Welcome to Design by Occasions' Makeover and a few updates to spill!

Did you notice we are looking different here today? I’m so happy to FINALLY unveil a total makeover of my website and I am thrilled, as it was way over do! There was a lot happening behind the scenes (will explain further in the post). I want to say thank you for your patience while I was offline. If you are a regular follower, welcome back! If you are new here, welcome – I hope you will visit again!

I do hope you will enjoy perusing this new layout! With you in mind, I wanted this lifestyle blog to be user friendly and include helpful features! Some examples are content categories that include a drop down menu for easy access for what you are looking for specifically, a category newsfeed on the blog page and a shop the post feature on any products I post about that will directly link you to a product for review and/or purchase.

Have you checked out my newly featured Design by Occasion promo video? It showcases a snippet of my story. I knew when updating my site, I wanted to incorporate a video such as this. I worked through what I wanted to say and then turned that into stories of how I would like to have it captured. Thanks to the amazing husband and wife team – Bill and Autumn Stankay for their wonderful execution in bringing my vision to life!!

There’s so much to catch you up on, so let’s get started.

My Health…

If you’ve been following me on instagram for the past few months, you are pretty much up-to-date on what’s been going on with my health and why I had to put pause on updating my website or posting on my blog. For those of you who are new here and haven’t had a chance to read my about me page, I am an ovarian cancer survivor since 2006. To date, this is my third recurrence and it’s been a quite a journey at keeping this disease stable. I’m currently on an Immunotherapy trial and in a few weeks I will find out if these drugs are working, via a CT scan. While being on this trial, I’ve experienced several side effects – some I can visually see appearing on my body, some I can feel inside my body, and some I didn’t feel or know was causing early effects on one of my organs. It has been challenging adapting to these new drugs and it’s played a tug-of-war on my feelings. However, I remain positive until the end. I took my “good days” to catch up with refocusing on Design by Occasion and getting back into the swing of creating original content for you to view and be inspired by. I’m hoping for a more regular routine filled with many good days so that I can continue to do what I love.

Design by Occasion Then & Now…

When I first launched Design by Occasion eight years ago, my focus was creating unique/one-of-a-kind handmade greeting cards. It truly was a labor of love but I realized, business wise as a sole creator, it had its limits. I will miss the many positive customer reviews that made my heart smile and knowing someone was about to receive and open one of my greeting cards on their special occasion, filled my heart with pure bliss! It was a tough decision to move away from greeting cards but as many of us may have realized in one point in our lives, we all evolve over time to bigger and better things!

Over the years, my passions for interiors, at-home entertaining and set design for inspirational editorial shoots has grown and has allowed me to creatively unfold in a great way. In order to fulfil my goals for DBO, I had to refocus, keep it moving and I’m pleased to be following a new and exciting direction!

Besides continuing with creating original content for the blog, I will be introducing new blog post features. These features that will include interviews with some very talented women-owned professionals, ranging from Interior Designers to Event Planners & Designers. Additionally, I will be spotlighting some of my favorite people around the web who will share tips and ideas with you when it comes to at-home entertaining and decorating your home. This among many other new and exciting ideas will be coming to the blog!

So what else is new for Design by Occasion? I am looking forward to Winter of 2018, to announce the launch of DBO Home! An online shop filled with a curated collection of timeless decor items and entertaining essentials to enhance your home and your table! My hope is that my personal health will not come in the way with this launch as I’ve learned that when dealing with a life threatening disease, it’s hard to make future concrete plans. So if life permits, I will be sharing more details months leading up to the anticipated launch date with some sneak peeks of some pretty decor essentials!