food network

This is part of my senior project I have been working on. It's designed to be a corporate headquarters here in Salt Lake for Food Network. Enjoy!

the time where i had no time

Let me do some explaining...

yes, I realize it has been MONTHS since I have blogged. I want to apologize to all my faithful readers ( I always knew I could count on you mom), for the lack of great stories, magical moments, and treasured memories. Let's go deeper into why this 'lack' has occured:

1. School. Who knew senior year would be the most busy of all 4 years here at Utah State. not this girl.

2. I am lucky enough to have 2, count them 2, jobs. Both have to do with teaching, my new found love in life. I teach 2 modern dance classes and am the UTF for an interior design class.

3. Also, lucky for me I happen to be the Interior Design ASID President here on campus. This means I get to plan meetings, events, and do paperwork. Holler.

4. Another lucky moment, I happen to be the Student Rep. to the Board for ASID. This means I am in charge of all design program students in 4 states, along with meetings, phone calls, and planning events.

5. I am on USU's dance company, Full Circle. This means I have practice 4 times a week and performances periodically. If you haven't checked us out do it.

6. Not only am I on the team, I happen to be the public relations officer, meaning I get to do posters, and fliers, and announcing.

7. Also, it seems as though I have broken into the freelance market of graphic design and interior design, creating much needed real experience.

8. Church, no it's not a bad time waster, but it still has to be thrown in there for dramatic effect.

9. Dating. It didn't exist before, it definitely doesn't exist now.

And there you have it, that's been my life the past 4 months. I honestly am so blessed to be put into all these positions and have all of these amazing opportunities. I cherish the people I work with in all capacities so much. My life may be extremely busy but it's also filled with the most joy I have ever had.

So it's been called to my attention that I graduate in less than 6 months. Yes this causes an instant heart attack. I have always been in school, and probably always will be. I love it far to much. If it wasn't expensive I think i would stay forever. I think I inherited this from my father. This brings a lot of anxiety, but also a lot of hope. I have the world before me, and I can't seem to take that step forward into starting out the rest of my life. That step is going to leave a huge mark on my life path. Here are my options:

1. I have thought so much lately about going on a mission. I had an incredible answer to a prayer, only 2 years too late. I've always found answers through hymns. It even mentions that in my patriarchal blessing. It actually mentions many things related to missionary work.

Anyway, the story goes, one morning at relief society in my parents ward we had a lesson on the priesthood. My mom was in the nursery so I was sitting by myself. As we begin to sing the closing song, my throat closes up, my eyes begin to tear uncontrollably, and I can't even sign. The song- Called to serve. How many millions of times have I sung that song... but for some reason it hit me really hard and heavenly father told me that i need to go. As I am uncontrollably crying... I run into mom who asks me, naturally, what was wrong. I reply nothing bad, let's talk later. We get home and mom needs to know. I start crying and say it's not a bad thing. Her response was immediately, " you want to go on a mission." I have had several more experiences where people just randomly say when are you going on a mission, or are you going on a mission. It's such a hard decision to make due the fact that I'm a baby.

2. I can get a job in SLC and live and work and be happy.

3. I can get a job anywhere in the world, make money, gain experience, and miss my family like crazy.

4. I can go back to school and get a masters so I can teach at the university.

5. I can take a test to be a teacher at the new high school in Draper and also coach dance.

TOO MANY CHOICES! Isn't life supposed to be easy? Oh, oh yeah, that's right. I almost feel lost, but it's not lost. Its so hard for me to believe that I am at this stage in my life. As a little girl, I imagined myself going to college and being a teacher. I think that's where my true passions really meet. As for now, here I am writing a blog, while I should be sleeping or doing homework so I can graduate. Story of my OCD life.

finalized

Many of you know that I had the opportunity to design and plan a salon this summer. Amber Reid has cut my hair for years now, and when she asked me to help her make her dreams come true and design her salon, I had to say yes. There are many things that I learned while in the process of this project. Floorplans and space planning take the majority of the time. The most important thing I learned was that your clients make all the difference. Amber, John, and the entire Reid family were so willing to listen to my ideas and ask me for my advice. They worked day and night for months and months, and now I am pleased to present you with

Amber Rene Salon...

kwid goodbye

last day of the internship. so many great memories and things learned. i will miss it much.

...the rest of my days

My last week in California started out with a 4th of July weekend... Whitney and I headed for Long Beach. We went to the Aquarium of the Pacific, which turned out to be a really cool place to be on the holiday. They had a lovely barbecue on the front lawn full of all the usual holiday favorites. I touched all sorts of crazy sea creatures and saw all kinds of new things. When it became dark, we watched the fireworks off the Queen Mary in the harbor. Truly patriotic. It was a joyous time.

