succulent obsessed.

Hand-made, growing gifts have to be one of my favorites. In the city I have never had a 'real' garden... I SO look forward to the day I do! In the meantime cuttings that I can steal from my parents garden on the commune and then plant in pots are the next best thing. Here are some photos of the process – from garden cuttings to potting. These two pots of succulents (above) I gave as a gift to my birthday-mate Erene and her husband Chris who are working on their SOMA rooftop garden in the heart of San Francisco.


Pulling succulents from the garden is really easy... you can't mess up! Just go to the base of the succulent floret and gently tug, pulling out some dirt and roots as shown here.


Here is the pile of cutting (should be called pullings! ) on my dining room table... my dad painted the cactus painting in the background... we are a succulent obsessed family!
FYI: I loved looking at them so much they lived here on the table for over a week... succulents will do just fine laying out like this for a month or so before they need to be potted or stuck in the ground.




Next I pull off the dead leaves and clean them up a bit before putting them in the pots.


I bought some pots + some potting soil + we are ready to go!
Just fill pots with soil about 3/4 or so full (leaving it fluffy) and start arranging the succulents in them. After you have added + arranged all the succulents you can add a bit more soil to the top and pack it down a bit.



When they are arranged the way I want them, I water them really well. As a general rule of thumb succulents like to be watered throughly and then left alone, allowing the soil to dry completely between waterings.


I added in some pansies for a bit of color... and voila! Beautiful growing presents for friends!

Be Your Own Boss :)

Me and Jennifer Lee at the BYOB event. Photo taken by Monica Michelle

Wow, I am finally writing my first blog entry which I have been promising my lovely friend Jennifer Lee I would do for weeks now. The title of this post could also be 'All the reasons Jenn is great + cool + one of my true soulmates'. (A side note: I love birthdays and I have a huge birthday book that allows you to match the day you were born with the day someone else is born and then read a few paragraphs about the relationship between the two birthdays. It deems us 'True Soulmates' which it is one of the things we love to joke about, and it also happens to be true!) Jenn has an amazing blog called Life Unfolds, and being the uber-supportive friend that she is, she has been wanting me to join the blogging community too. So here I am. Yay!

Two years ago (almost to the day!) I left my job as a creative working on catalogs for a high-end retail store in SF. I knew I needed to do something that was more meaningful to me with my career. This was, of course, totally scary. I set out with a lot of ideas, and of course again, what I set out thinking I was going to do didn't happen how I had envisioned it at all, but the good news is... I took a giant leap and I couldn't be happier that I did. I now have a graphic design company, Kate Prentiss Design, and get to work with amazing people on projects that I really care about.

The world works in mysterious ways.
My business partner + good friend + amazing visionary, Cami Walker, introduced Jenn to me at the end of last year because Jenn wanted some help with the products she had developed. She needed a designer to help her bring them into the world. That was the beginning of an amazing partnership, and two of the projects we have worked on are now for sale. ¡So cool! The first is an e-book called The Right Brain Business Plan (there is a link to buy + download it in the sidebar on the right side of this page). It is a tool developed for Right-Brain creative types to think about + develop a business plan in an unconventional way, while still addressing the nuts + bolts of your business. The second product is The Unfolding Your Life Vision Kit, which gives you inspiration and instructions to create a beautiful book that helps you craft a new course for your life. Jenn created them using her wealth of knowledge as a life coach, visioning practices she uses to help entrepreneurs + her crafty-creative skills .... and I designed + illustrated them.

A bunch more ways in which everything is interconnected.
The original purpose for this entry was to talk about the Be Your Own Boss event that I participated in this year at Ladies Who Launch Live. Ladies Who Launch is a networking group for women entrepreneurs that I belong to. Many of my friends and acquaintances have asked me about LWL, and so I hope this gives some helpful information and also you can see some pictures from the event. I started to get involved with the LWL community about a year ago when Cami and I had a booth at the LWL Live event last October. I ended up meeting a ton of amazing ladies, several of whom became clients. It was a perfect place for Cami and I, who have set out to help women create wildly thriving businesses... through Cami's marketing strategy expertise and my skills as an art director, we design brand identities that really fit these women's DREAM businesses.

It wasn't until I moved to Oakland in January this year that I decided to 'Incubate' with LWL. I realized it was the perfect time to join LWL because I was entering a new community and wanted to connect with other self-employed women. AND best of all, Jenn is the leader of the LWL Oakland incubators, and I knew that would be a great match for me. The incubator is a month-long program where a group of up to 10 women who have an idea they want to hatch, or a business or project they want to launch or reinvent, meet weekly to discuss their projects and progress. It basically serves as a melting pot of ideas, resources and support for your ideas from the leader and the other ladies in the group. I made 10 new friends that kick-ass, and put some much needed energy back into thinking about my own creative goals.

And finally... the BYOB event!
Jenn and I shared a table at the event this year. She was selling the RBBP and the UYLV Kit which we worked on together, and I was representing my design business. The day was so much fun and I met a lot of amazing women and made some great connections. Participating in the event reminded me of the wealth of possibilities and opportunities that can come from putting yourself out there, where people can meet you and talk to you... I have an exciting new project I am starting to work on that quite literally hatched out of a conversation I had with a woman at the very end of the day at the BYOB event!

I welcome your questions and comments if there is anything else you'd like to know about LWL or anything else in this post. ;)

Looking down from our 2nd floor booths at the BYOB event speakers.