Just Call Me a Working Woman

I finished up my first week of my new internship last week. I am still working with Taryn two days a week, but I got another part time internship at Full Circle Public Relations in downtown Greenville. I work at Full Circle PR MWF and work for TK PR on TTh. Not only do I get to go somewhere different everyday, but I also do different tasks at each job everyday. I like that. I could never do a job where I do the same thing every single day. Although I tend to schedule out my days and have many routines I follow, I enjoy having a different to-do list everyday at work. 

Working at Full Circle PR is a totally different experience than working at TK PR. Although I am working for more than one person now, Full Circle is still a small PR firm with only four employees. I am the first intern they have had :) I enjoy the people I work with; all of the employees at Full Circle are women. I like working with all women and have actually worked primarily with women in all my jobs so far. 

I have done a wide variety of tasks at Full Circle PR. Their client base is completely different from Taryn's. Taryn's niche is small businesses, mostly in the luxury industry (fashion, beauty, travel, food, wine and more). Full Circle represents bigger businesses: Costa del Mar sunglasses, Hubble Lighting and Milliken Flooring to name a few. We are also doing some short term projects with Rack Room Shoes and Susan G. Komen Race for the Cure. The employees at Full Circle usually only work on one account, whereas Taryn works on 10+ different accounts. However, it is important to realize that bigger clients require more extensive, detailed work. 

I researched a lot of various social media strategies last week. It's interesting to see how different companies manage their social media accounts. I have also seen the detailed work that goes into monthly reports presented to clients and the meticulous process of recording everything you do for a client and how long it took you. While it is not fun to record every little thing you do, it is how you bill the clients for the work. No record, no money. 

During the past week, I have also attended at least four meetings. That may not sound like a whole lot, but I am just getting started. The first thing I did when I walked in last Monday was go to a status meeting. While meetings may sound boring, I have learned a lot just through listening at various meetings. Meetings can even be fun sometimes-especially when they are meetings to brainstorm ideas. 

My favorite part of my job so far is getting to write. The field of public relations requires a lot of writing, so it is important to enjoy this aspect of the job. I have to post to the company blog every Friday. I also will be helping with some of the blog posts for the client blogs we manage. I posted my first post last week and it is currently on the homepage of the client's website. 

I am really glad I started this blog several months ago. Not only has it helped me write frequently, but it's not quite as intimidating when I am asked to write a blog for work. Blogging is something I do for fun, so it doesn't always seem like work to me :)

Sorry if this post was long and heavy on information about PR. I enjoy reading/hearing about other people's internships, so I thought I would share what I have been doing :)

Summer Cupcakes

Now that I am home I have a lot more free time in the evenings. Sometimes this results in lots of baked goods sitting around our house just begging to be eaten. Here are a few of the things I have made lately...

 These yummy key lime cupcakes courtesy of the lovely Betty Crocker website. The base of the cupcake is a mix and the cupcakes were fairly easy to make. I would recommend make 1.5 times the icing recipe. I made one batch and it didn't look like enough so I doubled it and ended up with leftovers. The cupcake is very moist and has a strong key lime flavor. I thought I was going to have to add key lime flavor to the icing until I realized the cupcake along with the glaze had plenty. 

Margarita themed cupcakes for my roommates 21st birthday. Got the recipe from this lovely blog. The icing recipe was so yummy (a lime buttercream). However, the cupcakes were a little dry and it wasn't because they were overcooked. Definitely would make the icing again, not so sure about the cupcake itself. 

Happy Mother's Day

Normally my mom isn't hard to buy for. She likes big jewelry, anything super old or anything shabby chic-ish. When Mother's Day came around I was trying to think of something unique I could get her. You see, my love language is gifts, which doesn't just mean I like getting gifts, but I also like putting a lot of thought into the gifts I give people. My boyfriend was talking about how him and his brother might order their mom an edible arrangement for Mother's Day. However, they decided to go with another present once they realized the company didn't deliver (not to mention most arrangements are $60+). My creative wheels started turning. I researched DIY edible arrangements and decided to give it a try. I used this website to learn the basics about the arrangements and then went from there. Here is what I used:

• 1 head of cabbage
• 1 cantaloupe
• 1 honeydew melon
• 1 bag of grapes
• 2 lbs of strawberries
• 1 pineapple
• chocolate (for melting-get whatever kind you want)
• 1 bag of kabob skewers
• Gumdrops
• Flower cookie cutter
• Ceramic flower pot (you can use whatever you want here-basket, vase, jar-just as long as you can put the head of cabbage inside of it)

I really didn't take pictures of the process, but the website I mentioned earlier has a great step-by-step process.  The first thing I did was put the head of cabbage into the pot I used. This is what holds all the skewers of fruit in place. You could also use floral foam if you wanted to. After that, just cut all the fruit up. The pineapple flowers were made by slicing the pineapple and using a flower cookie cutter to make the shape. I just stuck a grape in the middle of it after that. The gumdrops are used to keep the fruit in place-this is a major necessity! The fruit (especially melons and pineapple) will just slide right down the skewer if you don't put a gumdrop under it. I learned the hard way that it is easier to poke all the skewers in the cabbage first and THEN put the fruit on them. It gets a little tricky to reach into the bouquet to fill in the empty spaces once a lot of the fruit has already been placed. Here is how it turned out:

Wedding Wear

As you know from previous posts, I have gotten to do some pretty neat things because of my internship. Last week was no exception. 

My boss does a short segment for WYFF4 each month called "Schering Secrets" (her last name is Scher). With all the Royal Wedding news lately, she thought an appropriate theme would be dress codes for weddings. Summer is wedding season after all, and most people already have a few weddings penciled in on their calendar. She asked me to be one of her "models" for the clip. I hesitate to even say model because really all I did was try on pretty dresses at Trousseau and smile while she talked about the different dresses :) I have a rough life. Here's the clip: http://www.wyff4.com/video/27894722/detail.html.

Talk of the Town

I've been a little MIA lately. I know. But these things called exams came up. Then I went to the beach with some of my girlfriends for a little R&R. Now I am back and will be on a regular schedule soon hopefully.

Remember when I blogged about the Super Duper Office? All those pictures of the crazy bathrooms (which for some reason decided not to show up on my blog)? Well if you want to see how the photoshoot turned out then you need to check out the May issue of TOWN magazine. If you aren't from Greenville or didn't get it delivered to your house, check out the link in the previous sentence to flip through the digital issue. The fashion spread is on pages 54-61. Also check out page six for a sneak preview. Some of the pictures were taken in bathrooms and some were in conference rooms or displays around the office. Yes, the black room with neon paint is a bathroom. So cool.

Enjoy!