An Amazing Singer... Pasquale Esposito!

(Image courtesy of The Flirty Guide Blog)

My friend Stacie Tamaki of The Flirty Guide asked me the day she gave me my prize for winning the Crafter's Throwdown if I would be interested in seeing someone in concert. She told me that she's a big fan of Pasquale Esposito. I was like "who"? She had done a blog post the previous day and I wondered who he was. I told her I would love to go as I trusted her taste in music. After all, I never get a chance to go out so I cleared it with my husband so he could take care of our son and agreed to go. Tonight was the night and although it was a miserable day weather wise, I'm so glad I went.

Pasquale is known for his Italian opera tenor, but he just released his own CD with his original music! He still sings familiar Italian songs and cover tunes, but OMG, his voice range is ABSOLUTELY phenomenal. He gave me chicken skin.


Come to find out, he sang at Stacie's wedding and she actually is friends with him! He has a great sense of humor and is so humble and he has the most infectious smile. Not to mention he's a good looking Italian! :) Half the songs he sang were in Italian but regardless the music moved me. He even came out to sign his new CD for anyone who wanted to get his autograph. Turns out he lives in the Bay Area when he's not touring or visiting his home in Naples, Italy.

He does weddings and events so if you're looking for an awesome singer to WOW and captivate your guests, look no further. Visit http://www.italianmusicman.com/ to find out more about this AMAZING Italian tenor! I'll definitely be getting tickets to go the show the next time he's in San Jose! Thank you to Stacie for inviting me. I truly enjoyed the evening with a good friend and seeing this amazing singer live! Stacie will have a better post because she has a picture with him at her wedding! I did get to shake his hand though. LOL. :)

Valentine's Day = Work Day for DK Designs

Today for me is like any other day... a work day! LOL. I'm busy trying to prepare for the Ralston Hall Bridal Faire. Yesterday I set out to make flowers for 10 small vase arrangements for this cute cake pedestal design I wanted to try. Lots of hydrangeas with whitish-ivory flowers to compliment. They turned out bigger than I had planned, but I think they came out super cute. So even though I'm working on Valentine's Day, I thought I would share my flowers. I'm still going to accent paint them, but they made such a beautiful picture.
Happy Valentine's Day to all of you! Hope you show your loved ones how much you care and love them, not just today, but every day!

DK Designs Clay Flower Hair Accessories

A client found me last week via my Etsy site and asked if I could make her a gardenia hair flower on an alligator clip. Her wedding is fast approaching, but she lives locally so I told her I could make her one with the clip as requested.

Anyway, I agreed to do the order and then she came back and sent me a picture of a silk hydrangea hair flower accessory embellished with crystals that she found on Nordstrom's website. She asked if I could do it and I told her that I could recreate it in clay, but it would look obviously different and only embellished with crystals in the centers of the flowers. So she agreed to the price and defined which ones she wanted and I just finished assembling them this morning.

Now I can refocus my attention on the upcoming Bridal Faire and get geared up for that!

Cherry Blossoms and Favor Boxes

I'm gearing up for the Ralston Hall Bridal Faire and I decided to create some favor boxes decorated with my clay flowers. Cherry blossoms came to mind and although the industry says pink and brown are out of style or not as popular, I think it's one of those color combinations that will be somewhat timeless.

Can you tell I'm ready for spring to be here? The cherry blossoms are already blooming in my neighborhood and it's not even March!

Clay Butterflies for a 40th Birthday Cake

One of my favorite past clients, Alicia contacted me and Cheryl of Orchid Isle Weddings & Events to see if we could help her with a 40th birthday and wedding anniversary combined celebration in Maui. Alicia is one of THE most thoughtful, appreciative and sweet clients I've worked with to date. At any rate, she sent us a cake design that was for Mariska Hargitay with lots of fun and flirty butterflies, dragonflies and flowers. So she asked if I would be willing to create the pieces out of clay. It's been a while since we last talked about it, but we're back to the discussions and I just sent her this butterfly I did when Kazuko Miyai came to teach us a workshop on how to make butterflies using the clay, pearlescent powders, crystals, pearls, feathers and more.

Thought this would be another light and "spring" like image to share with all of you. Isn't it cute?! This kind of shows you what you can do with this amazing CLAYCRAFT by DECO Soft Clay. It truly is skies the limit on what you can create and design. :)

More Clay Arrangements for Friends and a Fundraiser

I've spent the last 2 days working on a couple of arrangements. One is for a little giveaway I'm doing with my wedding industry friend her pre-Valentine's Day party and the other is for my uncle's adult education school called Skills Plus, a center that assists stroke patients to regain functional, cognitive, social and physical skills back.
My aunt asked me to help out this year as many companies who used to donate items for their fundraiser could not this year. I have been trying to help out more in the community with donating my flowers for fundraisers and events. All the proceeds from this event go directly back to Skills Plus to help stroke survivors. It's important to me to help my uncle because two of my mom's siblings both suffered from a stroke and I think it's very important that they have schools such as this to help them regain their lives back.

Anyway, I'm in the "SPRING SEASON" mode (so ready for winter to be over), so I decided to make some beautiful arrangements of poppies, peonies and ranunculus. The one for the party is more as a pre-Valentine's Day theme and instead of doing red roses, I did different shades of pink in a mint julep cup. Very romantic.

The one for the fundraiser is very vibrant with poppies and orange ranunculus in a glass cylinder vase with green viburnum and some filler greens.

DK Designs in the Press

It's always so nice when other industry colleagues blog about your work. It means they see the work and dedication that goes into creating a piece of art. I got 2 delightful emails today from my friend at Smitten Invitations, Melissa Bumstead and someone I don't even know but who admires my work, UpstateFancy!

I love Melissa's citrus peach inspiration board. It definitely makes you ready for spring to make it's debut. Definitely check out her blog Melissa's Smitten.

At any rate, I'm so grateful for the continued blog posts about my clay flowers. It's always exciting to see them in inspiration boards (I never thought my stuff would be in one. :))

Thank you Melissa and UpstateFancy for including me in your blogs today!