Home Design: December 2014

Monday, December 8, 2014

Christmas staples: Buds, twigs, branches and berries

There's nothing like the real thing for Christmas decorating. You get to go for a little adventure in the woods with your trusty snippers, and come away with a red nose and a trunk full of inspiration.

Sometimes you just have to go to your backyard, but there's a limit to happy cutting in a small space. That's where I got the materials for my front porch planters, if you don't count the leftovers from my summer planter and feathers I've recycled several times.

Hubby made me a trough box for my trunk/ottoman. I knew what I wanted to put in it, but I couldn't hack away anything else in my yard. My sister came to the rescue. Remember last year when I posted about her nature inspire Christmas? She had already made her yearly trip for bough and twig cutting to complete her planters and agreed to take me to her spot. Bonanza.

Here's her efforts ...

twig vase, red flowers, yellow flowers, Christmas

Don't you love that hit of yellow with the red?

Now on to my family affair project..

My son sprayed the box for me with Krylon Colormaster in nickel. Then I taped it off and used gold to create two stripes around the box. I figured I may as well get with the mixed metal trend.

alder twigs, fir, candles, trough box,LED candles

I had three LED candles (so safe and they actually flicker- daughter tip from Costco) I wanted to use and went to the dollar store and bought seven square glasses to put oasis in to keep the boughs fresh. The alder twigs looked a little boring so they got the spray treatment too in a mix of nickel and gold.
Then I began the arrangement.

trough box, candles, greenery, twig balls

Fresh flowers are a must anytime of year.

A favourite vase, fluted and textured makes a stunning centerpiece on my coffee table. Nothing else is needed.

And my favourite berry wreath that has been in every room in the house over the years surrounds a vase of baby's breath and white carnations. You can tell I like my flowers simple and usually white because they work anywhere with anything, especially with red.

I was very lazy with the dining room additions....

dining table vignette, white reindeer, LED candles, Norfolk pine, cranberries

I'm not a theme driven decorator, but nature is always a staple in whatever I do. My new purchase for 2014 was two white carved reindeer. I always buy a green plant; this year it is a Norfolk pine in a faux burlap container. May it live for awhile.

For my dining table centrepiece I simply added some fresh cranberries to my Boblen vase, and used it as a candle holder, added a string of red wooden beads (at least 30 years old) and fake red berries to the well used vase of twigs. In honour of the season I changed my tray to my favourite white one with the silver leaf birds and leaves.

And wise silver bird looks on knowingly because he's seen it all before.

10 reasons to love Olive Green for 2015

Many shades of olive green

You may have lived through the avocado phase many years ago, but don't nix olive green automatically because of that. I am talking about a new updated olive green look. One that can be both traditional or contemporary. One that takes on many faces depending on its pairing. Just think about it this way. It....

is more of a neutral, so the combinations you can come up with are almost limitless;
can easily push a hint of it into any decor you already have;
sits there and lets you manipulate it;
references nature, how can it be a bad thing? (mossy rocks, under side of a leaf);
mixes with all the warm metals that are now in vogue;
is warm and organic and will make a space look that way;
can be mixed with fresh or muddy colours;
works well with Pantone's 2014 colour of the year - marsala;
won't be a one hit wonder because of its special qualities listed above;
just because.

How much of it you want to add to your decor is up to you. Personally I won't be going out and getting a new green kitchen, but it could be pretty spectacular....

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I love olive green with white and black as you can see from my style board. This green is more vibrant, approaching apple green. Some people refer to it as olive green, but it needs to be "dirtier" to fit my definition of olive green.

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Yes! My two favourites with olive green - black and white. So fresh. What happens when you start to muddy up olive? Check out below. Still an interesting look.

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Spicing it up with pattern always helps. A range of greens that have been popular over the last several years are mixed with the olive. in the chairs and pillow . Note the connection of the brownish green wall with the scheme in the next photo.

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This is a very different olive green that is approaching greenish brown. If you've mixed paint you know how easily that can happen. It certainly helps you see how the colours relate when they are separated out .

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This room is built around variations on the lightest colour in the photo above.
Now we're talking my idea of a serene olive green. Everything in this space is understated with just the the merest hint of olive. Love the textures.

Perhaps olive is the answer to my ongoing love hate relationship with the accent colour in my living room. I'm not living well with my rusty red. It has never sat well in the space. Something to think about.

Stay tuned for other pairings for this interesting colour. Do you think olive green will feature in any way in your home in 2015?

Design trend 2015: Move over Ikat and Suzani

It's that time of year again. People are beginning to think about 2015 and what it will bring. When you're a home decor blogger that always means checking out the hot new trends.

So here goes- my first trend snippet for 2015.

Sometimes even patterns we love can lose favour if they are overused. Chevron comes to mind. What was once a fantastic pattern that played well with other patterns because of simple, graphic lines has been overused to the point of -dare I say it- nausea.

Ikat Suzani

I fear that Ikat (chevron is a staple of this traditional Indonesian design) and Persian Suzani (with it's bold circular motifs ) are not far behind in the over used category.

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There is chatter that Shibori (Japanese tie dyeing) is the next new pattern to take over in textiles. I can see the appeal of Shibori. It is geometric (very hot right now), simple on a white background, has multiple patterns possibilities depending on how it is produced, and has cultural references. Then there's that indigo blue which feeds into the resurgence of blues and navy in colour trends.

You many not be familiar with this age old Japanese technique. Shibori patterns are usually created on white silk by binding, clamping and wrapping around poles and then dipping into indigo dyes. If you are hankering for the 60's again, or don't remember them and are ready for a new DIY experince, check out this article

Contemporary Bedding by Brooklyn Furniture & Accessories West Elm

Red was all over High Point Market this fall and just seeing the little hit of red in the lamp tells you traditional indigo shibori would look great with any amount of red. Certainly whites and other blues would also work and why not yellow?