Inexpensive Christmas Decorating Ideas For 2009 - Part Four: Food Makes Great Decorations

Part Four: Don’t Forget, Food Makes Great Decorations

Platters of Christmas cookies, glass bowls filled with red and green sweets and candy canes on the tree or in a clear vase on the sideboard all make cheerful, homey additions to your holiday decor and tasty snacks for family and guests.   

Here’s a simple idea.  Take candy cane sticks and glue them around a pillar candle for a bright holiday touch.  Use 3 or four of varying heights, set them on a plate edged in greenery and enjoy watching smiles light up on people’s faces. 

What I’m really trying to say is you don’t have to spend a lot of money to make your Christmas merry and bright.  This is a hard year economically for many of us, but we still have lots to celebrate.  Use your imagination, find things you have and use them in new ways.  Make some family memories by sitting down together to string popcorn and cranberries.  Let the kids help hang mini ornaments from house plants and string your larger plants with fairy lights.  Christmas is about warmth, love and sharing and it’s the little things you do that make a holiday memorable.  You may enjoy decorating in these easy, simple ways so much that it will become a tradition that your family will learn to cherish. 

Inexpensive Christmas Decorating Ideas For 2009 - Part Three: Scout Secondhand Stores Seasonal Savings

Part 3: Scout Secondhand Stores Seasonal Savings

There’s loads of items you can turn into beautiful holiday decorations at thrift stores, consignment shops and secondhand stores.  There’s usually plenty of traditional ornaments, garlands, and holiday figurines on sale, plus candles, Christmas themed linens,  dishes and glassware and decorations for your yard.  This is also a good place to pick up teddy bears and dolls or any other items suggested earlier in this article if you didn’t have them on hand.  

Resale shops almost always have an assortment of baskets for sale.  You can use baskets for a great number of decorating ideas.  Fill them with small wrapped gift boxes, Christmas cards or pinecones and plain red and green ornaments.  Drape holiday patterned  napkins around the basket and fill it with fruit and nuts still in the shell.  Dry orange slices, mix them in a basket with pine needles, cinnamon sticks, and  whole cloves for a fragrant holiday potpourri.  Fill  a basket with old sheet music for Christmas carols or colorful children’s Christmas books.  The ways to use baskets are as varied as the ways to use pinecones when you’re decking your halls this season.

The best part of buying from resale shops?  You’re saving money and you’re being environmentally responsible by recycling items that might have otherwise headed for the landfill.

Inexpensive Christmas Decorating Ideas For 2009 - Part Two: Turn to Mother Nature for Decorating Help

Part Two: Turn to Mother Nature for Decorating Help

Now that you’ve looked around inside,  take a walk and look for inspiration outdoors.  Collect pine cones, seashells, milkweed pods  or other interesting specimens you find.  Use them as is or add a touch of faux snow, glitter or gold or silver spray paint. 

Pine cones can be used in countless ways.  Fill baskets with them and set them everywhere.  Hang them from the tree or create your own  pine cone wreaths.  Just open up your imagine imagination and the ideas will come.

Go to a Christmas tree lot and see if they will give you (or sell very cheaply)  the branches they’ve cut from the bottom of trees people have purchased.  Line the mantelpiece with pine fronds or use the evergreen branches to trim around door frames.  Not only will the boughs look nice, but they’ll add a rich holiday fragrance to your home.

Inexpensive Christmas Decorating Ideas For 2009 - Part One: Decorate What You Have

Part One: Decorate with What You Have

Most of us own some Christmas decorations, even if they’re hand me downs.   When I say decorate with what you already own, though, I’m not just referring to some leftover  ornaments and grandmother’s old nativity set.

Take a look around your house and see what you might easily transform into Christmas decorations.  Do you have any teddy bears, dolls or other toys around?  How about an old wooden sled or red wagon?  Do you own any soft throws or quilts in holiday colors?  Take inventory and see if you have a few Mason jars, clear vases or metal cookie cutters in holiday shapes.  These are all Items you can use to decorate for the season.

