Oh my goodness! I cannot wait to tell you all about The Blissful Experience! This retreat was a dream of mine for years and now that is has happened and it’s over, I want to share all of the details with you.
Let’s start with what The Blissful Experience is. It’s a 4-day, all inclusive retreat for home stagers and interior design focused creatives to help attendees design the business and life they want. I created The Blissful Experience out of something I wanted for myself when I was early on in my business. I have been so blessed by the most amazing retreat experiences in my own life and business journey and I know how powerful the right experience can be. I wanted to create a space full of community, learning and fun for creative business owners with a home design focus.
"The Blissful Experience is a 4-day all inclusive retreat for home stagers and interior design focused creatives to help attendees design the business and life they want."
I was so lucky to have the most amazing attendees and speakers at my first retreat. These women who attended were open and excited to be there. They shared their journeys and they took time out of their lives and their business to be there and I am so grateful. My speakers shared amazing and helpful content and really gave of themselves to advise and teach and share their knowledge and wisdom.
The attendees were greeted with the most beautiful welcome gifts when they got to their rooms. Blue Indigo Creations helped me curate the most beautiful items to gift to the ladies. We included pillow spray and lip whip from Among the Flowers, cookies from Oliver Baking Company and labradorite bracelets from Lenny & Eva to help the women achieve their dreams and a notebook and pen set, which is a must for any retreat setting for all of the note taking. I wasn’t mad there was one extra one that I kept for myself. 🙂
What I think is so incredible is that this community was born out of Instagram. All of attendees found me and decided to come after finding me on Instagram, which I think is amazing. And Public Three Eleven were there as speakers because I found them on Instagram and thought they were amazing and that they would have so much to share and teach the women who were attending about styling and about using Instagram. And I was so right!! They were awesome and they had so much to share about Instagram and curating a feed. They were the sweetest and were so willing to help answer questions and share their expertise. And now we aren’t just friends on Instagram, but we are friends in real life too. I juts love Instagram!
"What I think is so incredible is that this community was born out of instagram."
On Sunday evening, we had a welcome dinner and spent that time getting to know each other. It was the best feeling to hear the women talking and laughing and connecting. We had such a great group and it really felt like there was an immediate bond.
On Monday morning, we did yoga together in the backyard. It was a lot of fun and even the women who had never done it really enjoyed it. It felt like the best way to start off our first full day together. Once we had breakfast from Picket Fence Pastries, we got our learning sessions started. We chatted about business and brand strategy, Instagram curation, pricing and systems and processes. There was so much to pack in and I had so much that I wanted to share with the attendees. I felt like I could have kept talking forever and forever.
But don’t worry, I didn’t talk forever! And instead, we spent our afternoon with a hands-on styling session – working on styling open shelves, coffee tables, consoles and bathroom counters. We brought accessories from our staging inventory and bought some new pieces specifically for this retreat with this session in mind. It was so much fun to see everyone using their creativity and infusing their own style into the styling.
After a dinner out at one of my favorite restaurants in Old Town Scottsdale and a good night’s sleep, we got started with our full second day. We continued on with our sessions and chatted about pricing, getting more clients and creating balance. Katy from The Tidy Cottage shared about how to organize your life to support your business. It was such a great session and really helped the attendees to understand how you can set up systems in their homes and lives, so that they have the time needed to focus on their businesses. I am so thankful that Katy was there as a speaker and also as my Chief Happiness Officer. She’s the best
After lunch and some free time, we headed over to one of our remodeled and staged projects and learned all about interior photography from Rennai Hoefer, who takes majority of my interior photos. We also toured one of our projects in progress and we talked about space planning. We also took some group photos and the attendees received head shots. It was important for me that the women walked away with photos that they could use for their own social media pages and websites, so we made sure that we included head shots, as well as photos of them styling as well.
Our last night together was full of fun, so much laughter and sharing freely of our knowledge with each other. It was a night I won’t forget and I am so grateful for the experiences that I shared with these wonderful ladies.
If you would like to get on the interest list for The Blissful Experience 2020, head to our retreat page here.
read comments or leave a comment...