Favorite Posts, Pins and Products Of The Week

April 30, 2016

Can you believe that April is almost over. The year is flying by at lightening speed and Christmas will be here before you know it. Even if you’re feeling a bit behind the eight ball like I am, I hope you’ll take a little time this weekend to sit, relax and enjoy my favorite posts, pins and products.

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FAVORITE POSTS

Are you on LinkedIn? In addition to finding jobs, the site features some great articles on business, skill building, entrepreneurship and leadership. This one on leadership happens to be written by one of my clients. #greatadvice

Art image by Lulla

When it comes to neutral decor, this living room is one of my favorites–just looking at it give me a sense of calm and relaxation. The trick to pulling off this color palette is using different shades of from one color family, incorporating texture and pattern work and using white to provide a clean crisp contrast. #texture #tonal #50shadesoftan

via Decor Pad

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FAVORITE PINS

This color and styling of this barcart vignette is serving as inspiration on a little project I’m working on. #makeovermadnessbloghop

via Adore Magazine

What a perfect centerpiece arrangement..flowers and greenery! Simple arrangements like this can be created using just about any flower variety and greenery from your yard. #keepitsimple

Camille Styles

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FAVORITE PRODUCTS

I love coloring in my coloring books because it’s so relaxing and almost hypnotic. Up until now the books I found have included abstract images or flowers so I’m super excited about this coloring book which is perfect for a design lover like me.

Do you host a Cinco de Mayo party? Even if you go out for Mexican food like we do, you still might want to take along these super adorable mini pinatas. #toocute

Have an awesome weekend. My big plans for the weekend are a walk in the park, painting, getting a little work done and catching up on my magazine pile. Just the kind of weekend I need.

Behind The Blog: Jennifer Schoenberger Design

April 29, 2016

I’m excited to bring you the very first post in my new Behind The Blog series her on ConfettiStyle and I’m even more excited to be featuring my friend and fellow interior designer Jennifer Schoenberger and Jennifer Schoenberger Design.

Photograph by Kristy Dickerson

I met Jennifer a few years ago and immediately felt her warm and genuine spirit. Since that time our friendship has blossomed and I have become one of Jennifer’s biggest fans. As a designer, she has an eye for detail, can accessorize a room like no other and designs rooms that exude the ultimate in comfort and luxury. One of the things I really love most about Jennifer’s design style is her ability to mix old and new and modern with vintage, creating spaces that feel collected, personal and timeless. And if you need some fashion inspiration, Jennifer has impeccable personal style with a love for vintage fashion.

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Recently I posed a few questions to Jennifer so that we can learn a little more about her and take a look behind her blog, Vreeland Road.

Grab a cup of coffee of let’s chat with Jennifer and take a look at more of her work…

How did you get into the interior design field? And what do you love most about design?

My career began after the purchase of our first home in Roswell. It was my first canvas and I went to work creating with paint, lighting and flea market finds. Friends and friends of friends began asking for help and it started as a little side business/hobby while working a nine to five. In 2010 I started blogging and showcasing my work and ideas, and at that point I felt like folks started to take it more seriously and business took off. What I love most about design, is helping people create a home they love living in. Our surroundings are so important to our daily lives and energy. It plays a role in everything we do, I really believe that. And being a designer is a gift. I’m so grateful (and flattered) every time a new client calls inviting me into their personal space. It’s a privilege I take very seriously.

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I know you have fabulous style but can you give me three words you think describe your personal style?

Oh gosh, it’s so hard for me to label my style. It’s a conglomerate of so many things and always changing! I think if I had to come up with three words it would be FUN, classic and a little bit rock and roll.

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Design trends come and go, but which design trend are you loving most right now? And which one do you wish would fade away?

I have to say I’m a huge fan of the notion of opposites attract. The idea of mixing an antique desk with a modern chair or hanging an ornate gold frame against a rustic, reclaimed wood wall. You see a lot of this mixing going on, traditional with modern. I’m not so sure this is a trend, so to speak, but I hope it sticks around because it creates great interest in interiors. As far as a trend I wish would go away, nothing really jumps out at me. I guess if you are going to hang your tv over your fireplace, please be discreet and creative in trying to camouflage it when not in use.

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What’s your favorite room in your home?

Right now, none of them! LOL. But if I had to pick, I’d say our kitchen/keeping room is on track to being my favorite, probably because it’s the only space close to being “finished” and it’s where we spend most of our time together.

-those drapes!

What’s your most prized decorative accessory?