Take the sled, sand it down and give it a coat of paint.  If you’re the artistic sort, you could add a simple holiday picture like this one or, for the less talented, use white snowflake stencils on distressed red paint to add a touch of whimsy.  Drape a bit of garland around the sled, add a couple of weighted gaily wrapped faux presents and prop the small vignette in a corner.  It’s an instant touch of  nostalgia and warm feelings.

Seat teddy bears and dolls on window sills and adorn them with winter scarves or sock hats or add a cheery holiday bow.  You can use other toys, like a spinning top, wooden blocks or a jack in the box beneath the Christmas tree.  Use the wooden blocks to spell out a holiday greeting on your fireplace mantel or at a table near your front door.

Fill Mason jars with Christmas-themed hard candies, cranberries, mini ornaments or pine cones and tie the neck with a big holiday bow.  Metal cookie cutters make cute ornaments when they’re hung by a ribbon from the tree.  You can toss a holiday colored throw over a rocker or use a quilt as a tree skirt.

Fill terra cotta pots with sand to make candle holders.  You can paint the pots  gold or silver and wrap the rim with greenery or cover the sand with pine cones.  Use an odd number of pots in varying sizes to create a cheery display on a tabletop.

 

Modern Wallpaper Ideas - The Flavor Paper Company

The Flavor is in the Paper

 

Wallpaper just got more fun with the discovery of the Flavor Paper Company.  With a current resurgence of paper being enjoyed, this Brooklyn-based by way of New Orleans by way of Oregon company offers some of the most innovative hand-screen prints available. 

 

Sold in untrimmed, 27” wide by 15 foot long single rolls, Flavor Paper offers vintage, contemporary, and custom hand-screened papers in bold, decadent colors and robust patterns.   Each roll is custom made, making it easy to choose your own colors, logos or even patterns.  Ink colors from all the patterns are interchangeable, and designs can be printed on any stock grounds, making this company a designer’s dream. 

 

The pattern styles range from Flavor Paper’s own descriptions of floral, funky, geometric and traditional.  The company has truly put its own original take on patterns such as Cherry Forever, Sakura,or  Fishnet.  The mix of colors gives each pattern personality overload, and are definitely not for the meek. 

 

Flavor Papers’ cliental list is long, and features many of its installations at the site.  While many are quite notable that have been done for recognizable rock stars, hotels, restaurants and bars, one of the most fun had to have been at the SweetArts Ball in New Orleans.  Asked to design a “peep show” booth, they created a titillating reflective damask with black light friendly hot pinks and silver.  Using their pattern “Flower of Love”, this space created a user-friendly anything goes atmosphere. 

 

Do Certain Colors Actually make you hungry?

So it’s my dining room that’s making me fat…

Do certain colors actually make you hungry?

There is an excuse for everything, and if you haven’t already you can add paint colors to your list.  In the study of Chromodynamics, colors are determined to excite, depress, anger, stimulate or decrease appetite, create warmth or coolness. 

 

Picking paint colors is often an exhausting or daunting task, and throw in a few mood issues confuses it further.  Naturally it is important to have the whole how flow with complimentary colors, but it is necessary to understand some of the basic psychology behind the science.  The wrong color can actually give the room a bad vibe. 

The cliché color for dining rooms is red, but did you know that red actually stimulates and increases appetite?  Orange and yellow are also known to act the same way.  A warmer tone makes you want to stay in that room longer, and makes it more conducive to eating…and eating…

 

On the opposite end, studies say that rooms painted in blue, violet or indigo tones repress appetite and make you feel cooler.  These colors also are considered relaxing and will have a sleep-inducing effect.  While you may think you are losing the weight by not eating, you’ll sleep right through your workout.

 

The optimal color to keep you relaxed and more in balance for appetite are shades of green, something we’ve known for years in the design world.  Stay away from tones that are too yellow or acidic, which can actually create upset or tension in the body.

 

 Is this the best advice to follow when choosing color?  It certainly can’t hurt, but choose the colors you like and respond well so, rather than something that doesn’t fit your home well.

