Meet/Make/Do Palm Springs Recap + Giveaway

I am so excited to finally be able to share the official recap photos from Meet/Make/Do, that our amazing photographer, Mary Costa, took for us. If you’ve been following the hashtag (#meetmakebing), you’ve probably seen at least a handful of photos from the event, but today I’m sharing ALL the juicy details. AND there is a giveaway involved as well (scroll all the way down for giveaway details)!

If you’re not familiar with Meet/Make/Do already, it’s a three-day bloggers retreat, sponsored by Bing and hosted by myself, Kelly from Studio DIY and Chelsea from Lovely Indeed.

Kelly, Chelsea, and me

We invited some amazing bloggers (Ashley of Sugar and Cloth, Lexy of Proper Pinwheel, Chelsey of Paper Mama, Melanie of You are My Fave, Erin of House of Earnest, Danni of Oh Hello Friend, Brittany of The House That Lars Built, and Jenn of Scout) to come hang out in Palm Springs for a few days, so we could all collaborate on some projects and get to know each other even better (while hanging out by the pool, of course).

So now that you know the backstory, let’s jump into what actually went down. You may want to take a moment to grab a snack or a cup of coffee, because this is a long one. You’ve been warned…

I arrived in LA Tuesday afternoon and our friend Ashley arrived at LAX the same time as me, so the four of us stayed busy running around getting stuff ready for our trip until late that night. Somehow though, we all managed to get up early the next morning and made it to Palm Springs a little after 9am. This was the first time I had EVER been to Palm Springs and let me tell you, I was pretty excited about the whole thing.

We arrived at the house and it was perfect! Just like the photos we had seen, if not better, which was a huge weight off of my shoulders. I am such a worrier, it’s kind of insane. So when we got there and I could start picturing it all coming together, I was pretty excited.

David Austin garden roses from Flower Muse

 invitation design by Jordan Brantely

fabric from The Fabric Store

party supplies from Shop Sweet Lulu

We immediately jumped into setting things up and getting prepared for when guests would start arriving. I started working on unpacking and prepping the insane amount of fresh flowers that Flower Muse sent us for the event. Chelsea and Ashley unpacked a ton of boxes and Ash styled the supplies wall, filled with goodies from Shop Sweet Lulu, West Elm, and The Fabric Store. Huge, HUGE thank you to Ash for helping us! You are the best! For real. 

Chelsea got all the rooms ready with nameplates on the doors, swag bags set up, etc. And Kelly blew up a TON, of pool toys, including a giant swan and a 7 ft tall beach ball!

Swag Bag Break! We were super lucky to have some awesome vendors donate their products to our MMD gift bags. So I want to take a minute to thank all of the independent shop owners who participated…

awesome scarf blanket from Coveted Things, gorgeous  handmade pottery from Landis Carey, geometric notebook and gold tape from Lovely Pigeon, soap from Etta & Billie, wood bowls from Wind and Willow Home, hand painted cloth napkins from Fat Eye Design, heart tote bags from Michelle Dwight Designs, wood cutlery set from Mr. and Mrs. P, rose salts from Oh So Pretty, coasters and bread board from World Reclaimed, necklace from Seoul Little, and scissors from We Love Citrus.

*Don’t forget to enter the giveaway at the end of this post to win your own MMD gift bag filled with goodies.

ceramics from Landis Carey

blanket scarf from Coveted Things

cookie dough from Edoughable, utensils from Shop Sweet Lulu, Cutting board from Wind and Willow Home

Special thanks also goes out to Almond Milk LA for the almond milk, Edoughable for the cookie dough, Tweedle Dee Designs for the photo booth props, and M. Greenwood Jams for the delicious jams.

menu design for Workshop dinner by Striped Cat Studio

Okay, back to the event… After everyone arrived and got cleaned up, we headed out to dinner at an awesome restaurant called Workshop and went back to the house and crashed kind of early. Everyone was so tired from flying and/or driving in earlier that day.

The next morning, we all woke up pretty early and jumped into DIY projects and collaborations pretty much right after breakfast. That morning and afternoon were amongst my favorite moments. It was so exciting to see everyone work their magic.

We took a break for some early afternoon mimosas (that’s perfectly acceptable, right?) and chatted with our bing rep, Katie, about the Bing Image Search, Search Filters, and Pin from Search (where you can you can pin to your Pinterest boards directly from the search page). Katie also brought several Surfaces for us to play around with and brainstorm projects on. I had actually never used a Surface before and I was surprised by how quickly I got the hang of it. Have you ever used one? I really liked it.

Brittany from The House That Lars Built and me, posing by the big B

After lunch by the pool, we dove back into our projects and Mary was basically snapping photographs non-stop the entire day. It was awesome!

Before we knew it, it was time for the Minted dinner at the Ace, which I’ll be sharing more details on in an upcoming post. Man, those tacos were yummy.

Unfortunately, when we arrived back to the house after dinner, we discovered that we had been robbed. What? I know! Ugh. I don’t want to dwell on this because there were so many great moments on the trip, and in a strange way, I think it brought us all closer together. But obviously, it was a difficult moment. Our friends that had their personal belongings stolen handled things with such grace though. It kind of blew my mind. These ladies are seriously amazing!

That night, we decided to leave the house and move to The Saguaro, which is quite possibly the most colorful hotel on the planet. Have you seen this place?

The next day was filled with field trips and food. And that night, we all hung out in Erin’s room sharing stories in our PJs. I mean, is there anything better? That was definitely one of the most memorable parts of the trip for me.

Here’s a picture of all of us on our last day…

Left to right. Melanie of You are My Fave, Danni of Oh Hello Friend, Chelsea of Lovely Indeed, me, Kelly of Studio DIY, Ashley of Sugar and Cloth, Erin of House of Earnest, Jenn of Scout, Chelsey of Paper Mama, Brittany of The House That Lars Built, Lexy of Proper Pinwheel

I cannot even begin to tell you what it meant to me to be able to spend time with all of these women. It was definitely something I’ll never forget. And I cant wait to do it again!

Giveaway!

Okay, so now that I’ve basically given you a play-by-play of the entire trip, let’s talk about the swag bags again. We were lucky to have some really great pieces in the MMD swag bags. And we didn’t want you to feel left out, so we’re giving away a total of three MMD bags between the three host’s blogs: Paper & Stitch, Lovely Indeed, and Studio DIY.

Each swag bag of goodies has a retail value of $185! So you are definitely going to want to enter. Entries are simple. Just follow the Rafflecopter prompts below. There are plenty of ways to enter, which means more chances to win.

a Rafflecopter giveaway

This giveaway is open to residents in the US and Canada, and will run through Thursday, March 20th at 11:59pm EST. Winners will be announced within 48 hours after giveaway closes. Good luck!

All photographs by Mary Costa Photography.

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This post was sponsored by Bing. All opinions and ideas are my own.

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