My most prized decorative accessory would be anything that belonged to my Mother. For example she had a pocket watch she wore on a gold chain, and I incorporate those things into vignettes around our home as a reminder of her love and sacrifice. Being a Mom is a really hard job!

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If you could share one piece of advice with aspiring designers, what would it be?

Be fearless in your design and ideas. Stick to your guns and don’t let any contractor, vendor, husband-of-the-client talk you out of it. Nothing is more frustrating, when you come up with an idea you laid in bed all night long thinking about, to have them roll their eyes at it and think you are crazy. You are not crazy. That and be prepared when you lay out your business plan, brand, processes and procedures. Have all that ready and rocking for when the flood hits because it will be too difficult to go back and implement while trying to design the lights out of five different spaces at once.

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What’s your favorite way to rewind after a long day?

Family dinners. Hands down. I feel like our corporate culture owns us Monday through Friday, so for me it’s so important to make those days count with a family dinner around the table. It might be 8 o’clock at night by the time we all sit down, but it’s happening. And Mommy gets very angry when over-the-top coaches or sports interfere with weekday family time. It’s so important for Mom, Dad, siblings to have that connection every day. To be heard.

I know you are from Michigan and love your home town, but what do you love most about living in the south?

What I love most about living in the South is Southerners passion for living! Whether it be their homes, gardens, entertaining, the way they still “get dressed” – the South is big on living and I think it played a major role in the success of my design career. I can’t say for sure that if I was still living in Michigan, I would have developed such a passion for interiors.

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Tell me 5 things you can’t live without?

Music (and the shazam app)
a breeze and the sound of birds chirping
Summers in Michigan (!!!)
Backroads (an alternate route that forces you to slow down and enjoy the ride)
Pinterest!

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And finally, if you had to choose…bold color or subdued neutrals?

Subdued neutrals. My next house will be all white! White floors, white everything.

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Thanks Jennifer for sharing your world with us. Your talent is inspiring to me and so many others.

To learn more about Jennifer and here design work, please visit her website at jenniferschoenbergerdesigns.com. And make sure to follow her fabulous blog, Vreeland Road.

Design Chat: Selecting a Sofa (and developing an accessory plan)

April 28, 2016

I’ve got another installment of Design Chat for you today, where I answer and provide design advice to a readers question.

Like many of the other Design Chat questions, Kimberly’s design challenge centered on finding the right sofa for her living room. Here’s the question Kimberly posed about a sectional she was considering…

“I read your blog about the do’s and font’s of a sectional and I am strongly considering this sectional for my room. Here are my questions…
1. Is the sectional too dark? I have tons of sunlight. I am wanting to steer away from the tan/beige, and I hear grays are very neutral, but I don’t want it to be a fad thing. The size is 115 X 115.
2. The back of the sectional would face the direction of looking into the room to define that space b/c I don’t want to block the bay windows.
I have a family of 5 and we purchased a single couch with the intent on adding more chairs, but they hated it b/c we couldn’t all sit together. Therefore, that’s why I am looking at the sectional, I know it limits us when it comes to moving furniture around. What do you think? ”

Here’s the space that Kimberly is dealing with. You can see that the room is pretty large, has a great span of windows at the far end and a fireplace and bookshelves that sit on one wall.

And here’s the sectional that Kimberly is considering. She spotted this piece at End Up Furniture in Greenville, SC.

Ok Kimberly, here’s what I think.

Given the size of your room I think this sectional is a great option. The scale looks good and the sofa will really anchor the room. As far as the color goes, the darker grey get two thumbs up from me. Grey is definitely considered a neutral and are a great alternative to a lighter khaki or tan colors. You can feel confident that grey will not go out of style in the coming years.

Looking at the other elements in the room here’s a couple of suggestions I have to round out the space.

♦ Place side tables at both ends of the sectional piece that sits along the wall and add tabletop lamps to make that sofa functional for reading etc.

♦ Highlight the window with drapes. You could either hang panels at the far ends of the bay window or at all the break points along the window which would give you four hanging panels. Curtains will add softness and allow you to bring some color into the space.

♦ I’d also suggest to create vignette or small sitting area at the window so that space feels purposeful. Maybe place an upholstered bench under the center window or two accent chairs with a small side table between.

♦ Finally, I’d hang a larger piece of artwork on the wall over the sofa to balance the TV wall and overall scale of the room. And relook your rug, maybe adding something with minimized pattern work. Both of these areas give you another opportunity to bring some color and pattern into the room.

Here’s a quick inspiration board I pulled together, to give Kimberly an idea for a color and accessory palette to work with her new sofa.

update: Kimberly purchased the sofa and it was delivered earlier this week. She’s on her way to a new space for her family to enjoy.