 

Designer Decorative Toilet Seat Covers

Should the seat be left up or down?

 

Ever walk into your bathroom and feel like it just doesn’t quite have the look you wanted?  Now, with Pressalit toilet seat covers, you can express your true personality in a way you haven’t considered.  Made from formed plastic or wood, these decorative toilet seats will enhance the décor anywhere from a luxurious feel to one with whimsy. 

 

One of the nicest features is the Auto Close function, which comes equipped with an infrared sensor that registers the user.  It will automatically close the seat once that user is out of the sensor’s reach.  It can be closed with the seat and cover together or just the cover.  There is  also a Soft Close Seat that doesn’t slam when you shut it, but rather slowly closes on its own when pushed. 

 

Offering seat covers in a wide range of styles and colors, Pressalit has sport themed seats, floral covered seats, a seat resembling a diamond, or seats shaped like leaves.  Basic seats can be trimmed with a colorful ribbon.  There is even a seat that is a tribute to Madonna with a disco ball handle.  The imagination is truly stimulated with all that Pressalit has to offer.

 

Who would have imagined that choosing a toilet seat cover could have such an impact?  This Denmark-based company does not sell through the big box suppliers, but through designers only.  The website will guide you to the firm closest to you.

 

Pollack Fabrics - Cutting Edge Textiles That Are Both Innovative and Inspirational

Pollack and Associates Take Charge

For over twenty years, Pollack Fabrics have been innovating leaders in design for their cutting edge textiles.  Founding partners Mark Pollack, Susan and Rick Sullivan took great inspiration from the Rhode Island School of Design (RISD), where Mark took his formal education.

Pollack Outdoor Fabrics

RISD has a vast collection of historic textiles that Mark Pollack has studied.  A child’s christening gown, or the hem of a royal monarch’s coat are just part of the stock that provides mountains of inspiration to draw from.  In fact, two of their collections have been dedicated to the archives at RISD.

Pollack Fabrics are also well known for their contemporary designs that incorporate motifs seen in everyday life.  Whether it is a bank of clouds, an iron scrolled gate, or the outline of pebbles in sand, the influence of shape and nature is evident.  The hand and texture of their woven fabrics make them an interior designer’s dream for durability, quality, and beauty.  This year, one of their most prolific collections combines the sheen of metallic threads with silks, chenilles, wools, and linen, in addition to their luxurious patterns. 

Mark Pollack is also a leader in color, putting together schemes that are ahead of their time.   Soft golds with coral and brown, shiny ostrich skins in vinyl, and sea greens with taupe, blue, and orange pepper the current collections.  Eyelash fabrics provide backdrops of texture, alongside flowing wool sheers, and ribbon enhanced voiles. 

Found through top interior designers and decorators, the influence of Pollack fabrics is felt throughout the industry, and will continue to be a must-have for home and office design.

Tel-Aviv based Aqua Creations - Furniture and Lighting Designs by Awe-Inspiring Artist, Ayala Serfaty

Beneath the Sea

Aqua Designs - Ayala Serfaty

It never ceases to amaze me how the creative mind works – what inspires someone, how they view the world.  The Tel-Aviv company Aqua Creations is one such company that takes lighting and furniture design to a whole other level by finding grace and beauty from under the sea.  Established in 1994, Aqua Creations has offices and showrooms all over the world, and features the work of Artist Designer Ayala Serfaty

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Many of the pieces look like they could undulate at any given moment, taking their cue from the movement of water or wind around them.  You can instantly visualize the pulses a jellyfish takes to swim gently in the ocean.  The lighting creations show influence from anemones as well as the other jelly like creatures found in the deep.  Other forms are inspired by nature’s flora, or even the skin of an onion. 

The Baby Coral wall lamp looks as if it were growing in an underwater garden, straight from the wall.  The soft folds of the silk fabric give the impression of an undisturbed sea life, while providing soft light to accent a wall.

 

The Morning Glory Floor Lamp takes its cues from a blossom, its shape very sensual and feminine.  Available in numerous colors of silk, the form appears to be lit from deep within, illuminating an intimate space. 

