Lighten Up

After this weekend holiday is over, be sure you come back here on Tuesday the 26th as I have a BIG FAT announcement to make that every single one of you is going to love love LOVE but it's only for the one day, so I recommend subscribing to this blog (over there on the left) in order to receive an email reminder.

Things are lightening up around here. In sync with my previous post about Mom's apron, I was cleaning my makeup container today and realized it's completely in line with the new decorating scheme I'm creating in my home. This carousel is a planter that my mom received as a gift when I was born. I have always loved it, with its cream center and pink & aqua horses. It's a treasured object for sure. I like to have it out and usable but am paranoid about handling it as it is irreplaceable, so it sits in the corner of my bathroom vanity area. On the bottom, it is stamped "Copyright by Conrad Ceramics, 1957, Santa Ana, California".

Today as I was sprucing it up I thought, hey, these are the exact colors I am starting to work towards for a remodel of my current living room and guest room furniture. I'm doing it slowly and cheaply over the next year or two in preparation for our move to a retirement condo near the ocean. I didn't want to wait until then to do an entire pricey remodel so I thought I would just buy sweet items here and there and almost always on sale. This way I can introduce and mix it into our current brown color scheme and then squeeze the brown out eventually, with the final step of reupholstering the sofa & chairs.

Here is my inspiration picture. It even has one of my favorites, wainscotting! In fact, for those of you who have seen my Fully Loaded Cupcake bracelet, this picture helped me figure out its design. I had beads in pink and aqua but needed a third color, so I pulled out this picture, and there it was...green. So, take a peek again at the carousel above and you'll see it has all these colors except the green, which will be sporadic in my home...just a little pink and green to offset the aquas & creams. I pulled this picture out of a home magazine and used some of my confetti papers to double mat it in green & blue.

I visited Pier 1 imports last week hoping to find a pillow or two with blues to play off my brown furniture...didn't find the right colors. I did, however, find these bowls & plates, perfect with my new scheme. They were a wonderful surprise and right in my price range: $4/bowl and $5 plate. I don't like to go higher than that which usually puts me in a pretty dull color range but these are great!

And JC Penney has these fabulous beaded lamps that I'm going to use for inspiration as well, since they come in all 3 colors of my new plan. I think I can get a base & shade cheaper as separates and do my own beading, but we'll see. So, looking at my boring brown furniture and pillows below, you can see how much we are lightening up around here. Yes, the patterns are nice and certainly not ugly, but there is just waaaay too much brown in my home. Way too safe a color. Feels good to freshen things up.