Happy (Comfy) Weekend

I just have to say thank you a million times over to my fabulous readers this week. For your support in the launch of the new coco+kelley design site and your daily birthday wishes!
I'll be spending the weekend cozying up the house and putting final touches on the living room and bedroom for a photo shoot (eeeks!), and I thought this quote from Lonny Magazine was a perfect way to end the week - after all, what good is a home if it's not livable?

And, I promised to announce the two lucky readers for the birthday giveaways this week, so here we go!

The winner of the kaarsKoker candlesticks and sleeves is: Paula over at {two ellie} (such a cute blog, by the way!) And, the winner of a personalized invitation design from Dana Cordova is: M&C - fellow Seattleites working on building their first home over at Four Twenty Four! Love that!

AND, don't forget - you can still get 20% off at the kaarsKoker website through the holidays with the code COCOK, so if you didn't win, I suggest popping over and snagging a pair of candlesticks and sleeves for yourself!

Have a fabulous weekend all!

short hair

The real definition of short hair would imply chin length tresses or shorter. Some examples of the hottest short hairstyles are the pixie, crop and ever famous bob. Anything reaching to the shoulders and slightly beyond would fall into the medium hairstyle category. When it comes to a woman with short hair, she is incredibly lucky if a short hairstyle suits her. Why? Because not every face can pull it off. The size and shape of a face and body plays an enormous part in ones hairstyle and let’s face it, the shorter the hair, the more to expose. Once pulled off successfully, short hair is clean, sharp, mature and extremely sexy on many women,

Very Short Hair Styles

Enjoying her drink Maria Ozawa received a call from her men seeking single girlfriend Jessica who owns one of the beautiful, elegant, very short celebrity hairstyles which shine as sassy as the teeth shine after a treatment with a professional teeth whitening gel for cosmetic dental care.

short hair cuts of

Driving home Evelin wondered if she could improve her life by styling herself with one of the new, modern and mostly short hair cuts of Jessica Alba who appeared to be Evelin's most respected Hollywood actress.

About this hair style

Actress and Laguna Beach reality TV star Kristin Cavallari has short, straight hair in a side-parted, layered, eye-concealing shaggy bob style with a fringe, or bangs. Her hair color is brown and blonde.

Short Hairstyles

For sexy short hair styles, try the messy prom style. Use styling cream, comb your hair forward diagonally and spray up random parts - very much like popular boy styles. Have a look at latest hairstyles for 2008.

Happy {Haunting} Weekend

I hope everyone has a Halloween weekend filled with more treats than tricks!

images via anna lilja, dust jacket attic, brooklyn limestone, ruven afanador

Just be sure to watch out for what goes bump in the night!

Update: Thanks so much to everyone who entered to win the Wiley Valentine card giveaway. It makes me so happy to see that the love of traditional snail-mail is still alive and well. All card markers take heart!

And, the winner of the Wiley Valentine card grab bag is: Clare Howell of Eyes Wide Open. Congrats Clare! Email apt34blog {at} gmail {dot} com with your full address and we will send you your prize.

Happy Halloween luvies!

Trick or Treat?

I'll take the treats...
Forget black cats and witches - I want to dress up in layers of black lace and tulle! Not to mention sparkling diamonds and... The most perfect shade of red nail polish.
Happy (almost) Halloween my dears... make it fabulous.

*photography by jonas bresnan for elle germany

You're Invited (To Another Birthday Giveaway!)

After four days of birthday celebrating, I've decided I'm just not quite done yet! So, I asked the talented Dana Cordova to craft an invitation worthy of the party we would be having tonight, if I could invite you all...
I couldn't have asked for a more perfectly swanky, modern design - how fantastic are these colors? I absolutely love it!!

Dana's design process makes it so easy because she takes the style you choose from her shop, adds the text, personalizes the colors and fonts if necessary, sends up to two revisions, and then - instead of having to wait and wait for the printing - she sends you the PDF's all ready to go. I personally love that because I have great printers in Seattle that I trust to get the job done well. Not to mention, you can print them off yourself to save on a budget!
And, since we all have many occasions to celebrate, Dana is giving away one free design to one lucky reader!! All you need to do is visit Dana’s invitation shop, pick out any template design, and leave a comment back here letting us know what you'd use it for! (Yes, you can pick a 'wedding' invitation and use it for a party - there are no rules!) Cheers, darlings!

Room of the Week 10.29

In a nod to Halloween and fall, I had to choose this space for my Room of the Week...
How adorable is that little pumpkin? I love the contrast of the amber lamps against those pale sky blue walls. The palette in this room is so soothing to me and it has just the right dose of pattern in different scales. I would love that rug for my own living room. In fact, the style is quite similar to my own, but this space is even more fresh and light - I love!

