One of the highlights – ok, the biggest highlight – of my mostly-work trip to SoCal was meeting up with several bloggers at the Decorate book signing & mood board event with Holly Becker!

Do you know about Holly?  Her blog Decor8 is full of beautiful inspiration, fabulous home tours, and peeks at unique businesses and artists.  I also love Holly’s sense of style, so I knew when she published a book that I had to check it out.  The spaces on her blog, I think of them as more “real,” yet still beautiful and almost perfect.

But even better than her blog is her e-course Blogging Your Way.  I took the course last fall, and it exceeded my expectations.  I learned a lot but was also just inspired so much by Holly’s stories and approach.  Her weekly podcasts were definitely a highlight.  The course is actually open for registration again, and I highly recommend it.  There were hundreds of people in the course, but somehow I connected with a few, primarily Kelly of the blog EverKelly.

Kelly quit her day job a few years ago to become a fabric designer, and after many hours and months of hard work, her first line is about to be released!  I am so excited for her.  (Now that I think about it, I think this is how I connected with Kelly, when I read in her course bio that she’d quit her day job to pursue a creative dream.  I clicked with that right away!)  Also, I met Kalani of Kalanicut in the course – she is another creative spirit in pursuit of a dream, too!

Anyway, the timing of my visit was perfect – because the day that I’d hoped to drive up to LA to meet Kelly in person was the day of the Decorate event!  Talk about ironic -  the the three of us would be able to meet in person at an event hosted by the person who “introduced” us, so to speak.

The first part of the event was a  “mood board” class with Holly, Leslie Shewring, and Betsy Burnham.

Holly walked us through how she makes a mood board for a space, and all I could think was “I need to make a wedding mood board!”  :)

Leslie shared some great ideas about making mini mood-board notebooks, but I was a bit distracted by her outfit, which I totally loved.  I seriously want to re-create this look for myself this fall.

We sipped lemonade through paper straws and ate delicious cupcakes during the event, but please note that it is NOT a good idea to eat a chocolate cupcake at an event where you’re meeting people for the first time! Totally messy. :)

Following the class, we lined up to meet Holly and get our copies of Decorate signed.  Unexpectedly, I was totally nervous when it was my time to say hello to Holly!  I wanted to tell her how much the BYW course inspired me – because I took it at such a pivotal moment in my blogging life, but I didn’t want to gush and sound like some psychotic fan.  So I think I just ended up sounding a bit dorky and reserved and . . . well, like the awkward person that I am!

We did get a chance to have our photo taken with Holly for posterity. :)  Clockwise, from top left:  Kelly, Kalani, Holly, and me.

Now I don’t shop at Anthropologie, but I must say that they have an incredible knack for design.  This was my first time in one of their stores – and holy cow, what a pretty and inspiring space.

After the signing Kelly, Kalani and I went to dinner and talked about everything from life and engagements (Kalani got engaged the same time I did!) to blogging and starting and running your own business, along with a little discussion of quitting your day job to pursue your dream.

I always come away from real-life meetups with bloggers feeling more inspired and focused than ever before.

As for the book Decorate?  It’s fan-freakin’-tastic.  It’s an enormous book, and I’m only part of the way through it, but it’s filled with great tips, beautiful spaces, and written in Holly’s tone that I’ve come to know and love from her blog and BYW.  If you only buy one decorating book this year, I’d highly recommend you buy Decorate.

Holly Becker et al did not compensate me for this post.  All opinions and excitement are my own. :)