Please pass the mustard.

Decorating With Mustard Yellow

I am ready for Spring! The daffodils are beginning to sporout here in Virginia. I have a lot of clients sending me yellow fabrics! I think I'm not the only one longing for summer.

 So let's talk yellow!

Yellow is great for decorating. It is warm, inviting and pleasing to the eye. It is a color for pleasure. It is a bold choice to decorate with, but done right can create a stunning affect.

Yellow can be tricky. It has many hues including green and gray. Yellow paint almost always ends up being brighter on the wall than it looked on the tiny paint swatch. Paint a substantial part of the wall to really get a good idea. Another good rule to go by for paint is to get two shades grayer or greener than what you were considering on a color swatch as it goes on brighter than you might think.

Because of its reflective quality, yellow will work well in small spaces such as hallways, bathrooms, laundry rooms or basements. It will help make these spaces less dark.

The most popluar color combo I see right now is yellow and gray. Yellow can be very intense and should be paired with a complimentary color. The obvious seems to be gray. Later this week we will talk about other great accent colors for yellow including black, brown, blue, purple, red and hot pink!

Yellow is considered to be the color with most positive energy in Feng Shui. Terrie at Your Decorating Hotline says, " Yellow can alleviate depression, fatigue and digestive problems but might compound fear, insomnia or aggression. Yellow promotes harmony so would be a good choice in rooms where people gather like a family room or kitchen."

(Martha Stewart)

Here are some great fabric and home decor finds in a mustard yellow or gold.

Duralee Berkely in Lemon

Gold Branches

Gold/yellow solid upholstery fabric

Dwell Studio Vintage Blossom

Casa Blaca Geo in Citrine

Amsterdam Pillow Cover

(this pillow is currently on sale)!!

Enjoy! Happy Monday, everyone!



Struggling with depression? Change your home decor!

I'm going to let you in on a little secret. I suffer from depression and I live in a terrible place for someone suffering from depression. I grew up in Arizona where it was always warm and bright and sunny. I now live in Virginia where it is often overcast, rainy and cold. After my daughter was born three years ago I had some wicked Postpartum Depression and have felt unbalanced ever since. I've tried medications and while they helped they brought on a host of other problems.

It's been snowing a lot here and for some reason I get especially depressed when that happens. I don't want to go back on an anti depressant so I looked up ways to help improve my mood that I do have control of. And I came across a very interesting article on WebMD about changing your home decor to improve your mood. Here is what I learned.

"What color you paint your walls isn't just a matter of aesthetics. It's a tool that can be leveraged to affect emotions and behavior."

Leslie Harrington, color consultant

Living Room

Warm tones such as reds, yellows, oranges and earth tones such as browns are inviting and encouraging. They also stimulate conversation.

Kitchen

Kate Smith, another color consultant, says that if you have happy childhood memories of being in the kitchen she suggests that you paint your kitchen with a similar color scheme as that of the kitchen of your childhood. If you do not remember a particular color scheme from your childhood reds, yellows and blues are great in a kitchen.

Dining Room

Red! It whets the appetite, encourages eating and stimulates hunger!

Bedroom

Blues, greens and lavender are calm and soothing. It is thought that the deeper the color the more pronounced the calming and soothing effect.

Bathroom

Kate Smith, color consultant, says that if you wouldn't wear the color don't paint your bathroom that color.

White is a typical bathroom color as it makes people think and feel clean.

This was a fun post to put together. I feel cheerier already!

Enjoy!

Sources:
WebMD
Lynn Chalk
Joy By The Yard
Decorate23
Pinterest

Decorating with Orange

Orange is a bold and daring color to decorate with. But done right it can transform your space into a warm and inviting atmosphere.

Orange Paint

If you choose a vibrant orange consider just painting one wall with the color so it isn't overpowering. 

If you do choose a bright vibrant orange consider muting it with a design in a lighter or darker orange.

If you don't wish to stencil or paint free hand on your wall you can also achieve the goal of muting the vibrant color by scrunching up a towel, dipping it in the color and dabbing it on the wall. This can also be done with a paper bag, plastic grocery bag, etc.

Accents to enhance the color

Paint trim and baseboards white to accent the orange.

Green plants also accent orange.

If you don't want to paint an entire wall or room orange consider curtains or pillows in orange.

Here are some great fabric finds to consider using.

Orange and white zig zag

Orange Towers Pillow

Biarritz Orange

Imperial Trellis Mandarin

Zimba Orange

Thom Filicia Poppy Field in Tangelo

Thom Filicia City Squares

Enjoy!

sources:

Lynn Chalk

Decorate23

SFGate

Pinterest

Ugly Fabric Challenge Finalists

Ugly Fabric Challenge Finalists

Thank you all for participating in our Ugly Fabric Challenge by either submitting an ugly fabric or voting.

All entries that did not make the top three will receive a 10% coupon to use on a custom order, premade items or fabric yardage from our etsy shop, or for use in our clearance section.

In THIRD place, it was close. It was a toss up between Wacky Turds and Hunky Cowboys for a while there. But Wacky Turds won by ONE VOTE!

In Second Place Macarena Monkeys!!!

And I don't think there is any surprise here. . . 

If first place RAW MEAT!

I think I'm going to hurl.

"If You're gonna spew spew into this."

So. . . . here's the point in the challenge where I think, "What have I gotten myself into???"

Two of these fabrics need to be custom printed, which takes some time. So. . . . For the next step in our challenge I am going to take a few weeks to produce some window treatments from these monstrosities and see if I can make. . .  something of them. 

I think calling it a "challenge" was definitely good word choice. 

oh boy. . .  Here we go! I'll be back with updates.