*source unknown - anyone recognize the designer?

Tag It and Bag It

I love the little details in life. A well-placed stack of magazines, a throw tossed over a chair just so, or the perfect ribbon to top off a well-wrapped package make all the difference in the world.

I think the holidays must be on my mind because great gift tags are catching my eye today.

Like these sweet little numbers from Faded Plains would be great to mark a birthday or anniversary.

I would love to tie these gorgeous zinc cards from Un Esprit en Plus on a fall buffet as food labels. 

Adding a personal note never looked so good than with custom card from Duet Letterpress that attach with a mini-clothespin!

But of course a picture is worth a thousand words as these tags by Sara Norris illustrate so beautifully. 

spotted on simple song and simply grove

Hope you're able to enjoy some fun details today!

Party On!

I'm off for the evening to celebrate my birthday for the... 4th night in a row? Yes, I know. I'm ridiculously good at dragging this whole thing out.
And for those of you who are officially confused, the magic day was the 26th, but my lovely friends and boy have put together an evening out for me tonight, so I'm putting on my sequins and heading out the door! I'm sure to have some photos to share tomorrow, but don't be surprised if they don't make it up until late in the day... I plan on sleeping in!

*photography via sarah kaye

It's My Party And I'll Wear What I Want To!

As far as I'm concerned, birthdays are the one special occasion that require you to party like the rock star you are. You're not dressing for anyone but yourself, so why not go all out? This year, I'm going a little Hollywood with my dream look...
While, I'll no doubt be putting on my usual black for this evening's festivities (which are a complete surprise by the way!), if I were headed out on the town with my girls to drink champagne, you know I'd be all over this insane ensemble.

*dress by paul&joe, ring by at asha at vivre, pink louboutins at barneys, earrings by kenneth jay lane, and clutch by popeye minaudiere

Wedding Wednesday {Giveaway}

To celebrate the completion of a major wedding planning milestone - sending out our save the date announcements, we have a great giveaway for you - a grab bag of amazing greeting cards by Wiley Valentine.

Wiley Valentine creates wedding invitations, stationary, note cards and all things us paper addicts adore. They are generously offering Apt#34 readers a card grab bag that includes flat and letterpress greetings and their environmentally friendly seed cards.

This is a card lover's dream prize people!

To enter, visit Wiley Valentine, peruse their lovely cards and then leave a comment here letting us know which one is your fave. A winner will be chosen at random at noon on Friday, Oct. 30 and notified via email.

Bonus: If you follow Apt#34 on twitter and tweet (or retweet) this giveaway you'll get an extra five entires.

In the meantime head to Wiley Valentine's blog for great wedding inspiration here. 

Good luck!

Every Queen Needs Her Throne...

I promised more highlights from High Point, so I finally pulled my photos together to separate them out an discovered that I am apparently addicted to chairs at the moment (yes, you can add these all to the birthday wishlist)...
My living room could use a lovely little side chair. Something a bit more petite, but that still makes a statement. This gorgeous classic piece by Alexa Hampton for Hickory Chair would be an amazing option... I especially loved the detail in the back. And, because they'll do just about any fabric and any finish at HC, I'd get it done in a rich velvety signature green. YUM.
Of course, since many queens also have to think about their kings, perhaps I'd go with something to appease both of us. The chair on the left from Pearson is a perfect example - the tweed fabric and dark finish appeal to the other sex while the beautiful lines and smaller size appeal to moi. I also adored the lines of the chair on the right (also part of Alexa Hampton's collection for Hickory Chair). The way the wood curves through the side and back is nothing short of amazing. As Alexa informed us, it took many trials to get it just right - I'd say they aced it! (PS - I'll also take the bench just as it is, please!)
However, out of all the chairs in the showrooms, this little slipper chair by the adorable and gracious Suzanne Kasler (again for Hickory Chair) stole all of our hearts. And, since I've just added a bit of orange to my living room, this would be perfection. In a warm orange leather, it's the ideal throne for any lady to perch on. As we like to say around here - yes, please and thank you!

Which one would you take?

Wedding Wednesday {Paper}

On Saturday we hit the six month mark until the wedding! Proper wedding etiquette will tell you that destination weddings call for save the date announcements to be sent out at least 6 months in advance. 

Luckily, I love all things related to wedding invitations so I had a blast coming up with ideas and now that they've been sent I get to share the final product with you.

