Jan1

Decorative Pillows: To Chop, Or Not

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Decorative Pillows: To Chop, Or Not

I’ve been reading some interesting articles on decorative pillows written by interior designers on Houzz.com.* The writers insert ample photos of fabulously decorated rooms to make their points. My initial attention is always given to the whole composition of the room. As a maker of decorative pillows, I then give even more attention to these lovely creations. After that, I like to move on to visitor comments. What I find particularly disturbing is the number of comments made about pillows being chopped. Never mind the efforts of the writer’s article; never mind the decorated rooms–the colors, furnishings, decorative accents; and the spectacularly finished walls all coming together beautifully. Never mind any of this. It’s those pillows. Their chopped, karate chopped as some would say.

You see, there are at least three ways to present decorative pillows: straight,  “Karate” chopped or with just a little tap:

 

Karate chopping decorative pillows was once a trend but has now gone out of fashion, at least for some. For seeing a chopped pillow is not just bad taste but cause to fixate, circle the poor pillows and denigrate without mercy one comment after another, after another. Whether one likes to chop or not to chop the pillow and whether one cares about following trends or not, it seems to me the question is does it work in the composition of the room?

*Great articles on decorative pillows:

Pointers for Perfectly Styled Pillows

Learn the Lingo of Cushions (Oh, do check out my Turkish corner pillow featured in this article.)

 

Aug28

On Contemporary Decor

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On Contemporary Decor

To begin with, I love it: neutral color palettes accentuated, though sparingly, with bold colors; soft, rounded lines defining the furniture; and natural materials from wood to fabrics such as linen, silk and cotton; and homage to simplicity. Elements of a contemporary décor quietly but firmly announce its key quality—comfort. Most important is its uncluttered presence. In today’s world of constantly being bombarded with external stimulation, it’s amazing that the brain finds any refuge outside of sleep.

Professional interior decorators are excellent at pulling such decors together but often such presentations are expensive. It really doesn’t have to be for the DIY apartment or home owner. Just adhere to some of the key characteristics mentioned above. Here are some fabulous examples of contemporary decors that offer the perfect, achievable refuge. How would you adapt some of its more expensive elements to make your own?

The following photos are great examples of elements found in the contemporary style.

Living Room design by Dallas Interior Designer Dorsch Interiors, LLC

The combination of neutral (white) and bold colors gives this (above photo) living room its drama.  The turquoise wall, blue chairs and greens cools the room; however, the warmth is brought into the room through the reds and yellows in the abstract rug and wall painting.  Note there is minimal furniture but each piece stands on its own.

Contemporary Living Room design by Other Metros Interior Designer Atmosphere Interior Design Inc.

Stunning contemporary living room (two above photos). Again, note the combination of a neutral backdrop accented with the rich bold blue sofa. Each furniture piece can stand on its own, lines of the furniture are rounded, bold yet soft. The lush collection of pillows expresses comfort, even invites you to cozy up. The formal architectural topiaries on each side of the fireplace appear as a sort of counterpoint to the softness of the sofa and chairs.

Here are more examples of contemporary styles at its best.

Contemporary Family Room design by Dallas Interior Designer Catherine Dolen & Associates

The last photo above appears to take a departure from the element of no clutter.  But if you look closely, notice that the collection is organized in one section of the room and becomes a focal point.

The beauty of the contemporary style is that it is fluid, giving room to add elements that are a little different or even from another design style.

 

 

Apr19

May I Recommend: A Garden Room

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May I Recommend: A Garden Room

Spring melding into summer . . . well, it is in the northern hemisphere. We can hardly contain ourselves. Our seemingly long wait through winter now fills us with anticipation of spring and summer days and nights: ball games, cycling, swimming, beaching, fishing and a list of other activity that ends only with the imagination. We caress ourselves in the warmth and heat of the sun, blue skies and cumulus clouds. Then we cool ourselves with water, simple or exotic named drinks. At the end of the day, we often fold, sometimes collapse into an evening on a patio, a deck, a front porch or a balcony.  So may I recommend making your outdoor space a garden room.