On our holiday off of work, we took a day easy and wandered around down town LA. We came upon this little treat, Olvera Street, an old Mexican market. We wandered around in the blazing heat and naturally, ate a churo.

We continued our travels to Angels Flight which is an old rail car system that pulleys two cars opposite each other up a hill. Pretty magical, especially after discovering that in 2001 there was a fatal crash and it just recently opened again.

On my last night, the girls and I went out to eat in true Hollywood fashion. Whitney discovered this little place called ketchup... hence the red lights. It was fancy! They had all sorts of ketchup... chocolate ketchup... mango ketchup... banana ketchup.... interesting, yet delicious. It was good to spend time with them before we all parted our California dreaming.

Nice look after a long day at work. Oh boy.

i live the high life

Occasionally one gets to attend a party...

After work one day Kelly took us to a dinner party with the whole company.

We had great food and soaked in the ambiance of the hotel poolside while dancing to our personal DJ.

Did I mention, she re-designed it?

Best part was everyone repeatedly asking me why I don't drink and then replying... "good for you!" in an extremely sincere way.

It was a good night.

um... I love being awkwardly close in photos.

california...

As you can clearly see, time in California came and went. When six weeks hit my two roommates

peaced out to get married and be with their husbands. Lucky for me I got to stay for another

two weeks. At 6 weeks, I wasn't ready to be done. I still felt that I had so much to learn and see

in California. I had nothing super exciting to get back to and as much as I missed my family, I knew that this experience was once in a lifetime.

I gained a lifetime of knowledge about the design world, and myself in only a two month period. I guess sometimes when life gets monotonous it takes getting out of your comfort zone to really

understand what life is about. I discovered that design truly is my passion, that I have a deep love for Salt Lake City, and that the gospel is true everywhere you go.

As much as I loved being at Kelly Wearstler Inc. there came a time to leave. After a flat tire one

day and an earthquake the next, I was ready to be home.

I want to take a moment to thank everyone who made this happen for me. From my professors

who 'forced' us to do it, to Kelly for loving my portfolio, to Jess and Stacy for finding me a

home to live in, and especially my parents. They have always been so understanding of my wants and continually try their best to make my dreams come true. I am so lucky and so grateful to have them be mine.

Here is a quick recap of the last few weeks in California:

I went to the HOLLYHOCK HOUSE by Frank Lloyd Wright. It was magical. His architecture and design will ever inspire me.

Went to the Chinese Theater:

My Mom and Aunt Donna came... and we went to DISNEYLAND:

I am so proud of her.

We also went to Universal Studios and we had "Preferred" passes that made us feel special:

The Grinch Set

The Los Angeles Zoo with Amy and Whitney:

This Koala was named Kylee... awwww

...and I love being a kid. It even came with animal crackers.... clever.

Went to a movie at Hollywood Forever Cemetery:

Then bowling at Lucky Strike... Super fancy

Finished up the weekend with some beach time at Malibu:

week 8: kelly wearstler

My last week in Los Angeles started out with a day off due to the holiday. The rest of the week I finished up on the usual things. I finished working on my jewelry sketches and paintings. I finished working on some shop drawings for the hotels. I finished some photoshopped elevations. I finished up with a greater knowledge of how an Interior design office works. I finished with a greater understanding of how much work goes into a single project. I finished knowing that what I had learned was invaluable and the experiences I had were life changing. I am so grateful to have been a team member at Kelly Wearstler. I have learned so much, even if I wasn’t extremely involved in every aspect of the design process. This experience will be a part of me forever. Back to Utah!

week 7: kelly wearstler

Another week, come and gone, time goes by so fast when you are busy. This week I was able to work with the product department again with making jewelry sketches and paintings. We all know this is not my forte, and I was really nervous to hand things over to them, embarrassed moreover. They loved everything and had me keep doing pieces, and more pieces, and more pieces. Besides doing jewelry I worked on the usual Pos and errands, but I also worked on a FFE schedule, I fixed some CAD shop drawings, had a really long detailed meeting with Kelly, completed a flooring plan, and did some Photoshop elevations. Busy, busy week!

week 6: kelly wearstler

Sixth weeks have come and gone, and I am continually keeping busy for the most part. This week started out with a lighting schedule, Pos, pricing, and the usual errands. This week ended with painting for the product department. In between we had CBS come and film in the office a spotlight on Kelly and how the office works. It was definitely eventful and insightful into how things are filmed and what goes along with that. The best part of this week was getting stuck doing sketches, sigh, but being told that I had a great hand. I guess hundreds of European sketches paid off.

a few things i have learned...

