SWAG52 - Exclusive Prices at the Best Boutiques!

SWAG52 just made shopping the most coveted local boutiques more enjoyable and affordable. Elizabeth Dehn, founder of Beautybets.com and our Creative Director, Christina Holm-Sandok have combed through Twin Cities neighborhoods to unearth the best shops in town and bring them to SWAG52 members at exclusive prices. Each week SWAG52 features a gift card/shopping voucher to one local retailer at a limited-time-only price. Membership is free and emails are sent once each week. To make it easier on the customer, the gift certificates featured on the website do not expire and can be easily purchased as gifts. How cool is that?!

Local vendors that have partnered with SWAG52 included russell + hazel, Martin Patrick 3, Parc Boutique, Ladyslipper Boutique, Covered Boutique, OPM, Houndstooth and Avantis Shoe Boutique. Members can purchase past offers here.

Coming soon in 2012: Insider deals on local spas and restaurants!

l'atelier couture & NELLE Join {Fashion} Forces

It’s a match made in heaven: the bridal boutique l’atelier couture and NELLE handbags have joined forces!  l'atelier couture’s expansive new boutique now houses the 300 sq ft NELLE 2012 Wedding Showroom, featuring the NELLE 2012 Wedding Collection which just launched November 2. Our team likes to refer to the new space as a handbag musuem - absolutely gorgeous. Talk about bridal nirvana! l’atelier couture and NELLE are highly complimentary because of their commitment to gorgeous design, amazing customer service and all things lovely.

l’atelier couture is a luxurious bridal destination with a focus on a personal, intimate, and high-end service experience. The boutique is carefully curated by owner Amanda Kautt and is the exclusive Minnesota carrier of designers Oscar de la Renta, Vera Wang, Peter Langner, Elizabeth Fillmore, and Lela Rose to name a few.

NELLE, a local handbag company focused on creating stunning handbags and clutches, demonstrates the same personalized approach and attention to detail. Laura Nelli ensures that each piece meets NELLE’s quality specifications. This hands-on-technique guarantees that every accessory is shipped as the designer intended it to be - a little piece of couture you can clutch.

Stop by for the grand opening in Minneapolis, 219 North Second Street, STE 404, 55401. {651.602.9492} For more information visit www.lateliercouturebridal.com or www.nellehandbags.com.

2011 ASID Kitchen and Bath Tour

We are constantly inspired by our clients’ creativity. Some mornings we have to pinch ourselves, as we are surrounded by jaw-dropping design projects on a regular basis. Rough job, we know...but someone has to do it! If you are thinking of renovating or just dreaming about the possibilities for your home, we hope you will join Style-Architects at the 2011 ASID Minnesota Kitchen & Bath Tour to see innovative designs by some of the top designers in the Twin Cities.  The event is September 10 (10 a.m. to 5 p.m.) and September 11 (noon to 5 p.m.) at International Market Square. The American Society of Interior Designers (ASID) is a community of people—designers, industry representatives, educators and students—committed to interior design. Through education, knowledge sharing, advocacy, community building and outreach, the Society strives to advance the interior design profession and, in the process, to demonstrate and celebrate the power of design to positively change people’s lives. Its more than 36,000 members engage in a variety of professional programs and activities through a network of 48 chapters throughout the United States and Canada.

The ASID Kitchen & Bath Tour is the perfect event for anyone looking for remodeling inspiration or has an appreciation for fine design. The organization, which is a community of people —designers, industry representatives, educators and students — committed to interior design, will host this annual event. Visitors will see cutting edge designs in style and function in 15 homes from 19 specially selected participants.

The chosen designers will showcase timeless design with meticulous attention to detail to visitors of this two-day, multi-venue event. Highlights include a home updated to be more accessible to the disabled, spaces for empty-nesters looking for a nostalgic yet contemporary family room, as well as a home whose owners longed for their kitchen to complement a family background of French culinary arts.

For more information or to purchase tickets visit www.asid.org and www.metromag.com/asid Tickets are also available at the following Hirschfield's locations: Minneapolis/Lake Street, Minneapolis/Uptown, Apple Valley, Maple Grove, Shakopee, West St. Paul, Wayzata, Eden Prairie, Lakeville, Roseville, Edina, Woodbury, Maplewood, Rochester, Hudson, Robbinsdale, Monticello.

The Sajai Foundation

Childhood obesity? Nature deficit disorder? Not if the Säjai® Foundation can help it. Style-Architects is teaming up with this Minnesota-based, national nonprofit to make a difference in the lives of children. The Säjai® Foundation is passionate about helping kids and is teaching them how to live—and why to value—a healthy life. Founder Barb King was alarmed by the high (and increasing) rates of childhood obesity, coupled with the decrease in time spent outdoors by today’s youth. Not content to just worry, she created the Foundation to develop curriculum used in schools, afterschool and summer camps to give kids the tools they need to begin living healthier lives.

The Foundation’s Wise Kids® programs are based on the concept of Energy Balance, or: Energy In (calories from food and drink) need to be balanced with Energy Out (calories burned through daily living and physical activity). The programs teach kids that this is a lifelong pursuit, and that (barring medical reasons) no food is ever forbidden, but there are definitely some foods that should be eaten more frequently than others. In addition, the Wise Kids Outdoors program takes the Energy Balance concept and uses it to explore the world of nature, as kids go on “outdoor adventure missions” and learn just how much fun and how interesting nature can be.

Together, we are excited to announce a new event taking place on September 24: The Amazing Walk! Not just another 5K, the Amazing Walk! has more in common with the TV show The Amazing Race in that participants will find several challenges along the way, some goofy, all fun. If people prefer to simply walk/run the course, they can do that too—but it’ll be more fun if they take on the challenges too. All ages are welcome, and everyone will enjoy the setting at the North Mississippi Regional Park in Minneapolis, where the trail winds through prairie grasses, massive trees, and right along the river.

The Amazing Walk! will take place from 9-11 a.m. For more information or to register, visit the Foundation’s website, www.sajaifoundation.org.

Written by Amy Rea