The Sunsa Chandelier is made up of 21 shades, and reminds me of Japanese umbrellas or a field of blossoms.  The four layers of shades are either 24” or 30” in diameter, creating a large scale sea of light.  I think you would have a feeling of transcendence sitting below it.

 

Couture West Hollywood Furniture Designs - The Phyllis Morris Company

Go For Baroque

Without a doubt, the Phyllis Morris Company has single handedly turned the Hollywood mystique into a full-fledged style.  Morris has a legacy of “more is more” and is known for her famed West Hollywood furniture designs.  The company is now run by her daughter and son-in-law, Jamie and John Adler, but they continue her over-the-top customization.

 

Phyllis Morris Company loves the swirling details of climbing arabesques and the high relief of hand carved motifs.  The furniture is all designed and manufactured in house, located in West Hollywood, where Jamie Adler proclaims it to be ”couture furniture”.   The line combines many cleaner lined pieces with the love of High Renaissance, giving an eclectic feel to the collection.  The De Medici Duet Chair is a settee style featuring a crown-like back, and is perfect for both the host and hostess to sit together at the dining table.  The shell motifs and combination of silver and gold metal leaf shimmer every hand carved motif.

The handsome Grand Venetian Bergere is an elaborately carved portly chair.  With Zeus-like presence, this chair seems more at home in a castle, surrounded by the pomp and circumstance of royalty.   With a little humor added in, this chair stops short of taking itself too seriously when combining a rich, overscaled patterned fabric. 

While not known for their recession friendly prices, the Phyllis Morris Company exemplifies how a stylish piece of furniture is worth every penny, when you regard the consideration given to every detail.  Featured in nearly every high end design magazine, this company lives up to the woman who started it all.

 

The Weedz Chair by Thayer Coggin

2010 Furniture Trends

Where the Weedz Grow

Made from natural woven Abaca over a bamboo frame, this version of an upscale PapaSan chair has a futuristic feel to it.  Thayer Coggin’s Weedz chairs may insinuate something else, but comfort is where the heart of its matter lies.  Conforming to the natural curves of the body, this chair has a sexy shape, but is perfect for a sunroom or sitting area.  Imagine four sitting around a fire pit, sharing great conversation and wine while lounging in this seat.

 

Thayer Coggin proudly states that they make their furnishings in the United States, and are still a family run company in High Point, NC.   They are committed to creating quality, cutting edge furniture designs that are well recognized throughout the industry.  

 

Ebanista Furniture - "Nobility and Beauty"

Feels like I’m Flying

This image is from a recent ad for Ebanista Furniture, but I’m much more intrigued by the piece of art coming out of the wall.  From a design standpoint, the room is a lovely feat of proportions, offsetting the incredibly tall windows and vaulted ceiling with this monument looking down on the seating. 

…”a complexity and warmth that are seldom seen together…contrasting characters that complement one another…the nobility and beauty of the finer materials…the dedication, patience, and pride of craftsmanship…antiquity, patina, and old world techniques…graceful lines…sensitivity to proportion and pedigreed details,” states Ebanista’s website. 

That statement is a wonderful testament to this photo, but I’m still wondering how the sculpture got up there and what is really holding it in place.  I would love to see the features – is he smiling?  Is he swan diving into the sofa?  Is he being thoughtful and watchful over the home?  How heavy is that thing – is it made from resin and hollow?  This is not my typical style of decorating as the room has a sort of stark quality, even with the warmer colors, but I kept returning to this picture to try to sort out why it continued to catch my eye.  

If nothing else, this is great advertising for Ebanista – if anyone else is as intrigued as I am about the art, they will undoubtedly be struck with the rest of the room.  As with any interior decorating, the most important element is the unexpected.

 

Modern Design Furniture by Baek-Ki Kim

Twisted Up

Designer Baek-Ki Kim’s take on the simple art of seating is a bit twisted.  The Twisted Twisted stool appears to have been distorted by a mammoth force, only to create a functional seat.  The minimal lines show how gravity can contort and reshape, yet maintain a graceful elegance.  One-off editions are made from spray molded ABS plastic, with carbon fiber editions made to order. 