After being on this internship for 6 weeks I have learned a few things about work....California... and more importantly myself. Here they are:

WORK

It is impossible to work as a designer without these things.. in order of importance

1. Post-its

2. A phone

3. A computer that contains Photoshop, AutoCAD, and Excel

4. A Scanner/copier/printer... nothing would get done around here without it

5. Hundreds and Hundreds of samples

CALIFORNIA

1. Roads are extremely confusing and drivers are worse than you can even imagine, you can ask me later how damaged my car really is, for example... yesterday I was sitting in my car parked when a guy decided to parallel park.... into my car. Lovely.

2. It's not what it looks like in the movies... We are currently involved in June Gloom, which is just how it sounds. No sunshine.

3. People express themselves in all sorts of ways... no clothes, hundreds of clothes, crazy outfits, dressing dogs in outfits, and my favorite... the homeless lady who was in the turning lane... with her shopping cart.

4. Everyone here has a dog, even their dogs have dogs. One prime example, we got home from work and 6, I repeat 6, dogs were behind our gate. How that happened I will never really know. I sure do love those cuddly critters though.

5. Traffic is by far the least appealing thing thing about California. I live 15 miles away from work and it consecutively takes 45 minutes to get to work everyday. Not only is it bad in the morning, it continually gets worse during the day... even at midnight. Oh technology, how you have changed our world.

MYSELF

1. Traffic can be handled by two things... shuffle on my ipod and orange juice. That is the cure for all things.

2. I can survive without having a bath every week.

3. It really is a huge problem when my toe nails aren't painted.

4. I get really excited when I can cross things off my list... I love lists... and post its. (You can even ask my roommates how severe this list thing is, and no I'm not crazy, I just like to be organized).

5. I miss my family more than I ever thought I would. I miss my dog. My home. The mountains. and the comfort of my own bed. Not too much longer Salt Lake, I will be home. You will ever remain the most beautiful city to me.

week 5: kelly wearstler

Wow. It’s already week 5. I feel like I am starting to get how the office runs and what is expected of me. I am making personal phone calls with the designers about my tasks, and I feel like part of the team. This week I worked mostly on shop drawings for custom vanities, tables, and beds. It was interesting to learn how they set things up and what details are necessary for a piece to be built. I also ran errands to pick out hardware, fabric, and drop of checks. After designing some doors for a beach house, Kelly picked a few and I put them in CAD to price out for the client. It’s fun to know that one of my designs will be the front door for a celebrity beach house. On a more interesting note, I had to translate foreign design magazines and search for the vendors in the photos. After many hours of searching I had to call and request catalogs. Needless to say it was an adventure and I figured out all of them but one. Been a busy week!

kelly week 4

It seems as though the weeks are just flying by now. I have gotten a feel for the office and how work is done at Kelly Wearstler Inc. This week I was kept really busy. The beginning of the week I rendered a railing for our Seattle client, found and printer lots of CAD drawings, space planned a room for the Kuwait Palace. I also ran to pick up a custom made jacket that is being made for Burberry’s 75^th Anniversary. Keep your eyes posted for pictures of that soon. The next 1,000 hours were filled with endless POs and Pricing. I guess I am the go to girl for Pos. Friday was filled with everyone running to my desk and asking me to do their work. I priced and printed information for three projects which took a long time to call, file information, and print for client presentation. All while doing that I had to fix all the bathroom elevations for a residence here in LA. As much as I was stressed, I loved what I was doing and being busy. That’s how you know you love what you’re doing I suppose.

museum lovin'

Friday June 4th: We got work off early and headed to the mall. Jess had to return some things and I sat around while she shopped for some shoes. We all know how much I love shopping. After that we came home and took a nap so that we could have a longer evening out. Kait got home and then we headed to the Grove for Cheesecake Factory (oooh, my fav). Naturally the wait was long, so we shopped around for a minute. Outside the restaurant we ran into Jonah Hill, famous for naughty movies, and we thought we would ask him for a photo. He completely snubbed us, so we went and had a delicious meal anyway. Red velvet cheesecake you are my love. After dinner we were all extremely full and wanted to just walk around and go home. Night complete.Saturday June 5th: Not such a good morning. I was feeling really sick

and spent most of my time laying down or in the bathroom. The girls decided to go to the beach, I decided that was a bad idea. So I hung around the house, started feeling better, and decided to go MUSEUMING! I sure do love learning things. Yes, I am a dork and went by myself exploring LA. Here are the following things I visited:

