As most of you know I spent Tuesday and Wednesday in Chicago for the SHC Home Design Bloggers Summit. They were absolutely amazing to work with and pulled together flights, hotel, and meals for all of us bloggers in a really short period of time. I was SO nervous at first because the guest list included some huge bloggers and I just wasn’t quite sure what to expect upon meeting them. BUT I met them all and they’re really amazing women and men who are fun to be with, really knowledgeable and I’m glad I overcame my fear of flying to go.

Here’s a list of everyone that I met:

Stacy from Mom Central

Christine From Dates to Diapers

Jennifer from The Mom Salon & Mom Bloggers Club

Erica from 5 Minutes for Mom

Felicia from Go Graham Go

Lori from A Cowboy’s Wife

Stephanie from Adventures in Babywearing

Piera from Jolly Mom

Paul from The Smart Stylist

Gabriel from Design Mom

Liz from Cool Mom Picks

Amanda from Mommy Mandy

Tanya from Mommy Goggles

Janel from Apartment Therapy

Louise from Mom Start

Esther from FaintStartLite

We started off with a nice dinner (although I was late due to car mix-ups and my cell phone dying). But the meet and greet dinner was really great. While we got to meet the other bloggers attending we also had a chance to have some really great conversations with some of the amazing people from SHC.

Here’s a couple pictures from the meet & greet:

Felicia and Piera - SO happy to finally meet them!

Amanda and Tanya- Love these ladies! They're so sweet.

Louise, Piera, Felicia, me

Wednesday was a fabulous day full of discussion, excitement and learning. We were welcomed, met all of the creative and passionate designers behind Sears/Kmart and then we were given a tour of the SHC Back To Campus rooms which we all wanted to live in because it was too cool. We took tons of pictures and couldn’t wait to get home and try out our new-found creativity on our own children’s rooms. The “dorms” they had set up were drool-worthy and after discussing prices we were all amazed.

Not only have they designed the coolest new bedding, organizational items, and decor but the pricing is within price ranges that the average family can actually afford. We also discussed quality which is extremely important to both Sears & Kmart. Just because the prices are low doesn’t mean you’re sacrificing quality. They really care about what they’re doing and their passion is contagious. These aren’t the same Sears & Kmart home design products that we grew up with.. these are made with design, price, and quality in mind.

This was everyone's favorite "dorm" room!

Another pic of the Pink & Black Bedroom! LOVE the chalk wall!

I love this bedding and the orange walls! Oh, AND the pizza boxes as wall decor! How cool is that?!

This bedding is AWESOME! SHC sent us this set to try out and it's the "perfect" comforter- not too thin, not too thick and it has this soft & comfortable feel to it. I really love this purple and orange color scheme.

I'm loving this desk and the bright decor.

Theresa- Chief Home Design Officer .. This woman has so much passion for what she does. Her excitement is contagious!

I was really excited to see a preview of all the gorgeous items that Kmart will be carrying in it’s Country Living collection. It’s absolutely beautiful and so well-made. They paid so much attention to details when designing this line. It’s all American country at it’s best.

This was one of the Country Living bedding sets that we all admired.

One of the most exciting things we got to see throughout the day was the Trend Room. We weren’t allowed to bring our cameras or camcorders in but I can tell you that the design inspiration they have in there is SO AWESOME! It’s something you just don’t forget once you’ve seen it. The colors, the ideas, the excitement that the designers have about it.. unforgettable! They’ve got a lot of things in the works right now and based on what I saw I’m already in love with the plans for Summer and Fall of 2010.

After the tour of the very private Trend Room we got to see the Jaclyn Smith Room, the Cannon Room, and the Ty Pennington room. They work really closely with Ty Pennington and Jaclyn Smith which I found to be refreshing. They shared stories with us about them and how they work together and it was just really interesting to hear about the whole process. Luckily we WERE allowed to bring our cameras into these amazing rooms..

Part of the Inspiration behind a new Jaclyn Smith line being shown to us by Chris (Brand Director at SHC)

LOVE these colors!

Theresa telling us about the GORGEOUS Ty Pennington collections

Part of the Ty Pennington Inspiration- such beautiful color combinations

The Cannon Room at SHC

Who would have thought you could learn so much about towels? I SO want some of these now! What a wonderful price for such great quality!

Doesn't this make you want to get into the kitchen and cook? This is such a CUTE collection!

Bringing Cute & Sexy to the kitchen! Way to go SHC designers! This is one of my faves.

More design inspiration..

Here’s a few more pictures from our day at SHC..

Lori (ACowboyswife) lounging on the living room collection we all loved.

Liz (CoolMomPicks) & Stacy DeBroff (MomCentral)

See all this candy? They wanted us to take it home! Our kids are going to be SO sugared up! LOL

Tanya (MommyGoggles) digging into the gumballs.

We learned so much about Kmart and Sears and the whole design process as well as some of their upcoming product releases and I think we’re all really excited to see what SHC is doing. They’re really putting so much into changing the face of their brand and I think they’re well on their way to succeeding. Having this opportunity to visit the SHC headquarters, seeing what they’re doing, and having the chance to meet so many amazing bloggers face to face was like the trip of a lifetime. I mean, how often do you get to ride in a shuttle next to Stacy DeBroff? She should charge people just to sit next to her, she’s THAT knowledgeable. And how often do you get to hang out in an airport for 3 hours with Erica (5MinutesforMom & Butterfly Kisses), Christine (From Dates to Diapers), Louise (MomStart), and Amanda (MommyMandy)?  Hanging in the airport was fun because of these girls! We talked about life and blogging (the good and the bad) and it was just so great to have a little mommy-only time with women who have the same interests.

Me, Louise, Erica, and Christine

Related posts:

1. The Good, The Bad, The Ugly; My BlogHer 2009 Experience