December Notes || An Update
Hello December!
And hello after a small (actually long) break from the blog. I probably don’t have to dive too deep into why I hadn’t posted in a while. With everything we’ve all been dealing with, I’ve been exhausted. Mostly emotionally but that honestly probably takes a bigger toll on our creativity and motivation than physical exhaustion or anything else. So without taking you through the ups and downs of the past 9 months, let’s just pick back up here.
I’ve slowly started to feel like myself again over the past few weeks. Not only is that a huge relief (I wasn’t sure if I ever would), but I have a tiny bit of excitement again for work and creating which has lead to more inspiration filled days. It’s not every day, but I am getting there. This is my favorite time of year so I am truly happy that I’m up for working on a few small projects, decorating the house, and bringing some festive content to the blog.
Since we left off here in March, I’ve also been working on plenty of other projects.
A few things that the ball was already rolling on before the pandemic hit, and a few new ones that I’d been thinking about for a while. I’ll dive deeper into everything later but here’s a quick recap of what’s been going on behind the scenes (and on social!)
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We bought a house in Palm Springs and named in Casa de Palma.
We’d been looking for YEARS. We got serious last November and actually started making offers on houses. All of which we lost out on. The housing market took off when people started to realize we’d be stuck at home longer than we thought, and that’s when it got even crazier trying to buy a house in PS. Our realtor finally found us a great deal with someone he worked with so we bought it without ever even stepping through the door. Ya, it was crazy. So we’ve been working on that since we purchased in July! We’ve spent every weekend (literally) fixing things and furnishing each room and we will be sharing it to rent soon on Airbnb. Full post coming soon with more details on the house but for now you can visit us on instagram.
We started building a tiny backyard studio
That I could work from (and hopefully a team member or two when it’s safe). I’ve shared the journey on instagram stories but will be doing a proper post to take you through the process of building it to where we are today. A few highlights - damn it’s expensive to build structures like that, it also took about 72x longer than i thought it would,i learned A LOT in terms of DIY’ing things like flooring and baseboards, and I need to name it so we can keep track of the progress via hashtag on insta (taking suggestions).
So maybe you’re thinking, what did you do with your office? Where is your team? Majority of our business depended on weddings and brand’s advertising budgets. And guess what, that all disappeared earlier this year. We’ve pivoted and done what we could to keep something coming in, but the reality was I couldn’t support a team anymore with 80% of our business on hold. Luckily most of my team members had other businesses or freelance work. So I’m grateful they had something to fall back on. And with our team not needing a space anymore, staying in our office didn’t make sense either. After I sent the text in March for everyone to stay home, we haven’t gone back.
It was hard. It was humbling. I learned a lot personally and in business. I’m taking those lessons and using them to build our business back up into something even better for 2021.
We’ve been working on new wedding suites to launch in 2021
(in hopes that weddings resume soon). Additionally, we’ve worked with our vendors to start offering small gathering packages. So for couples that are keeping it small (like, 10 guests), we will be able to take care of them now! It’s an exciting step and we’re happy to be able to accommodate more wedding sizes.
I will be launching interior decorating + styling services within the next few days!
It’s always been something i’ve loved doing, but earlier this year I had the opportunity to help a few clients on a more professional basis and I realized it was time to make it happen. I’ve learned a lot working with those clients, as well as building a studio and decorating our Airbnb from scratch, and hope that I can share that knowledge with people looking to transform their homes and workspaces.
Technically, “launching” in this case just means I am putting up a new page on my website and putting myself out there in a new category. It always seems like such a big deal behind the scenes right? Anyways, it’s a very (personally) exciting moment and I can’t wait to actually press publish and find the perfect clients!
We launched our holiday shop!
We released a few fun gift boxes that come with a selection of gorgeous items, some new stationery sets, and of course our custom ornaments. Take a look if you are shopping for friends and family. As I mentioned above, we’ve been hit hard being in the wedding industry. And we’re so thankful for those of you that were able to purchase something from our shop. If you love something, please feel free to pin, share, post on stories, send to your mom, whatever! Everything helps spread the word.
Now that I am slowly getting back into the swing of things, I wanted to share some plans for the coming month.
I’ve already felt extreme pressure to have perfect holiday home decor done and posted on my blog and social media. I get it, everyone’s trying to be the first to get to it… But for me this year, it was just not realistic to get a tree in the middle of November. I haven’t bought a ton of new stuff to decorate with and i’m looking forward to creating a festive, cozy environment using things I already have, or items that can stay on our shelves past December 25th.
With that said, rather than making you feel like you have to go buy a bunch of stuff to make it feel like the holidays, I want to share ways to make the most out of the holiday season by elevating small daily activities and making them special for yourself, and who you are spending time with right now.
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I hope this is the beginning of a new season for all of our inspiration and motivation.
Let me know how you all plan on spending the holidays this year and how you are feeling in general!