the school of styling: my inspirational week in los angeles
[above is my work styling a table setting and a floral arrangement.]
About a month ago, I attended an incredible workshop in Los Angeles called The School of Styling. As a self-admitted Instagram addict, I happened upon this workshop through Instagram, obvi. You see, when my daughter’s first birthday was featured on the Inspired By This Blog, I ended up connecting with Leila Lewis (@weddingpr on Instagram), who is the editor-in-chief at Inspired By This Blog. She had posted something about how she was to be a guest speaker at The School of Styling, so I started looking into it. Gotta respect a fellow working mama (shown here at TSOS LA with baby in tow)!
The beautiful School of Styling website alone was very inspiring to me, as at the time, I was seriously considering taking my styling hobby into a full-fledged business, but wasn’t sure where to start. I did definitely take my time researching the workshop as it was, for me, a considerable investment. The more I read and researched, the more I became convinced that this workshop would be a good investment for me and my future business, even as I was still figuring out exactly what that business was going to look like. (Now you can check out my styling services here!) And bonus, there was one coming up in LA, and I will always use any excuse to get back to LA for a few days. I decided if nothing else, I would at least meet and connect with some other creative women entrepreneurs, and it would be fun!
Well, The School of Styling not only met, but also far exceeded my expectations. The three day event was held at the historic and stunning all-white Lombardi House in the heart of Hollywood. All the gorgeous furnishings you see here were courtesy of Found Vintage Rentals, and owner Jenni Maus was also one of our speakers during the workshop.
For me, the value of the connections I made was alone enough to have made the whole experience worth my time, but on top of that, I was inspired by the various stories of the successful speakers, I learned a few new tips and tricks, and was overwhelmed by the beauty that surrounded us at every turn for those three days. I wish my everyday looked like this!
From left to right, just a few of my favorite speakers: Kaitlin Holland, founder of The School of Styling; Danielle Moss, co-creator of The Everygirl; Stephanie Sterjovski of stephaniesterjovski.com and SS Print Shop; Jenna Kutcher, professional photographer and branding expert; and Jenni Maus, owner of Found Vintage Rentals.
All the stunning floral arrangements as well as the floral arranging class were created by Kim Sanders of Art With Nature Design.
In this post, I am going to attempt to condense three days of awe-inspiring beauty into this little corner of the web. But, if you want to see more of this goodness, I highly encourage you to head over to The School of Styling’s blog, for a day-by-day breakdown by founder Kaitlin Holland on how she and her team coordinated and executed this whole event to a T. All images here (unless otherwise noted as my Instagram snaps) are professional shots being used with express permission from The School of Styling and photographer Shalyn Nelson of Love, The Nelsons.
One of the first classes we had was about styling for better Instagram images. Our instructions were to style our gorgeous welcome boxes and then post the photo to Instagram with all the appropriate vendors tagged. I spent some time getting a few different shots, and this is the image I ended up posting. I guess those tips worked because this image was re-posted three times (by different vendors) and earned me the most likes on any photo I have posted to Instagram to date!
Day One ended with heavy and yummy apps from Heirloom LA (one of my faves!), cocktails I so wish I could have partaken in, and a super fun “speed dating” section where we got to meet everyone for about 2 minutes each.
Day Two began as everyday should, with donuts from Donut Snob and these adorbs coffee mugs from XO Events and Design. Here’s my ‘gram, cause, baby needed a donut.
Then it was onto floral arranging and table setting. Below is another of my Instagrams from this day.
On Day Three, we started with a mimosa bar (again, this should be an everyday thing), learned how to style a furniture vignette (you can never have too many pillows, right?) and I took my first calligraphy class.
And we ended the workshop with a beautiful final dinner. All these gorgeous tassel garlands, flower hangings, and other paper decorations were custom created for The School of Styling by Paper Fox LA. All the dishes for this event and for our table styling were provided by Dish Wish Vintage Rentals.
As I captioned in this final ‘gram of my School of Styling experience, I left with my heart feeling so full of gratitude for the friends made and knowledge gained over my three days spent in LA. I am so glad I took the leap of faith it required for me to get there (not to mention the logistics of arranging childcare – thanks husband and mother in law!) because it was more than worth all the effort. I have already started putting my new-found knowledge to use and I can’t wait to continue to grow my brand!
again, please note all images used here in his post (unless otherwise noted as my personal Instagram snaps) are professional shots being used with express permission from The School of Styling and photographer Shalyn Nelson of Love, The Nelsons.