It would be wonderful to have a budget that will allow you to build an elaborately, comfortable garden room. But you really don’t need a large space or budget.  Some key elements to creating a comfortable, alluring garden room are an enclosed space (or the sense of enclosure), soft and hard furnishing and of course a garden.  Here in Part I, I discuss space for a garden.  In Part II, I’ll go into furnishings and the garden

Start with where you want to locate your garden room.  You’ll need something to give it a feeling of enclosure and a boundary, such as a wall, a fence, hedges or even a bench.  If you only have a balcony or deck, you’re search for a room location is easy. You’ll need a floor.  Add color and comfort to the floor of your patio, deck or balcony with an outdoor rug.  There are many of them on the market designed especially for outdoor use.  They’re durable and color fast.  If your location is out in the garden, then a lush turf, gravel, mulch, and pine needles allows for easy maintenance.  You’ll also need a ceiling.  Some examples of materials are shade trees, a pergola or a roof over the patio or deck.  Adding skylight windows to the latter will add light and a ceiling fan will of course help to circulate the air.  (Source of info from Plow & Hearth.)

Here are some wonderful images of garden spaces:

From Interior Decorating – Furniture Design

Found this on Indulgy:

Just be careful how you swing that hammock!

 

 

From Stephen Jones Garden UK

Mar29

My Grandmother Taught Me . . .

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My Grandmother Taught Me . . .

More things than I can remember.  I do remember she taught me how to cook.  I remember her careful instructions and her watchful eyes when I cooked my first 17 pound turkey.  It was a juicy golden brown success.  She taught me how to clean a house, scrub out the corners of the floor, make the windows sparkle.  She taught me all those things that a  “good” wife and mother would do.  To that, she added how to be an independent woman, a woman who takes pride in who she is, to not shy away from learning or doing something new, to try different foods, meet different people, go to different places.  And I did much of those things, often hearing her voice and thinking if she could, she would say “You go girl!”  She taught me that there is good and bad in each of us.  And that God “don’t like ugly [behavior]; that He loves us; and that He answers prayers.

I am often struck when I read profiles and featured sellers on Etsy how often shop sellers attribute first learning their skill from the loving hands of a grandmother–artists often first inspired by grandmothers.  Sewing, once near its death as a lost art had often been taught by grandmothers, and mothers. (Thanks to TV shows like Project Runway, both genders are again becoming interested in this art that dates back to Paleolithic era. I’m saving that discussion for another blog!)

I sometimes find myself reflecting on of all the things I know, the technical skills I learned, the “professional” achievements I had made, that I have returned happily to a skill my grandmother taught me.  I’m thrilled anyday to shop for fabric, to design, to cut fabric, and to create something new.   In a conversation with a stranger, I was asked what do I do.  I told her I design and make decorative pillows.  “Ah, you are an artist,” she said. I thought, wow . . . I guess I am.

Things our grandmothers taught us, read what other Etsians learned from their grandmother:

“My grandmother taught me how to make some awesome fudge! I’ll always remember her standing at the stove and telling me to stir.  from Crochetgal

And my favorite,

“My grandmother taught me the basics of sewing. I don’t particularly like sewing, but I’m glad I learned how. Mostly I can just follow a pattern and alter it a bit. My grandmother can make anything without a pattern. While I lived with her, I watched her make a frilly infant dress out of some old sheer curtains. It was incredible to see her figure out how to do everything.

There are many other non-skill things she taught me, as well. I don’t remember loving anyone before her, including my parents. She taught me about kindness and being content and not complaining. I could go on and on.     from Loving Hands Crochet

We often think of ourselves as being the product of our environment, the moldings of our parents.  And this is most often true.  But we’re also what our grandmother’s taught us for they first taught our mothers.