Baek-Ki Kim Twisted Stool | Photo curtosy of Design Spotter

Several shapes and heights are available to fit each space.  The play of light off the curvatures is also a work of art that continues to develop different times of the day as the sun moves.  If you actually used the stool for a seat, then you may find yourself contorting a bit as you conform.  Kim’s artful approach is characteristic of all his designs.  More of his work is available at the website, and inquires are welcome.

Digital Print On Canvas and Large Scale Photos - Taking Your Pictures to New Heights

The New Focal Point:  Large Scale Photographic Digital Prints On Canvas Anchor a Room

 Digital Photo Print On Canvas Curtosy of http://www.canvasprintart.co.uk/

Pros and amateurs unite! Massive images produced as high quality photographs are taking over the empty space above you sofa.  Larger than a game board and sometimes spanning the width of a sofa, these majestic portraits are becoming easy to produce with the high tech of digital printing.

Digital Photo Print On Canvas Curtosy of http://www.canvasprintart.co.uk/

Encased in simple frames, photographs of blossoms in bloom to gritty black and white subjects are showing up everywhere, even elegant dressy rooms.  Their artistic statement can’t be avoided as the new printing processes allow for extreme clarity.  Large scale photographs add a fresh take on a traditional room, and allow for a sublime impact in a modern room. 

If you have a knack for photography, then websites such as Canvas on Demand can produce the print on canvas for you.  They can create unique works by adding color to emulate an oil painting, or retouching.  Using your own photography adds a personal touch to a room as well as a conversational piece.

For my UK based readers, Canvas Print Art UK is an ebay store offering a wide selection of Canvas Print Art across several categories and genres.

There are also many resources that offer large scale pieces of black and white or color photography.  Trowbridge Gallery has an archive of both classic and new images, ranging from sleek architecture to iconic movie stars such as Audrey Hepburn. 

The Charlie Waite Collection of 42” square color landscapes has an incredible clarity that is awe inspiring – an entire room can be built around his works. 

 

A large scale photo will anchor a wall as well as add dimension to a room.  Whether you create the work yourself, or find a piece that speaks to you is your personal choice.  Combine photography with other works of art for a visual treat and make the room your favorite choice to sit in.

See Also:

DNA Art - The Ultimate Self Portrait

2009 Design Trends - Art and Fashion Meet Furniture

Remaking a Room With Wall Mirrors

Cheap Wall Art Ideas

Children's Furniture Trends

The Growing Trend of Children’s Furniture

One of the bigger trends at the recent High Point Furniture Market was in Children’s Furniture.  With parents waiting until later in life to have children, and more disposable incomes at that time, they are putting more into their Children’s bedroom furniture.  Children’s furniture like computer nooks and areas for game systems are also becoming popular for children’s rooms in lower levels or separate rooms. 

Stanley Furniture has responded to the increased demand in childrens furniture within their Young America line.  The result are lines that can start with cribs on up through beds to suit a teenager into college.  The younger lines include Built-to-Grow cribs that can be translated into headboards, and pieces added to the collection such as nightstands, dressers, etc as they grow.  Stanley has tackled almost every storage issue that affects young people, with armoires, book cases, chests and corner units. 

The styles cover boys as well as girls, with contemporary to traditional styles.  One of my favorite looks has been from the Ma Marie set, a more sophisticated take combining a black painted finish with cherry accents. 

The Young America brand is also a sustainable line, with 75% of all the lumber they use coming from the Appalachian Hardwood Region Inc, and falling into the strict guidelines that govern the forest practices.  While Stanley does not repopulate the forests directly, they do work with the AMHI to educate the landowners as well as the public on the importance.  Stanley’s dedication to sustainability as well as child safety has made them a leader in the children’s furniture industry.

Children’s Bedrooms Girl’s Rooms on Style Estate

Children’s Bedrooms, Boys Rooms on Style Estate