A First Timer Deco-Zone Experience

A First Timer Deco-Zone Experience

I am not a high end design­er with years of expe­ri­ence and I stay pret­ty safe with­in the realm of neu­tral col­ors that I know can match.   San­dra Racz told me about The DECO-Zone, an event held dur­ing Atlanta’s Amer­i­c­as­Mart with speak­ers shar­ing infor­ma­tion on Trends, Drapes, Florals,…the list went on and on.  I thought this could be fun learn­ing from top design­ers, meet­ing new peo­ple and shop­ping the Mart.  It was­n’t great tim­ing with my fam­i­ly’s sum­mer sched­ule and I was ner­vous about my lev­el of exper­tise but I made the deci­sion to sign up.  The first day of The DECO-Zone, toss in the fact I got lost, I walked in fraz­zled but I sat with some awe­some Ladies ( all at dif­fer­ent lev­els of expe­ri­ence and fields of inter­est).  One of the first speak­ers, JoAnne Lenart-Weary was engag­ing and fun­ny before I real­ized it I was relaxed and learn­ing which col­ors I should add to my own home and the col­ors weren’t neu­tral.  Dur­ing breaks I min­gled with smart women who ran busi­ness­es and want­ed to gath­er as much knowl­edge I did. There were Ven­dors and prod­ucts I had nev­er heard of and a step-by-step guide to shop­ping the largest whole­sale mar­ket.   Let me tell you, Amer­i­c­as­Mart is three huge build­ings with 20+ floors and it can be over­whelm­ing.  The tips of how and where to shop made it easier.

I had a won­der­ful time and most of all, I learned, meet won­der­ful peo­ple and gained men­tors for life!  All the design ele­ments that I learned I brought back to my own home and made it pop. I would rec­om­mend The DECO-Zone to any­one no mat­ter your busi­ness type or skill lev­el.  Check out www.thedecozone.com

- Kate Brackeen