HOLIDAY DECORATING...HERE COME THE CATALOGS!!

A few weeks ago I got my first holiday catalog: Frontgate.





And last week, Target arrived. This week it is Restoration Hardware. Don’t pitch your catalogs! They are valuable resources. Here’s how you can use the catalogs to help you plan your holiday décor.

Want to have a beautifully decorated home for the holidays?
Use what you have!


The good news is that anyone can create a beautiful, AFFORDABLE holiday ambiance in their home. The key is PROPER PLANNING, and here’s my outline for how to do it. But be sure you have enough time to read this post, because it is very detailed!

First, begin collecting ideas in a file. This is fun, and the easiest part! Home catalogs, like Pottery Barn and Crate and Barrel, clothing catalogs, food catalogs, you name it – every vendor will have some holiday ideas to showcase their products. Tear out pages of ideas that you like.

Look for things that use popular holiday elements like ornaments, candles, Christmas cards, and greenery, as well as more unusual ideas. Collect as many as you like, but when the time comes to choose ideas from your file, zero in on a few. It really is true that “Less is more.”

Second, identify the Project. (This is your Interior Designer talking. =) Identifying the spaces you want to feature will help focus your efforts, and eliminate scattering your time/energy/money on unnecessary areas. You don’t need to cover every square inch. A few lavish effects are more appealing than masses of tiny touches.

Inspect each room for a focal point as the starting place for the decoration. Most people like to concentrate on a special welcome in their entry, and make a warm statement in the dining room, family room, kitchen, and powder room. A foyer, for instance, frequently has a small table, a wall mirror, or a bench. Any of these are nice places to start. Other examples of focus areas for decoration are the dining table, and the fireplace mantel. You will find the catalogs are a great guideline here.

To complete the second step in the planning process, it is a good idea to list the areas that you want to showcase. This keeps you organized, and helps you avoid the temptation to buy every cute thing you see in the stores!

Third, inventory existing items. This is the most critical detail in keeping the project cost-effective. Almost every home already has something that can be used as a backdrop or prop for a holiday theme. Here are some examples:

· Greenery. Seasonal greenery always sets the tone for a warm, inviting atmosphere, and the most affordable greenery can usually be found in your own backyard! Evergreen shrubbery can be used indoors on a mantel, massed in a large vase, or tied to a chandelier with festive ribbons. Look for pine boughs, crabapple branches, holly, pyracanthas, and other red berries. Accent with natural pine cones or dress it up with inexpensive, colorful glass balls. Use ideas from your file to help you create an artistic arrangement.
Tip: Planning your greenery early enables you to postpone the fall pruning of these evergreens and berries so you have more material to work with in December.
· Containers. These can be beautifully transformed at holiday time:
-a crystal bowl,
-a cake stand,
-a three-tiered plate stand,
-tall cylinder vases.
These pieces have year-round appeal, and it’s worth shopping around at sales to get them, because you will use them for other occasions too.

Many exquisite ways can be found to dress these up for the Holidays. Some are simple and effortless, such as arranging apples and cinnamon sticks in the container. Others are more original and require extra effort, but are worth the trouble. Sugared fruit is an example that was featured in a magazine a few years ago. Pale green grapes, green apples, and pears, dipped in egg white and rolled in granulated sugar, are stunning displayed on a three-tiered plate stand, and they keep for several weeks. With planning (here is your Interior Designer again!), such a project can be turned into a family activity. Even the smallest fingers can help in this team effort, rolling the grapes in the sugar. Another beautiful effect is achieved with “glittered” pinecones stacked on a cake stand. There are countless ways to bring the festive feel of the holidays into your home without encountering great expense.

· Christmas or Hanukkah greeting cards. These are wonderful ingredients found in virtually every home during the holidays. These colorful expressions of the season are frequently used to create a focal point. Some possibilities are:
-They can be cheerfully strung across ribbons in the breakfast room window or on the fireplace mantel.
-Craft stores and home improvement centers often feature simple projects you can make yourself to showcase the cards.
-Catalogs like Pottery Barn often feature creative card trees which you can purchase.
-An idea I have used in my home is to start a tradition with the most beautiful cards. Each year I choose the most special ones to frame. With planning, you can shop the sales for frames that match your home’s décor. Creating a family collection of holiday greetings can be a special tradition that everyone enjoys year after year.

IMPORTANCE OF TIMING
Timing is a crucial factor to consider in your three steps of planning. Planning is best accomplished well in advance of the holiday season. One of the most common pitfalls in keeping your project affordable is the tendency to wait until the last minute. Often, people don’t feel like thinking about Christmas until late fall. However, an early analysis of your project leaves more time to research specific solutions and to find the necessary materials during routine shopping trips.

