i've accomplished... this isn't my first of the 101, but this is a quick post so i thought i'd throw it out there for you all!

as some of you may know, i was wanting so very badly to get my hands on an ipad 2... 

....well yesterday was my day!

after quite a few days of calling the apple store when they opened to check to see if they had stock and hearing "No" everytime... and after calling Walmart, Best Buy, AND Target almost daily checking to see if i could avoid a really early morning waiting in line at the apple store... i set my alarm for 5:45, yes that's AM for those of you who know i don't enjoy mornings =) it felt like Christmas morning so i shot outta bed, got ready, grabbed my laptop and a jewelry order to work on and headed to the South Coast apple store to wait it out with lots of other folks. i said a prayer as i walked in the mall around 6am that went something like this: "Lord, i know this is a really silly prayer, but it would make me so happy to only have to do this once, and please let it be your will that i get the one i want." 

... real mature prayer Blair...

the apple crew rolled in around 7am for their daily Fed Ex shipment inventory, then came out and proceeded to go down the line with these cards that corresponded to each unit they had in the store that morning... i was about 30 people back so i figured i was sitting pretty....

not so... they ran out of these cards at the couple in line right in front of me... i was about ready to flip my lid when a man got out of line handed the above card back in and the apple dude gave it to me... it wasn't the unit i wanted, but i was back in the game!

at this point everyone behind me in line had gone home and didn't know they could've lingered and potentially snagged a forfeited card!  so then about 10 more minutes go by and another guy pieced out of line and gave his card back, the apple dude looked at me and said, "it's your lucky day" it was the exact model i had wanted and in white too! WAAHHOOO

here's my little card, or answer to prayer as i'd like to think of it!  i know it was a silly request, but i do have to say God is good, and He did answer mine and my hubby's prayers.

after this happened, i called J at home and told him what had happened and that he had a happy wife, and he then told me he had prayed the night before that it'd work out for me... 

such a silly thing, but so neat to know God's there and dialed in, and understands how powerful of a business tool this little ipad will be!

Goal no. 47 - check!

{the wedding pantry} valentines windows

I hope you all had a wonderful Valentines, I know I really enjoyed ours especially after how crazy the past few weeks have been!  this post was originally posted on my JDV blog, i had featured it before Valentines over there... so just in case you missed it or don't follow my other blog, here's how the displays turned out!

this month i had the opportunity to style the windows of a local bridal shop: the wedding panty... and it just so happened that i was able to incorporate my sister business' recent valentines diy printable files into the designs {with a little customized tweaking}. if you're in need of some quick, easy and cute shower  decor, check out these printables, they can easily be customized for a bridal or baby shower... and without further ado,  i think the images pretty much speak for themselves, enjoy the colorful eye candy!

{printable cupcake toppers} find them in my shop here

 They can be customized too... like this cake topper that says la-la-love!

Isn't this cake from Jay's cute?!

Again, the flags are customized as dessert tags letting guests know in a cohesive way what the item is

More custom dessert tags...

I crafted two interlocking paper heart chains to swag behind the hutch that houses the dessert display, and thanks to my fab intern Chelsea for helping me hang it!

{a close up of one}

 In love with the perfectly matching aqua colored french macarons

{thanks Jay's}

In the other window I created a "love note" station with three types of little love notes, 

which are a fun alternative to a guest book

Here's a close up of the coordinated bridal sash to match the style and colors of the widow displays, 

i/my sister biz {JDV} can customize materials to ensure your vision is tied throughout your look too!

The ball jars tied in perfectly color-wise... 

I also crafted these coffee filter puffs and adorned some with aqua gliter, so worth it!

Close up of the glitered clothespins holding the custom "love notes" banner

which you can find in my shop as the "be mine" printable banner.... looove glitter!

Love notes window

...recongnize that little white desk? =)

dessert display window and a view of the desserts

custom vinyls from Wonderfully Wordy added a special touch!

"All you need is love..."

"... Love is all you need"

I'll have more diy printables coming soon to my etsy paperie shop! and please let me know if you'd like some created custom for a special event!

{photo credit} marcella treybig photography - thanks friend =)

{sweets} mary lallande at jay's catering, they're the best!