From the Studio

From the Studio: Altitude Design Summit Photo Recap

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I started writing a recap of this past week's Altitude Design Summit when I realized that words wouldn't really do it justice. The friends I made, the colleagues I met, and the lessons I learned will stick with me forever. (A special emphasis on the friends. I met some of the most amazing people!) If you ever have an opportunity to go to ALT, I'd strongly suggest you do- I promise it will be amazing. And since I didn't think words would suffice, here is a photo recap:

Thursday night White Party (so pretty to see everyone in winter-y colors)

Friday night mini parties ranged from A Night in Paris to Year of the Chinese Dragon

I loved teaching my watercolor class! I seriously had the best students ever. (It started to snow so we ran outside to get a few photos.)

holy cow we got a lot of cool stuff. Not pictured- awesome triangle earrings that one of my roomies, Kelly, fell in love with, and like a pound of candy.

photos via courtney khail, b.a.d. photography, moss + isaac, and justin hackworth

Craving: Alt Summit

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Hey ladies and gents!

I'll be away for a few days teaching at Alt Summit (will you be there? If so I'd love for you to say hello!) so there will be a little radio silence for the rest of the week. Despite being a blogging conference, I'm going to do my best to unplug and be fully present. I'll be back next week with a recap and pictures, but until then I hope you all have a wonderful week!

From the Blog: Not All Who Wander Are Lost (plus the final recap)

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(please excuse the glare, I didn't want to take it out of the frame)

created by me

This has always been J's favorite quote (one of our many similarities is having a strong case of wanderlust) so I thought I'd surprise him by making something special this Christmas. It was a lot of fun to make (not to mention it was super simple*) and has quickly become one of our favorite pieces.

*If you don't enjoy free form lettering it may not be super simple, but then again you could always just print out your favorite quote and trace.

Speaking of wandering, I realized I never wrote my final recap. I'll attempt to keep it short!

Welcome to Vegas via courtney khail

After Sequoia we drove to Las Vegas. I'd never been to Vegas before (J had) so he drove so I could stare out the window and navigate when necessary. Of course, it is exactly what I expected- bright, loud, busy, and over the top. We spent the majority of our days wandering around casinos, drinking out of absurdly large glasses, and people watching. Playing up our tourist cards, we wandered around the old Vegas strip, took photos in front of the "Welcome to Vegas" sign and may have even wandered into Gold and Silver Pawn (you know, as in Pawn Stars. Case you're curious it is really small inside.) Oh! And we went to a Cirque show. (J had never been and we both agreed that was unacceptable.) Probably the best part though was spending time with J's best friend who actually lives in Vegas. (It was like reuniting brothers p.s.) Plus, it was kind of cool to see what people do off the strip.

Grand Canyon via courtney khail

From Vegas we drove to Santa Fe- taking a detour to stop at the Grand Canyon. Thanks to a rain storm that had just passed through, we could see for miles. I feel like I'm lessening the experience trying to put it into words, so you'll just have to believe me when I say it was phenomenal. So pretty and so amazing to witness- we've already planned a future helicopter tour over it. From there we drove late into the night to get to Santa Fe (thanks Map Quest for the wrong estimated time) and dear God. Let me just say it gets REALLY dark in the desert. Like scary dark, but if you can take a second and look up, the stars are amazing.

After some much needed sleep, we wandered around Santa Fe for a day, drove along the Turquoise Trail, talked to some local artists and ended the say eating some amazing pizza (who would have guessed we'd find that in Santa Fe?) Now, given the "desert southwestern vibe" isn't really our thing and we were kind of ready to go home, I can't give an accurate review of the city. I will say it's for an older crowd though, which makes sense because a ton of people retire there.

After Santa Fe, we were going to stop in Oklahoma City to see Kelly, but unfortunately she caught a cold and was bedridden, so in a reckless youthful moment, we decided to just drive home.

Yep, drive home from Santa Fe to Atlanta in one day.

Well, MapQuest said it would take one full day, but we made it in 20 hours and 34 minutes.* And boy did it feel amazing to sleep in our own bed.

So there it is! The last recap of our trip. I still can't believe we were able to do it, but I can easily say it was one of the best times of our lives. If you're ever given the opportunity, promise me you'll take it.

After driving from Santa Fe we woke up the next morning and drove to Florida to pick up Bella and get in some beach time before coming back to the real world

*As for the 20 hr cross country drive- aside from some jerk in a U Haul who tried to crash us into a concrete guard rail at 3 am in Chattanooga, it was a decently easy ride. Plus, we now know every Chickfila there is from Santa Fe to Atlanta-you know, in case you guys ever need that info.

Ending the radio silence

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gift bags getting ready to be mailed via courtney khail

Sorry for the radio silence last week, but it's been kind of crazy around here. First and foremost, I've been hard at work painting gifts for the Alt Summit gift bags. And by hard at work, I mean 12+ hours a day for over two weeks. It was a lot of work, but I think they look awesome and am so excited for people to get them so the hard work was well worth it! In addition to those, I've been working on other orders, getting ready for a photo shoot, getting ready for Christmas and our anniversary (which is TOMORROW!) getting together with friends, and planning a Christmas party at our place (which was last night and our floor is covered in confetti. I think that means it was a good time.) So to make a long story short, it's been a little hectic and blogging kind of fell to "that of least importance."

Either way, I thought I'd drop in to say hey and let you all know I'm still alive. Promise I'll post more frequently once the confetti settles! Now I'm off to Fed Ex to ship those little lovelies out to Utah. Have a great Monday everyone!