TIPS from a Designer
· Last year, I found the best prices for decorations at Michael’s. They were all reduced by 40-70%.
· Sam’s Club always has a great selection of wired ribbon. You get a huge roll – bigger than most craft stores, for under $7.
· Sam’s Club also has fresh 25 ft. pine/cedar garlands for about $13. That’s twice as much garland as Lowe’s for the same price. But with Sam’s, you have to act early, since they do run out of things.
· Dollar Store has lots of things, and yes they are all $1. However, you have to read the fine print. Sometimes the quantity of what you are getting prices out to be the same per unit as other stores like Target. With Dollar Store, some things are a really good buy and others are not. Wear your glasses to check the quality!
· Many designers are willing to help you organize your project for a small hourly fee. If you have already done my steps for planning the project, it shouldn’t take a lot of time for a designer to set you on the right track to completion.
· Or – if your budget allows for it – get the designer to do the whole thing!! Call me and ask!

Enjoy Your Project!

A FAVORITE LINK!

Every week, I get this blog in my inbox. It's one of my favorites, because the quality of the designers and their photos is so outstanding. Each week a different designer is interviewed. There is such a wide range of styles featured, and anything from kitchens to airplane interiors can show up!These 2 pictures are in the Sept 8, 2009 post on work by Janie Hirsch. If you love interior design, check out this site, and add it to your favorites, or sign up for the weekly email.
The url is: http://access.decorati.com

DIMENSION RETURNS TO THE WOODS - HOORAY!!!!!!

Important notice: Dimension is returning to the woods. It happens in NC in September every year, and is one of my favorite times. After enduring the heat of August, and the flat landscape of everything green, dimension begins to appear. How does it happen? Take a look outside, and view it as a canvas: one tree begins to turn, and all of a sudden, everything is no longer flat.

Then as leaves slowly begin to drop, deeper areas of the woods come into view. Even if it’s still mostly green, you can see into the woods, and the shadows give depth to your canvas.

Try it. In this photo from Blowing Rock, the shadows around the tree trunks add the dimension. If you put your fingers over the green and dark tree trunk area at the left, and imagine that section of the photo to be orange, like the rest of the picture, you find that the dimension on that side of the photo goes flat.

You can see it also in marshy areas, where the water plants grow in clumps around each other. What was a solid sheet of green in August begins to have layers of brown and varying shades of fall, which add depth to the view. All of a sudden there is perspective in your picture, which was missing in August. This photo is from Moses Cone Park near Blowing Rock, but there is an even better example of layering of color right here in Cary at Crabtree Park. The section of Aviation Parkway that crosses Crabtree Lake is one of my FAVORITE places to view the changing seasons. Unfortunately, it is not an easy place to take a photo, because of the heavy traffic and lack of road shoulder. But next time you head to the airport, keep your eyes open as you cross the lake, and see what the season is doing.

What does this have to do with Interior Design? It’s an interesting thing to contemplate. In the case of the woods: by REMOVING something, you create dimension. In your spaces, where you may have a solid sheet of “things” too crowded to enjoy, a careful editing can reveal a balance and beauty of form that is nurturing and inspiring. In the cases of Moses Cone Park and Crabtree Lake: proper contrast and color balance add a perspective that makes a space seem bigger.

Dimension is an important quality of Life. It adds spontaneity to our spirit, and joy to our days! It keeps us fresh and ready for the next unfoldment of beauty, whether it be in our children’s artwork, our parents’ wisdom, our own sense of service, or our physical surroundings. All that perfection and beauty comes from the same Place, and is Life’s gift to us!

NEW YORK! NEW YORK!!!

WHAT A WONDERFUL TOWN!!!

I attended an ASID CEU last spring by Liesbet Trappenburg, entitled "You Are Not Your Job". An outstanding speaker, she counselled us "artists" to do something that replenishes your "creative well". So when the opportunity came up for me to spend a few days in NYC while my son was there on business, I grabbed it!!

I have always loved NY. I actually lived there from the age of 1-6 months, but of course I don't remember anything. We lived not far from Central Park, when my dad was studying voice. He had a Pavorotti style voice, and his lessons were in Carnegie Hall. Before I was born, he and my mom travelled all over the US doing a road show for the musical "Allegro." But he decided that NYC was no place to raise a family, so we moved to Dallas when I was an infant, and then later we moved back to Louisiana to be near all our wonderful Cajun family. That's where we opened our family store, Pieces of Eight. (see August 09 post)

So back to NY: My first visit was when I was 15 years old, to attend the opening of a Broadway play that my parents had invested in. (My dad had a successful producer friend from his NY musical days.) Being raised in Louisiana (I actually lived on a bayou!), I was in awe when I hit the streets of NYC. Such creativity everywhere you looked! We were staying in the St. Regis Hotel, and I met my first artist in the elevator. A thin man with a moustache and an ocelot on a leash entered the elevator, and the attendant addressed him as "El Capitan." I learned afterward that his name was Salvador Dali, and he lived in the hotel. It wasn't until I went to college and became a member of the Art Institute in Chicago, that I began to fully comprehend the place that Dali holds in modern art.