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You might also like these posts (click on image):

Things I Love: French Ribbon

April 27, 2016

Amy Butler

If I won the lottery, one of my splurges would be to buy hundreds and maybe even thousands of dollars of beautiful ribbon. I adore ribbon especially if it’s intricately designed and beautifully woven.

I have several go-to shopping sources for ribbon including this one and this one , but I am thrilled to have just uncovered what might be the holy grail of beautiful French ribbon.

Renaissance Ribbons was started by Edith Minne whose love affair for French ribbon started over 20 years ago. She turned her passion into a thriving business and today the company designs, creates and supplies their goods to thousands of wholesale companies worldwide and employs 18 designers who create their patterns.

The collection of styles available from Renaissance is vast, each one just as beautiful as the next.

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Trend Watch: Toile de Jouy

April 26, 2016

Stylebeat

Calling this post a ‘trend watch’ may be exaggerating a bit since the trend I’m talking about has never really gone out of style, it just lost some of its luster in recent years. It wasn’t until Chinoiserie starting regaining its popularity a few years ago that toile started to come back on the design scene in a big way.

“Toile de Jouy”, sometimes abbreviated to simply “toile”, is a type of decorating pattern consisting of a white or off-white background on which a repeated pattern depicting a fairly complex scene, generally of a pastoral theme such as a couple having a picnic by a lake or an arrangement of flowers.

I remember the days when toile was the ‘it’ pattern in home decor and was also a popular look in fashion accessories and clothing. Back then the colors were pretty classic with blue and white, black and white, red and white and green and white the color combos you saw most.

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Picnic In The Park

April 22, 2016

Did you know that Saturday is National Picnic Day? If you’re lucky enough to have great weather where you live, it’s the perfect time to pull together your favorite picnic décor, picnic food and head to the park. Despite a busy weekend of work and projects, I’m hoping to squeeze in a couple of hours of lounging under a tree and enjoying the our first picnic of spring.

Picnicking has become an art form over the last few of years and it’s no longer PB and J sandwiches and an old quilt.

These days, picnic basket are a style statement and just about any woven basket will work. I was lucky to score a really great vintage basket last year similar to these below. The great thing about these vintage baskets is that they are sturdy, have a wide-open interior and it’s easy to pack food, blankets and anything else you might want easy.

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Entertaining Idea: Honeycomb Balls

April 21, 2016

When it comes to party decor, I’m one for big, bold design statements. My latest party decor obsession is honeycomb paper shapes. There is something about the honeycomb design that makes these decorative pieces more festive than party balloons and crepe paper streamers.

With so many festive occasions coming up like Cinco De Mayo, Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and outdoor entertaining season, you have lots of opportunities to decorate with these festive shapes. Here’s a little inspiration for you…

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This honeycomb garland is just breathtaking and creates such a dramatic impact above a party table. The mix of shapes and colors adds so much dimension and visual pop.

100 Layer Cake

I love this arrangement of larger honeycomb balls and tassel garland as wall decor.

PnP Flowers Inc.

This centerpiece is simply beautiful and such a unique way to decorate a table. I can’t wait to give this look a try for myself.

Lovelyfest Event Design

How fun is this garland on a staircase? I would love to create a version this in traditional Christmas colors.

Canadian House and Home

And if you want to add a little fun to a flower arrangement, you can even use the balls to do that. Another DIY I’m going to try.

Not On The High Street

I’ve also been on the hunt for some mini honeycomb shapes to use for gift wrapping. Such an easy way to embellish a gift.

Studio DIY

There are several online stores and Etsy shops that sell honeycomb balls, but the Oh Happy Day shop has one of the best assortments out there. And I like the prices available from Oriental Trading Company.

The Parties That Pop–Etsy Shop

I hope you were inspired to great really creative with the decor for your next party. Let’s celebrate!

Color Crush: Blue and Green

April 20, 2016

via

I’ve been working with a new client and their design project is really exciting because it involves one of my favorite color crushes…blue and green.

While navy has always been a much-used color in home decor, it has been resurfacing as a hot color trend over the last couple of years. And ever since Pantone named Emerald Green as their color of the year in 2013, shades of green have been making a comeback as one of the top home decor fashion colors.

What I like about the combination of blue and green is the sophisticated yet modern feel that pairing has.

On a recent fabric shopping trip, I spotted some really beautiful blue and green fabrics I wanted to share with you. I’ve grouped the designs together in workable sets that can easily be combined within a single room design. Here’s how I’d use each of the fabrics within the groupings:

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