Feel free to add grandfathers too in your thoughts of what we learned!

Mar13

Nicknack Clutter

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Nicknack Clutter

My grandmother had a lot of nicknacks.  Tiny cups and saucers, tables, flower pots, teapots, you name it.  Some were hand painted porcelain.  Some were china, or so she said.  She even had miniature cast our skillets and pots.  Then there were the animal figurines.  She crocheted and made more cups and saucers that she starched, ironed and molded so that they actually took the shape of real life size cups and saucers. They rested on doilies on her side tables and the cocktale table. Her 1950′s shadow box was filled with these little replicas of real life.  And when that was filled, she scattered them throughout her house.

There was a time when I thought these tiny replicas were interesting.  But as I grew older, I began to see them as things that cluttered the house.  They had to be dusted, carefully.  They crowded the space of her small home.  There was no place to rest the eyes.  Her nicknacks became difficult to see because there were so many of them.  No, her collection of figurines and miniature replicas were not at the level of hoarding that you see on the popular T.V. show called Hoarding.  Her collections were just a collection of disorganized-gotta’-display-everything malaise.  So at an early age, I found myself adverse to display small objects, though I tended to collect them but forever stored them.

What I did finally learn over the years, that such little treasures simply need to be organized and given the kind of attention as museum curators give great art.  Group them, display them sparingly as centerpieces or in a gallery style.  And when the collection becomes large, rotate them from room to room or store and alternate display them by season or celebratory events.

The collection becomes a statement of good taste, precious treasures and keepsakes to be marveled at rather than nicknack clutter.

 

Mar7

Where Did The Time Go?

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Where Did The Time Go?

It’s a proverbial question, particularly asked when you reach a certain age:  where did the time go?  I think it’s asked because by that certain age, we somehow didn’t accomplish the things we thought we would or should have accomplished.  Perhaps too, we ask that question, by that certain age, because we have discovered so much more to do.  We had somehow accumulated more experiences, more responsibilities, more dreams, more goals, more family members, more friends.  Yet, we are still confined to the same 24 hours we had before we had reached that certain age.

I’m retired.  This means I have very definitely reached and am well into that certain age.  On becoming a budding entrepreneur, designing and crafting handmade pillow covers, I find myself chasing time to keep up with the lists of things to do. And I find it quite exciting.  The days are full:  sketching designs; shopping for fabric and trim; cutting fabric; and then the challenge of putting it all together, expertly. And I do this all while still keeping up with friends, volunteer work and the dreaded house work.

Having spent so many years working for others, I no longer really care where the time goes.  Oh, if only I had dared to be an entrepreneur when time had seemed abundant.  But would it have been?

To hesitant, budding entrepreneurs of any age–go for it!  Don’t worry about where did the time go or if there is time.

Jan13

Life’s Little Annoyances vs Life’s Little Pleasures

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Life’s Little Annoyances vs Life’s Little Pleasures

It’s the New Year and already it’s the 13th, Friday the 13th I might add.  It’s going to be a great year, a great month, a great day.  At least, that’s the way I choose to look at it, in spite of all of the unpleasant things to suffer through.  I call these things life’s little annoyances:

  • bills, bills, bills–medical, vet, utilities, credit cards, car notes, mortgage or rent, you name it!
  • dog keeps barking at the fence for the neighbor’s to come and play or just digs in the yard.
  • cleaning house when it’s more fun to just go out for a walk, read a book or work on a favorite project
  • spilling milk on your lap top and being told to just buy a new one
  • spending hours, days or weeks to complete a project only having to re-do it
  • locking yourself out of the house and you didn’t have a backup plan
  • making an emergency call on the cell phone and the battery runs out

Oh, there are so many more unpleasant things that happen that are really just little annoyances.  There are so many other things to enjoy, such as life’s little pleasures:

  • a friend, a family member calls you or sends you an email out of the blue to say “I love you” or just want to know how you are doing.
  • getting a free rice cooker–no more burned rice
  • planting a garden, watching it grow, harvesting its crops, cooking and sharing it with others
  • baking an apple crisp and eating it with vanilla ice cream
  • enjoying a really hard laughter with your child
  • feeling the warmth of sunshine on your face
  • a stranger smiles and says hello; you smile and say hello to a stranger
  • contemplating how much God loves you and has blessed you

I could go on and on with each list.  We all experience both.  We experience catastrophes and amazing goodness in our lives but these events occur with few frequencies.  It’s the little things that count, and it’s the little things that most often make us who we are.

HAPPY NEW YEAR!

 

 

Nov25

Happy Holiday Season

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Happy Holiday Season

Happy Holiday Season from Our Home to Yours:)

 

A Celebration of Christmas

As I sit at my computer this morning, checking in on my Etsy shop, Twitter, Facebook, blog, etc., I am listening to one my most favored CDs:  A Celebration of Christmas with Jose Carraras, Natalie Cole, and Placido Domingo.    It is from a live performance at the Austria Center Vienna, 23 December 1995.  Every year, I start playing it around September and continue to do so months into the new year.  I would like to share with you one of the songs that so best expresses my wishes for everyone.  It is called  May each day.

 

May each day in the week be a good day.
May the Lord always watch over you
and may all of your hopes turn to wishes
and may all of your wishes come true.

May each day in the month be a good day.
May you make friends with each one you meet
and may all of your day dreams be mem’ries
and may all of your mem’ries be sweet.

The weeks turn to months
and the months into years.
There’ll be sadness and joy.
There’ll be laughter and tears.
But one thing I pray to heaven above:
may each of your days be a day full of love.

May each day in the year be a good day.
May each dawn find you happy and gay
and may all of your days be as lovely
as the one you shared with me today.

May each day in your life be a good day
and good night.

 

 

Nov19

A Man Cave Pillow

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A Man Cave Pillow

When I started designing and making pillows, I didn’t give much thought to whether a pillow was masculine or feminine or just unisex.  But after my earlier little research on man cave, also known as man spaces, I came to appreciate that men do care to make their own spaces not only functional and comfortable, but pleasing to the eye.

So I’m introducing a category of pillows with man cave decor in mind.  No doubt, size and color matters.  But do men really prefer just black, gray, and brown colors?  What are the other colors?  Guess I’ll have to ask around. Here’s my first pillow:

 

I’ll be adding more men cave pillows to my shop.  Do check back for more.  In the meantime, I’d like to know what you think, leave me a comment.

Nov11

May I Recommend Wall Stenciling Part II

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May I Recommend Wall Stenciling Part II

The castle brick and forest pansy tree were hand painted on this entry way by an artist for $1,500.  It’s a lovely, dramatic entryway that is viewed from a great room.  Creating a thematic hand painted wall may be out of the skill set for the average person.  However, it is possible to easily create a dramatic entryway, a single wall or a complete room using fabulously designed stencils.  It’s really quite easy.

Tools are simple and available from art stores, as well as hardware stores.  What is important is getting the right tool for the right job.  Special brushes and paint rollers produce different effects.  One of the wall effects I have done was to create stripes by simply using tape, a roller, and gloss paint.  It was so amusing to me to watch guests touch the walls to see if it was wallpaper!

Here are some photo examples of the process:

 

Here is the completed project:

I love the stencil collection offered by Cutting Edge Stencil from Etsy.com.  Having finally decided on which stencil to try out, the one above, I am excited to get started.  In the meantime, here is one more stencil project to wet your decorating appetite:

 

 

This is so easy to do, and the results so lovely and dramatic.  Hope you will try this too!

 

 

This concludes my recommendation for Wall Stenciling.  Let me know what you think, leave a comment by clicking on the tiny red comment text below.