Tara and I were anticipating a few twists and turns going into the new year but we had no idea how quickly we would be changing things up - starting with an office space overhaul. And hey, let’s throw an employee into the mix while we’re at it. All while working up a storm for our customers and developing content to share with you all on a weekly basis.

Our Home Office
We’ve been looking at spaces around town for the past 4 months but nothing quite beat my airy historical home that we’ve been temporarily working out of. Equipped with a bright breakfast nook, a couple of friendly cats and low overhead costs we decided to embrace our decision to work from home. If Rachel Zoe and Jeff Lewis (Bravo TV royalty) can own it so can we.

Our New Employee
Meet Kristin. We brought Kristin on as a part-time designer as she finishes her senior year in design school to help us tackle all the work the universe has been sending our way. She’s super cute, has some killer personal style, good taste in music and can put up with my sometimes crass sense of humor. Oh and she can … you know … design.

Our office cat, Scooty Boots, oversees Kristin’s project management.

In her first week of work Kristin has brought us into 2012 by getting us properly networked on DropBox, introducing us to Spotify and successfully scouting out some local music for a client video we’re working on.

Also in January
• We drew analogies between niche social media and highschool cliques. We found our crowd in the art room (that would be Pinterest).
• We shared how we take a project from inspiration to execution.
• But it’s important to understand the distinction between inspiration and imitation.
• We’re weird. But so are you.
• I led a round table discussion at Altitude Summit where I spoke about leveraging your blog as an authentic marketing tool.
• And guess who gave a keynote at Alt Summit? Pinterest co-founder Ben Silberman. He got a standing ovation from 500+ Pinterest crazed bloggers. I tracked him down in the lobby bar that evening to personally thank him - as if he had invented Pinterest just for me.

• Tara wrote a guest post for The Financial Brand about avoiding the creative blahs when you work in-house

Things that caught our eye in January
• We’re not the only creative sister duo who is obsessed with Buffy The Vampire Slayer.
• Tara decided to break down the Sideshow for a bit.
• And we almost cried when we saw this Matthew McConaughey role reprised from his Dazed & Confused “alright-alright-alright” days, and then feared we might be getting old, you know, since our other pop-culture link is about Buffy.

How is your new year shaping up? What's new?