Frank Lloyd Wright's Ennis house (pure beauty)

Page Museum (Fossils and such)

Tar Pits

Griffith Observatory
Pacific Design Center Museum of Contemporary Art

(intriguing display on the architectural foundations of Las Vegas)
Los Angeles County Museum of Art

After all of these learning places, I met up with Jess and Kait to go to dinner and a movie at the Americana, a beautiful outdoor mall with a great night atmosphere. We ate yummy crepes. Reminds me of Europe. Ah.... my life is bliss.

week 3: kelly wearstler

It has been another relaxing weekend here in California. This week we’ve been working on more of the same things, errands downtown and POs. The head designer LeAnn told us that we would learn the most important lesson, which consisted of making sure cabinets didn’t hit expensive lights that were already ordered. I also did some renderings for the office elevations I had been working on. I also created some presentation floorplans for a new project, to send to Kelly. The last and best thing we did was shop for furniture for a new apartment complex. I loved looking at funky furniture and picking things out for Kelly. Hopefully she will love the things we picked out.

visitor

work: week two

Time is starting to fly by. I was much busier this week, because all the designers were back. They have given me more responsibility as time goes on. The start of this week we put some boards together for the Kuwait Palace, and were to work with Kelly to create some "vibe" boards. The main designer I work with is Leana, and she has had me do a custom cabinet in CAD. Her response when I finished was...."cute!" That was awkward, who knew a cabinet drawing could be cute? I also worked on tile patterns, an office elevation, a celebrity's door design (secret, secret, but she is a BIG one), invoices, POs, vendor runs, client drop offs, and we got to go to some really cool stores and look at antiques. This stuff would never be found in Utah. :( (Sorry Dad, it's inevitable that I get out of beloved SLC). Check it out-JF Chen.

I am loving this experience and figuring out my own style and ways of working. I love all the designers and learning from them.

finally here

Sorry this blog has taken so long to form, just been too busy and tired from this new California life. Well, we arrived here in Glendale, just north of downtown to a complete foreign world. We had no idea where to get gas, or groceries, or anything. Luckily we had Mandy. Mandy is our trusty GPS. We can't go anywhere without her. Our apartment is behind an old craftsman house, and is just perfect for what we need. Pictures to follow.

We are snug, but happy. We started work and I couldn't believe how beautiful the office was. Marble and brass everywhere. It's really pretty and everyone is really nice. The week went slow, mainly due to the fact that Kelly wasn't around. As everyone should know, I idolize her and was kinda sad we didn't meet her. Needless to say, the change was a big one, we have our own intern stations, and we basically do whatever the designers tell us to. It's mostly been running errands and filing. We did finally get to meet Kelly and I was so nervous. She is such a tiny little powerhouse, but her voice was so high and dainty. She is super down to earth and FASHION. But I am learning a lot and getting more and more excited to do this one day on my own.

The weekend went well, we went to GLEE live, the Hollywood Walk of Fame, a farmer's market, Universal City, and to Hard Rock.

Glee was so fun. I jammed out to all the songs and it was worth every penny. Loved it.

The postings on this blog are short, sweet, and random due to crappy internet. Surry... Let's hope for better next time. For now refer to facebook.

los angeles

yes. it is true. i am moving to LA LA Land. I know repetition is real annoying, but I am the luckiest girl in the world. I have been given the life changing opportunity to internship at one of the top designers in the world....Kelly Wearstler. I love her fresh funky contemporary style and am honored to be able to work with her. Although I won't be getting paid, I will be earning the experiences of real design that are invaluable.

Here's how the rundown goes. I have loved Kelly from the beginning of my time as a designer. When confronted about which designer to internship with my heart went directly to Kelly. After months of grueling portfolio putting together, it was done and I was ready to send it to Los Angeles. The next month would be the hardest time waiting, and waiting, and waiting. I had called to check back and she told me to call back in 3 weeks. Yeah, 3 weeks! I patiently awaited my fate only to have to call back with another week of dissapointment. I headed to St. George with my family and went to my favorite cafe, 25 main. I walked down to this store I love and noticed I had missed a call. Yes, it was her....Kelly Wearstler Inc. on my screen. I called back and recieved the great news. Jen, the office manager, was lovely and I couldn't be more excited for this opportunity. I will report (sounds like a mission) May 17 and stay for 2 months working full time. Keep posted for this upcoming adventure!