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A Brief Guide To Design Education

For potential design students, selecting the right program is no easy task. There are many factors that will guide your choice of school, not all as obvious as location, size and cost. What you might not find in a guidebook are a description of the department’s focus, record on placing graduates and faculty details. Much of this can only be learned from school visits and conversations with faculty and current and former students. Most important is to understand your own interests, as much as possible, so that as you learn about each department you will know whether it’s the right place for you. Your design education is a once-in-a-lifetime experience, and you want to get the most out of it, so selecting the right program is crucial to your success. Read More …

Making Your Own Dinnerware

Can’t find the right set of dishes or that perfect gift?  Make your own! Even a beginner will have success with this ceramic craft project.

YOU WILL NEED:

· Ceramics in green ware

· Glazes (We used Gare in Vanilla Spice, Willow & Gare Bumpy Doodles in White)

· Cleaning tools

· Water

· Brushes

· Pencil

HOW TO DO IT:

1. Clean plate by removing any seams caused by the mold.

2. Lightly wash with a soft sponge.

3. Fire plate.

4. Apply Vanilla Spice glaze using 3 to 4 coats. Allow drying time in between coats. Follow manufacturer’s instructions.

Note: When applying glaze keep the brush strokes in the same direction, do not crosshatch.

5. Let the last coat dry thoroughly.

6. Trace or draw on pattern.

7. Following manufactures instructions, use the white Bumpy Doodle bottle and outline the pattern. Allow to dry.

Note: Do not let the tip of the bottle touch the piece.

8. Using a small brush, apply one coat of willow to the inside the Bumpy Doodle out line. Allow to dry.

9. Apply a second coat to one side of each leaf. The second coat of Willow will slightly darken that section of the leaf.

10. Fire.

College Decorating - Turning a Small Space into Home Sweet Home

Heading off to college is an exciting time that brings along many new experiences — budgeting money, being independent, doing your own laundry and having to live your life within the confines of a dorm room or small apartment.

Many college students are used to living in a home with a large den, a spacious kitchen and a bedroom with tons of closet space. When they head off to school, they’ll need to adapt to a new living style and embrace the idea of combining many rooms into just one or two small spaces. Read More …

Decorating With Soft Rose

Here’s something to pick you up out of the end-of-winter blues: soft rose.

This shade — paler than a true pink, but with enough red to stand out against an eggshell or off-white — has the delicacy and gentility that we find in any of the pinks, but it isn’t just for frills and bows. In fact, soft rose can often be best used by pairing it with heavier, more masculine furnishings, as we see here. Read More …

Cucumber Green

One of the coolest colors in the palette is a pale green, a green so pale that it’s safer probably to say it’s white with just a hint of green, rather than green watered down with white.

Often we look to nature for clues about colors. Keep a couple of cukes in the crisper, slice them and arrange on a blue plate, and you’ll start feeling cooler even before you take a bite.

So it is too with using cucumber green in your home decor. Here, we’re talking about the color of the inside of the cuke, the palest shade of green. For now, peel away that rich, dark green shade of the cucumber skin – it’s too dark for the summer months, and would work better sometime in February, when you want to brighten things up while keeping them warm.

If you do choose to color the walls of a porch or sunroom cucumber green, consider furnishing the room in a summery style, by using wicker, floral prints, and potted plants. A sisal carpet with a deeper green border can pull it all together.

Even your interior rooms could benefit from being re-painted with cucumber green. A room in the back of the house that doesn’t get much light is a good candidate, as is a room with dark furniture that needs to be brightened up with lighter walls. Good choices for trim would be a slightly darker shade of the cucumber, or something from the other side of the color wheel, such as a deep pink.

The pale of cucumber can cool things off, even as the use of it fires up your passion for interior design.

From Small to Spacious

Decorating and furnishing a small apartment or studio can be challenging, but when done correctly your small spaces will look and feel more spacious..Try these suggestions for creating space.

Furnishings

When selecting furniture for your small space choose smaller pieces that have a more open design

Arrangements and Traffic Flow

When arranging your furniture be aware of traffic patterns, all traffic should flow uninterrupted through your room. In a living room start with the sofa or love seat. When arranging your furniture start with the largest piece on the largest wall and facing your focal point. Then create a conversation area. Place a side chair on each side of the Love seat and place your coffee table where it can be reached from all three sitting places.

Accessories and Patterns

In small spaces be careful not to over use accessories. Remember, less is more if you want to create that open feeling. Mirrors and shiny reflective accessories help create the illusion of more space.  Larger patterns should be limited to pillows and smaller accessories rather than a large sofa or love seat.

Color

When choosing color schemes, select soft and monochromatic colors. Use the same or similar colors for your large pieces of furniture and your walls and keep your ceiling lighter than the rest of the room.

Lighting

Use a soft even light and eliminate shadows which tend to slice a room up into smaller spaces. Incandescent lighting will also soften a room. Avoid ceiling lighting this will visually lower your ceiling.

Tips

Keep your apartment simple and clean. If you don’t need it throw it out! Clutter free - Stress-free!

How To Use Mirrors To Open Up Smaller Spaces

Mirrors are great for creating an illusion of space and are an affordable and easy way to open up a room or hallway.

• Place mirrors on the sides in narrow hallways to make them less claustrophobic.
  
• If you have a wall just in front of the entrance then placing a mirror here opens this up.
  
• A mirror can be a great feature as well so consider investing in a really classy mirror and frame that stands out and complements the rest of the home décor.
• Use mirrors in bathrooms, you can be liberal here especially if the room is small.
  
• Make sure you place mirrors in usable heights. It can be quite frustrating and cumbersome if you are forced to bend or jump just to use a mirror

Using Versatile White

In the grand and splashy world of color, what place does white have? Is it even thinkable to address white as a color, here in The Magic of Color or anywhere else? To the eye and mind, white isn’t a “color”; technically, it’s the absence of a unique spectral reflection. But, when you’re using it in decorating, white’s more than nothing, more than the lack of specific shading, because in the presence of white, you can feel the presence of light itself. It’s more than a fresh blank canvas waiting for a brush stroke.

We know that the meaning of color varies from one culture to another, and a color can take on a new shade depending on where you are. For example, brides in China are married in red for luck, but in America red means stop, warning you to stay away.

White is no exception to this. In many other cultures, white is a traditional color of mourning, and this rings true, because white gives you room; you can stretch out and think in white. You can contemplate things. You can, perhaps, rest in peace without having to leave this world.

How can you make use of the properties white offers in your home? White was, for a long time, used as a neutral, and it still is. Landlords insist on a tenant re-painting in white, and white’s the default for many people when it comes to walls or sheets or even dishes.

But you can take control of white, and use it to your interior’s advantage.

Look at this room that’s all done up in white. It may seem sterile, or more appropriate for a hospital than a home, but imagine how you could play with color in there: a cluster of orange pillows and a pitcher of sunflowers on a nightstand, or a blue coverlet and blue alarm clock. Each color that you place in this room of white will not only stand out, but it will also change the mood of the room.

White isn’t just the absence of color; it’s a backdrop against which color is free to play and reflect, soothing our hearts and calming our minds.