We came up with the idea of using vintage Mexican postcards . Fun, right? But hard to find. Thank gawd for Amazon and replicas!

I'm thrilled to announce that we decided to work with the uberfabulous Brown Sugar Design for our wedding invitations (more on their amazing work in the weeks to come!). 

Brown Sugar gave us the brilliant idea of having a custom stamp made to simplify the save the date process even more. I couldn't be happier with the final product.

The finishing touch was to put each postcard in a brown envelope tied up with string - it reminded me of old airmail packages and gives the recipients something to open.

The announcements should be hitting mailboxes as I type this post so I guess there's no backing out now. ;) 

In celebration of my love of all things paper I'll be featuring an amazing giveaway later today. Be sure to check back - you won't want to miss it!

In the meantime, be sure to check out Brown Sugar Design for more paper inspiration!

White and Gold Jovani Prom Dress

White and gold Jovani prom dress

Jovani Prom Dress 2009

Jovani prom dress 2009 in blue, red and white nuance

Jovani Prom Dress with Full Color Collaboration

Jovani prom dress with full color collaboration

Table for Two: Bohemian Sparkle (And a Giveaway!)

Since my birthday has always fallen close to Halloween, I've grown up with many themed parties - and not always to my delight. But, I've learned to embrace the season and make it my own, which is how I came up with the concept for this tabletop design. I wanted something warm to reflect the fall palette, with a little bit of sparkle for this birthday girl...
Inspired by the fabric overlay (a sample of a gorgeous pattern that used to be available through Schumacher), I pulled the saturated reds, golds and deep chocolate browns into all of the tabletop elements creating a very rich palette! The large dishes are actually a very deep plum from Ikea, the gold decorative dish is from a Japanese shop in our International District, and the napkins I created myself from leftover fabric.
I rummaged through the silver bins at a local antique store to find the mismatched silverware, and once again emplored the use of my kaarsKoker decorative candlestick sleeves to add another layer of pattern that complimented the fabric perfectly! The smokey glass vase was much more ideal than a clear vase in this case.

From the local flower market I picked up some mini calla lillies, chocolate sunflowers, echinacea, and another filler that I'm not sure of, but it's been dyed a vibrant orange for the season.
I had to have a splash of sequins for my birthday table, so I used them to wrap the napkin, and topped it with this cute decorative ribbon out of my stash. Then, evoking a bit more fall, I tucked in the brown velvet leafs to top it all off.

What do you think? Are you ready to try it yourself?? Well, good, because we're going to get you started by giving away a pair of these kaarsKoker candlesticks and sleeves!! You are absolutely going to love the versatility of these pieces. The top of the brass candlesticks twist off so you can switch the sleeves out seasonally - they are simply genius!
All you need to do is pop over to the kaarsKoker website and browse your sleeve options, then let us know which one is calling your name by leaving a comment below (be sure to leave your email as well so we can get in touch with you!). Or, if you're ready to purchase your own pair, use the code COCOK for 20% off at checkout (good through 12/25). kaarsKoker will also be including a pair of 6" ivory tapers with every pair of candlestick purchased through end of year! Can we say excellent hostess gift for the holidays?

The contest will end Friday... and who knows... maybe I'll design my next tabletop around the winner's pick!

A Night On the Town

In prepping for a near and dear's birthday celebration tomorrow evening, I'm working on the answer to every girl's favorite eternal question. What do I wear?

In recessionary times, it often makes the most economic sense to take some basics out of your closet and reinvent them with an accessory or two.

For example, take staples like a simple tank, slacks, blazer and booties, all in a neutral shade... 

look by apiece apart via unruly things

And add some dazzle with a brilliantly jeweled cuff and feathered bag. Suddenly, you're the belle of the ball. 

I'm sure the birthday girl won't mind.

Curiouser and Curiouser

The curiosity style that had jumped to popularity in the last year or two makes for some perfect Halloween inspiration, don't you think?

Vintage medical prints, real and faux bones and skeltons, carved heads, stuffed crows and heavy antiques complete the interiors - a style I was very familiar with back when working at the amazing Empiric in Los Angeles. As for your own style, dark dramatic lipstick and some period inspired dresses, high contrast stripes or delicate folds will do.

*photography by ruven afanador

Perfectly Composed

When I'm feeling a little less than put together I find solace in a fabulously styled inspiration space. 

images via pia ulin, anna lilja and sharyn cairns

Even if it's the smallest of corners, a well-placed pillow, the just-right light and a few of favorite baubles can make all the difference in the world. 

I hope you find a lovely corner to curl up in sometime today.