Happy Halloween from the staff at Modello Designs.

Guess who won the costume contest?

Boun Giorno! I just wanted to thank you all for visiting over the last couple of weeks while I have been MIA in Italy and now in Dallas. I took my laptop and camera to Italy with visions of posting on a somewhat regular basis, but neglected to include the wire that connects camera to computer and, truthfully, it was great to take a vacation from internet and email obligations!!

I will be “back at it”, a lot of “it,” in the coming week but just wanted to let you know that everthing is fine with my family, friends and home in San Diego (thank goodness!)

Our Italy trip was full of amazing art, food, wine and adventures but they all pale to the specialness of an evening in Montalcino where Eric surprised me with a beautiful ring and sweet proposal of marriage. Eric is the mystery man that I am with in my blog photo. We met almost six years ago when he asked me to dance at a milonga and the standard two to three polite dances turned into 15 dances in a row. I am feeling very blessed with a complete current life and an exciting and constantly evolving future full of love and passionate pursuits!

OOOH. I SO-O-O-O love this and I am so doing something like this in my new home, uh, I mean office.

Our customer, Heather Mueller of Metamorphasis Designs in Ogden, Utah spent a year working in this wonderful home in Las Vegas for a wonderful woman that just wanted more, more more pattern. That would be my dream client.

Heather masterfully layered pattern after pattern using a combination of Modello Designs and Royal Design Studio stencils all throughout the house. They even used some patterns to make the molds for the individual tiles they cast and put on the ceiling.

For some of the panel designs they also incorporated stencil designs from The Stencil Library. Props to Helen and Chips. Did I mention that I LOVE this?

Whew! The second project in Operation Decoration is D.O.N.E. and it’s beautiful beyond words, so I will let the pictures do the talking. We had the help of a few good men-and a few good women. The “A” team. My heartfelt thanks go out to Bill, Heath, Simon, Yolanda, Kari and especially Linda Self from the School of Italian Plasters for bustin out this and two other gorgeous finishes to compliment my equally fab lobby floors.

Lots and lots of Modellos.

Because you have such a short window of working time with lime plasters we were following each other to complete each step in quick succession.

All hands on deck. Backfilling and burnishing.

Linda applying the wax coat.

I am a happy girl!