Oh, and I found out that someone hid a Bank of America phishing site within my site. Of course, I am not a Bank of America site so that wasn't really cool. Anyhow, it's been fixed, but I just wanted to remind everyone again to never ever enter your passwords or information on any unauthorized site. I really hope none of you were affected!

Studio Sneak Peek: guest gifts

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via courtney khail stationery and design

Amy and Craig wanted to give their guests a gift that was really personal and meaningful- something that would remind them of the wedding, but wouldn't just be tossed away like a cheap plastic frame with their wedding date imprinted on it. Because they were having a smaller wedding, I suggested a painting for each couple/guest. Using the same garden rose design I painted on their invitations, I created a 12 piece collection of paintings- each titled, dated, and signed with the edition number- for Amy and Craig to frame and give to their guests. Apparently, it was hit!

(Side note here, if you're looking to give small favors that you can buy in larger quantities, I always advise something edible or useful. No one turns down chocolate or matches, but most everyone will leave behind the one wine glass etched with your new monogram. That is, unless it's their monogram too, in which you'll see those people collecting a set of 6 from the ones everyone else left behind.)

Studio Sneak Peek: amy and craig

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handwritten rose invitation via courtney khail stationery and design

Just wanted to stop in to give you all a glimpse of a wedding invitation I painted a little while back for a couple having a intimate under 30 person wedding. (P.S. I love the idea of an intimate dinner party wedding.) I was so honored to be able to create these for them! Next week I'll show the gifts I made for their guests...

San Fran, Yosemite, Kings Canyon and Sequoia

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And, yea. I'm a little behind on the whole "recapping thing." Apologies on that one.

ferry building via courtney khail

So next up we went to San Fran. I'd like to go ahead and say the Golden Gate Bridge is amazing to me. I couldn't stop staring at it while we drove across. Although we weren't there for too long, we definitely managed to cram a ton into it while we were there. That may be because the people renting the apartment before us left us tickets for one of the touristy open top buses so getting around was super easy. (Side note, while touristy, I really recommend them. Really easy, you don't have to deal with driving, and you may actually learn something while you get to stare off at "the sights." My sister and I did one in Paris as well and it was just as lovely.)

via courtney khail

Favorite part of all (aside from the Atlanta Braves beating the Giants while we were there) was the Ferry Building. J. stocked up on Blue Bottle Coffee, we sampled olive oils at Stonehouse, and we had by far one of the best sandwiches ever at Boccalone which we enjoyed outside over looking the water. We also couldn't help ourselves and picked up bread from Acme to go with our Boccalone salami for an "on the road" snack. The rest of the time there was a blur, but we ate at Tartine, wandered around Chinatown, went to Coit Tower (personally I'd find views elsewhere) and pretty much just meandered around. Which is one of our favorite things to do, but may drive other people crazy.

Tunnel view, Mist Trail, and the view after we got lost via via courtney khail

After San Fran, we went to Yosemite National Park which was amazing. The campsites weren't as wonderful as other parks (though we lucked out again and were right on a creek) the views were absolutely stunning. We normally hiked about 7-10 miles a day and stayed 5 days so we were really able to see the whole park. We hiked past some of the prettiest waterfalls ever (the Mist Trail is gorgeous,) ate lunch on the top of Sentinel Dome, lounged in hammocks by a secluded river, and even got lost in the backwoods of the meadows (which ended with us summitting a mountain and witnessing one of the most beautiful landscapes ever.) It was awesome.  If you're ever heading that way and would like to know of a hike or two to do, just let me know. I'd be happy to give you more information.

I felt so little

Sequoia and Kings Canyon via courtney khail

After Yosemite we drove to Kings Canyon and Sequoia National Parks. I thought we had seen giant trees before, but nothing came close to the mammoth trees that are there. I felt so small! While we were there we decided to do two super short touristy "hikes" (i.e. short, crowded and paved) that took us to the world's largest tree (by volume,) as well as the nation's Christmas tree and gave us the opportunity to both walk through and drive through a tree (which I was really excited about) so it was worth it. The absolute best part though, is that since the rest of the park is pretty secluded so you can take your time exploring. I would definitely recommend taking the drive through the National Forest as well as Kings Canyon. By far the most spectacular views from the entire trip. We could have stayed there forever.

Of course, Vegas was calling our names so we didn't.

Happy Halloween! (and the porch light rule)

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I have to admit, I am a chicken (and have an overly creative imagination.) I can't watch scary movies, I don't like when people wear masks or dress up as anything bloody/dead, and I hate scary music. Naturally, Halloween and I have a love/hate relationship. On one hand, I get a kick out of making and wearing costumes, love miniature Kit Kat bars, and think carving Jack-o-lanterns really is a lot of fun. On the other hand, the TV is flooded with creepy, scary movies (even the ads become scarier!) I apparently attract every mask wearing individual which of course scares me, and without a doubt someone really wants to go to a haunted house and I have to explain (again) that I'm a chicken and can't do that-no matter how fake it looks. What about y'all? Is anyone else easily scared like me? I refuse to believe I'm the only one like this.

porch light rule via me

Anyhow, now that I've expressed all of that, I thought I'd leave you with a little piece of art I made to remind people of the most important "rule" of trick-or-treating- the porch light rule. You know what I'm talking about, right? If the porch light is on, come ask for candy. If the porch light is off, skip that house.Of course then you have "those people" who turn off all their lights except one tiny light right next to their porch and that just throws everyone for a loop. Don't be those people.