When I was 18, I visited again for another play opening. This time it was Eugene O'Neill's "More Stately Mansions", and starred Ingrid Bergman in her comeback role in the US. Again I was smitten with the creativity of NYC. I was into my first year of Northwestern University's Interior Architecture and Design curriculum, and my eyes had been opened to the wonders of my field. And NYC is a magnet for creativity.

I didn't get back to NY for many years after that, but in the 1990s we took our children up to see "Annie Get Your Gun," with Bernadette Peters. Then in the late 1990s, I went twice with my mom. We visited her old friends, who took us to dinner at Windows on the World (at the top of the WTC, destroyed in 9/11), and also to Tavern on the Green, a restaurant located in Central Park. We visited the Metropolitan Museum, and the Cloisters Museum; she had a portrait done of me by a street artist in Central Park. That was an artsy visit!

So I jumped at the chance to go back this August, and spend some time museum-hopping and visiting with my son! And it was perfect from start to finish....

Monday I spent the afternoon at MoMA. There is a spectacular exhibit of works of Ron Arad through Oct 19. See it now before it moves to Paris! If you can't get to NY, check it out on line at http://www.moma.org/ And here are my favorites from his work:

This wonderful thing is a model for the Zion Square outdoor sculpture that Ron Arad designed in 2006 in Jerusalem. It is a study in light and shadow, and the exhibit features a light arm travelling across the piece from side to side, showing the different patterns that the sunlight produces as it crosses the sky from morning to night. I am a huge fan of sunlight patterns in interior design. I will do another blog on that later, with some examples from my work, and other places. Use nature whenever you can!!

This is one of Ron's unique lighting designs. There were several in the exhibit, but I especially loved the simplicity and contrast of this one. It hangs about 8' long.

After viewing the Arad exhibit, I showed my son the painting and sculpture galleries of the permanent collection, with all my favorites, including Pollack, Picasso, Mondrian, Klimt, Rauschenberg, Matisse, Monet, Stella, Brancusi, Kline, DeKooning, Rothko - too many to count!! It was overwhelming and wonderful!! You can view much of the permanent collection on line also, if you can't get to NY.

I had recently watched a netflix movie - "The Impressionists", a BBC production about the lives of all those courageous artists that broke from tradition and set the stage for the acceptance of modern art. This really enriched my experience at the museums here in NY. I recommend the movie to anyone looking for a deeper historical view.

We also visited the Architecture and Design floor at MoMA. It was especially meaningful to me to find in the "What Was Good Design?" exhibit, objects that I had purchased in the 70s to sell at Pieces of Eight. Here are a few of them:

PLIA FOLDING CHAIR

AND PLATONE FOLDING

DESK (Castelli-Italy)

WASSILY CHAIR -

Classic mid-century modern

by Marcel Breuer

CLASSIC VIGNELLI DESIGN 1964 - STACKING MELAMINE DINNERWARE by Heller, now available again for purchase in the MoMA gift store.

DEDALO UMBRELLA STAND

And finally, with only a few minutes before closing, we dashed into the Architecture Room, with breathtaking models of contemporary architectural masterpieces, including FLW's "Falling Water." I have always been drawn to models. Perhaps it's from my childhood days as a doll house designer!!

That's Day 1 of my trip to New York!

Check back later for posts on Day 2 and Day 3!

38 YEARS!!

This is my first post, and I am so excited to be able to tell you that our family business, "Pieces of Eight" in Lafayette, Louisiana, has a website up and running. Many of our friends and fans across the country have been waiting for this! For 38 years we have been known for exquisite and innovative gifts and accessories, but you had to be there to see them. Now we have many items on the web. And more are being added every day.


For those of you who are viewing this post to read the story about Paul Newman, here it is:

In 1974 Paul Newman and Joanne Woodward were in Lafayette on location for one of his films. Joanne came into "Pieces of Eight" numerous times and bought items to be shipped up to their home in Connecticut. One day late in the afternoon, almost closing time, my husband and I were in the back stockroom doing inventory. I was standing on a stool, and I heard a very loud, unmistakable guffaw (think Butch Cassidy). I was off that stool in one second and ran out to see the source of the laughter.


Paul Newman was standing at our sales counter, splitting his sides over a unique item I had purchased at the Dallas Gift Market for our store to sell. (When this item had first come in, my Dad had looked at it and said "Who in the ____ is going to buy this for $50?" He was a wonderful man, who gradually became accustomed to the unusual items I chose for our shop!) It was a small lucite sculpture of blue eyes which were open or closed depending on how you lay the sculpture.


Paul asked how many I had in stock. I had 2. He bought them both.


A few months later, my husband ran across an article in the "people" section of Time Magazine: Paul Newman presents the gift of blue eyes to his friends Robert Redford and Steve McQueen. Needless to say, I went up in my Dad's estimation as a buyer!!


Today, Pieces of Eight is still known for the beautiful and unusual, as well as for extraordinary customer service. Please check us out at http://www.piecesofeightgifts.com/ Visit us often to see what's new!