fabric friday: 07-29-11: Arc|Com NeoCon Showroom

Arc|Com is one of my favorite fabric vendors to use at work. They recently posted some pictures of their showroom in Chicago for NeoCon on their Facebook page. Just wanted to share the goodness!

I love how they displayed the fabrics!

Beautiful fabrics!

View from outside the showroom.

Love this!

Beautiful fabrics and beautiful showroom, as always! Wish I could have attended the show, but thanks to Arc|Com for sharing pictures of the space!!


Pictures from Arc|Com: Shutterfly

The Joys of Chicago

Can i just say i LOVE Chicago? it is by far my favorite big city [ok, i've only been to Washington D.C., Baltimore, Toronto [but only saw the airport], and Pittsburgh...if those are even considered "big cities"].

Our Sunday flights from Erie to Detroit to Chicago went without a hitch. We got into Chicago about 10 i believe [that'd be 11am Erie/Pitts time]. We got to our amazing hotel, i took a short nap, and we went to an absolutely insanely awesome place around the corner for lunch owned by The Cheesecake Factory - Grand Lux Café. The decor was awesome, let alone the delicious food. We had two appetizers, AJ got soup, and Dory & I had awesome entrées. We split the New Orleans Beignets for dessert...absolutely amazing. When we left the café, it starting pouring insanely, so we waited it out. I guess a bunch of flights were grounded going to Chicago, so we heard a lot of horror stories about waiting for flights and delays and missing luggage. We were so lucky to have left earlier!!!

Sunday afternoon we changed and went to the Merchandise Mart for a dealers-only showing of the Knoll Showroom. They had expanded from last year, and it was awesome! I took way too many pictures.

Sunday night we had a party at Shaw's Crab House for Spec Furniture, then went over to Hotel 71 for a party for Versteel in the Penthouse.

Monday morning was the Knoll Dealers' breakfast, where they unveiled some new things and gave us an overview of what's going on with the company. Then we headed back to the mart to visit some more showrooms [Nucraft, OFS/First Office/Carolina, Sit on It and Inscape].

Monday night we went to Fulton's On The River for a Sit On It party, then to Carmine's for dinner. It was soooo tasty, but i could barely eat all my food.

Tuesday morning our flight left at 10:10 from Chicago. Our Detroit-to-Erie flight was a little irritating...overbooked...boarding late...they filled up the fuel tanks too much for the Erie airport so we had to sit off to the side on the runway for about 45 minutes...turbulance sucked, i was at the back of the plane, i was tired & nauseas...but we got back to Erie at 315, safe and sound and tired...

I have a bazillion pictures, and you can check out my favorite...300...here. but here are some of my best of the best:

Grand Lux Café

Limencello Lemonade & White Sangria - Grand Lux Café

New Knoll Fabrics - Luxe Collection

More Knoll Fabrics

Knoll Showroom - Graham Collection

Knoll Stools

New Loewenstein Collection

Inscape Showroom - Conference Room

Knoll Fabrics & Ottomans

Chicago!

Nucraft - Neos Collection

baby shower cupcakes!

Tuesday we [girls in my church youth group] were supposed to have a surprise baby shower for Jen - a youth leader at our church. Unfortunately, she ended up finding out, but we still had a fun time.

The cupcakes were well received all around...presentation-wise. Other reactions were varied. Some people loved the cupcakes in their entirety. Some people hated them top, bottom and center. Other's just liked the cake part [lemon with raspberry jam filling]. And still some only liked the frosting [lemon-cream cheese frosting]. Personally, i thought they were great, as did most people, so I'm mostly happy about the results.

For the frosting, I pretty much went off the top of my head, and looking back - should have used less butter and cream cheese and more confectioner's sugar. I also threw in both vanilla AND lemon juice - you may think this is gross, but really, you couldn't tell, it just didn't allow for a very lemony taste [the cake was lemony enough though, so this didn't really matter]. The frosting was QUITE cream-cheesey...as for me, I like that.

Oh, and thanks for reminding me, Martina! The baby on the top idea came from Big Red Kitchen's baby shower cupcakes. I melted white chocolate and added pink & blue food coloring [separate, because she hasn't told ANYONE - including her husband - what gender the baby is]. I was going to do plain white baby's on top as well, but then I burned it...anyway, I melted it and for the pink chocolate I used this handy thing my sister got me...but it involved "sucking" up the chocolate which became too difficult and annoying. The blue chocolate I used a piping bag and small tip, and squeezed out the cursive baby! It was slightly difficult...then I stuck them in the freezer to harden right away to make sure it was going to work.

Also - thank you mother! for emailing me a link to this section of RecipeZaar. 788 cupcake recipes?! also, you can post your own cuppie pictures HERE!

Tonight I'm getting my hair done, tomorrow is META CAFE, Saturday I have a bridal shower, and Sunday we leave for CHICAGO!!

CHiCAGO

the days until NEOCON in Chicago are winding down...and preparations are being made! one preparation on my end was the purchase of this new camera. it wasn't just for Neocon, of course, also for my personal enjoyment and ability to take great pictures of my new found cupcake-making joy...

here are some samples i took after i bought it:

other preparations for Chicago include hotel & flight reservations and RSVP'ing to lots of events...here's what our schedule looks like so far:

Sunday:

• EARLY morning departure from Erie, layover somewhere, arrive in Chicago b/w 900am-10am
• Get settled, do some sight seeing, hopefully napping, having an awesome lunch somewhere, and getting ready for
• Knoll Dealers private showroom tour [my guess is this is a 430pm start time]
• Versteel cocktail party [in some hotel penthouse!] 530pm-700pm
  
• SPEC party - 700pm-900pm
  

Monday:

• Knoll Dealer breakfast [ugh, like 730am]
• 1100am Showroom tours w/ our KMA Reps
• Wander the Merchandise Mart
• Loewenstein cocktail party - 330pm [giving away iphones and nano's!]
  
• OFS / First Office / Carolina Showroom Grand Opening / cocktail party - 400pm
• Versteel cocktail party [yeah, another one...] - 400pm
• Sit On It cocktail party - 430pm @ Fulton's On the River
• Office Specialty cocktail party - 500pm [giving away macbook air's!]
• Nice dinner somewhere and hopefully hanging out with more of the KMA Reps

Tuesday:

• leave. at some point. get home around 300pm.
  

...lots of fun! i'm so excited :)

oh my gosh!!

i forgot the most exciting news of all! looks like my boss, his wife & i are going to NEOCON again! NeoCon is a Trade Show for Designers, Architects, Furniture Enthusiasts, and anyone else in the industries that fall in between. it's located in Chicago on June 9-11. last time, we left Sunday morning from Erie, drove to Cleveland, and flew from there to Chicago and returned Tuesday. We stayed at the University Club in Chicago, which was awesome. I had my own room, in which my bed was so big i almost had to get a running start and jump to get on top of it. i don't know if we are staying there again, but i don't care, i'm SO EXCITED!!!!!!

i'd post pics from the last trip, but i don't know where they are. this year Knoll is celebrating 70 years in the industry. hopefully this means for an amazing showroom, lots of cool new products and unveiling's, and lots of celebrating... last year [we didn't go], Knoll won "Best of Neocon 2007" which is really neat. Knoll is our main furniture line. they sell contract furniture [panel systems, work stations, private offices] as well as seating, conference furniture and some residential furniture.