Aidan's First Day of Preschool!

Today was a momentous occasion. It was our son's first day of preschool. He missed the official start last week since we were on vacation. We were hesitant about him starting because I had a disastrous day trying to get him to use the potty. Aidan is a stubborn little man. I told my husband that I didn't want to waste $268 for him to pee in his pants and be sent home until he's ready. But we decided, it's time for him to sink or swim.... Plus I think he tends to do much better when Mommy and Daddy aren't around to scold him.

So we got there too early to do the drop off system so we ended up just walking him in which was good because Michael had a chance to warn the teachers about Aidan and the potty training. They understood and said they would really try hard with him. Thank goodness he has such wonderful teachers, Miss Michelle and Miss Christine! I got a little misty eyed when we said goodbye just because I feared I would pick him up in loaner clothes because he wet himself. He could have cared less that we were leaving as he was so engrossed in the farm animal toys he was playing with at the table. I always heard horror stories of moms and kids crying when it was time to say goodbye. Not my child! Which is good. It shows that he's ready to go to school.

So instead of working on flowers the whole time, I spent it cleaning. The four hours went by way too fast. I definitely need to organize my time better when he's at school. It was a good break for me nonetheless. It gave me some "me" time which I so desperately needed! Being a mommy, entrepreneur, wife, etc is tough work!

At any rate, Aidan was successful on the potty at school and no "accidents"! I was so proud and all he could ask me is if he was going to get a new car because he went on the potty and didn't have an accident. We went home and he continued his potty training. We got him new cars and some zoo animals and then he regressed. I had to take toys away and then I think the light bulb finally went on.... He managed to go a couple of times and I promised him if he continued doing a good job he would get a special treat. So we took him to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner and an ice cream sundae!

Tomorrow he'll be home and then Thursday is "blue" day at school and he keeps reminding me that it's "blue" day at school! I wish he could go to school everyday.... Just imagine all the work I could get done! Oh well, next year.... I'm thankful for the 2 half day breaks I get in the meantime!

Buy DK Designs' Clay Floral Designs at Estilo Weddings!

Tonight I have been doing searches to see where DK Designs lands in the search engines and what new sites are talking about my company and creations. I know... I'm obsessed! I decided to check Estilo Weddings. Maria Ryan contacted me several months ago via my Etsy site and asked if I would be interested in selling my items via http://www.estiloweddings.com/. I of course said, "YES". I LOVE Estilo Weddings so I jumped at the chance.

I check every now and then to see if she put up my items, and today was the day! Here's a screen shot of the website with my listings! Hopefully they do well! Maria.... all I can say is YOU ROCK! I'm looking forward to working with you and thank you for choosing DK Designs to be part of your beautiful repetoire of wedding products to offer brides that want something different, stylish and unique!!! DK Designs is definitely expanding and broadening its reach!

DK Designs Something Blue Stephanotis Bouquet Finds its Way onto the Etsy.com Wedding Gift Guide!

Today, I decided to peruse the Etsy.com Gift Guides section to see if any of my items might have been selected by the Etsy staff as a great gift idea.

Low and behold, in addition to the Peonies Go Tropical arrangement, I found on the 1st page of the Etsy.com Wedding Gift Guide, my stephanotis bouquet with Swarovski crystals and Tiffany Blue ribbon! In addition, my fellow Etsy Wedding Team artisans also were featured on the gift guide as well! Congrats to all of them as well!

Giving Back to the Community... Nordstrom Elementary School Family Fun Night

While on vacation, my oldest brother left me a voice message asking if I would participate in his kids' elementary school's Family Fun Night. I was so out of it, that I totally forgot to discuss it with him and he reminded me the day we got back into town. So here I am frantically putting things together to sell. It's kind of like luau night, Hawaiian food from The Hukilau Restaurant, games, raffle drawings and craft booths. The money made goes to Morgan Hill's Nordstrom Elementary School's Home & School Club. As my son goes off to pre-school tomorrow, I realize how important education is for our young ones and how raising money for our children's education is helpful. So because I love my 2 nieces and 1 nephew to pieces, I of course agreed. I'll be doing a 15 minute demonstration for the parents and children attending the event (300-400 people)! I'll be selling items such as these as well as some hair flowers. I will be donating a percentage of my sales back to the Home & School Club.

I'll also be donating one of my larger vase arrangements as a raffle prize. One lucky winner will be going home with this beautiful Hawaiian Elegance piece!

Clay Stephanotis and Plumeria Bouquets with Swarovski Crystals

A client who found me via the Miss Pineapple blog post on Weddingbee.com, asked if I could make her a stephanotis bridal bouquet and a plumeria maid of honor bouquet for her wedding in Maui. She saw a couple of my bouquets that I did a few years back and wanted to recreate something very similar. Her stephanotis bouquet contains over 130 stephanotis flowers that are accented with Swarovski crystals and the stems are wrapped with white satin ribbon. The maid of honor bouquet is made up of white plumerias with yellow centers and mixed with yellow plumerias with a pinkish hue on the outer edges of the petals, again accented with Swarovski crystals in the centers. The stems are also wrapped with white satin ribbon.

Plumeria and stephanotis flowers are such delicate blossoms that it's hard to keep them looking fresh throughout your wedding day. The clay flower bouquet option is such a great alternative for these flower types and what's even better is that not only will it look absolutely stunning on your wedding day but also for many, many years to come. No one will know the difference. I can almost bet that many of the bride's guests will be asking to smell the bouquet only to realize that it is made out of clay!

DK Designs on Real Simple's Simply Stated Blog!

Holly Becker who is known for her Decor8 (www.decor8blog.com/) blog is also a regular contributor to Real Simple's Simply Stated blog. Today, I discovered that she did a post of her top 10 Etsy Finds for September and I was one of her top 10 picks! Holly Becker is also contributed to Domino magazine, HGTV.com, and ApartmentTherapy.com! I feel very fortunate that she chose one of my designs as her top 10 picks!

Click here to read the article! To see the latest products featured on my DK Designs Etsy site, click here.

DK Designs Featured on Other Wedding Professionals' Blogs!

The last couple of days, I've been asked or featured on some wedding industry professionals' blogs which is a great honor to someone relatively new to the industry (5 years young). One of the web blogs is The Event Essentials (http://www.theeventessentials.net/) located in the Arizona area, which specializes not only in wedding stationery, but also event planning and decorative accessories.

The second wedding web blog where I was featured was VOW (http://vowweddings.wordpress.com/), also another wedding and event planner, serving the New York Tri-state area and Long Island. I'm hoping to do a feature guest blog write up with Laura Nuzzo in the next week or so! Thanks Laura for asking me to be part of your wonderful blog.

I love discovering new wedding blogs because it's always a new source of inspiration to me. It's an honor that wedding professionals across the world see my work as unique, stylish and different and feel that brides might find this to be the perfect item for their wedding day!

With all this exposure, I can only imagine how many new inquiries I'll be getting from across the nation and across the world. Plus I hope that sharing with my readers the other wonderful wedding industry blogs that exist will give them more inspiration and ideas to create stylish and distinctively beautiful weddings!