a creative mint

Color Me Pretty Time

Hello Friends, it's that time again, if you have a chance please join me for my "Color Me Pretty" column on Decor8 today. 

Vignettes of Color

Hello Friends,

It seems like forever since my last post... not sure why? These are all the photographs from my "Color Me Pretty" column at Decor8. I was inspired by little cuttings from my garden and this whole notion of playing field botanist or something like that. It seems like many stores including Anthropologie are selling science type bottles for storage, flowers or just for accessorizing. I know this look has been around for a long time but it is fun to figure out ways to bring it into your home or creative projects. 

As I explained in the column, I wanted to create a moveable board that incorporated a little clothesline to hang watercolors and other pieces of inspiration for this series. I fastened the twine to the back of an artist canvas so I would not have to drill holes in my walls. It creates a nice way to have a mood board at your work area, don't you think? It's funny, I wanted to do a whole winter forest mood board but being that I am in Los Angeles it is a difficult drive to the woods. Instead I had all these wonderful flowers blooming in my garden and decided just to paint them. I know it may feel like a "Spring" inspired board for some of you but I guess this is what LA looks like in November.

I bought most of my "science" bottles at a local laboratory bottle supply company. The vitamin bottles were either recycled or from the supply company as well. If you want lab/science bottles I would check online or in the yellow pages for a store near you that sells them individually as many companies only sell in packs of twelve.

I get very inspired by handwriting these days. I like looking at old letters and postcards from the flea markets just to examine the way people wrote. The way the ink flowed onto the paper and the cursive fonts are just beautiful. Vintage botanical prints have always been fascinating as well. That is what inspired me to paint the little cuttings from my garden. Of course I cannot draw like the masters but it is fun to really examine what is growing around you and possibly incorporate that into a creative project. 

I suppose tiling some of my photographs up at the end of every series is my way of visually cataloging what I have been investigating for the past week or so. It is always interesting for me to go back and look at what I was inspired by...Do you go back and look at your work? Sometimes it is rather humbling because I wish I had photographed something differently...but those thoughts usually do not last for long as I am most often immersed in something else! 

I truly appreciate you coming by my little space here and I am so very grateful for all your lovely comments of encouragement. They mean more to me then I could ever explain. xoleslie

Color Me Pretty Time

Hello Friends,

When you have a chance please join me at Decor8 for my "Color Me Pretty" column. This time around I was inspired by a few botanical drawings and some beautiful decorative fonts that I found in a couple very old books from the flea market. I also wanted to use some lab bottles (from Anthropologie and a bottle supply company) and some amber glass vitamin bottles I had which I thought went well with the look and could hold some little cuttings from my garden. There are some watercolor sketches too of some of the things I found growing in my garden recently. I know its Fall for many of you, but my white rose and lavender bushes will not stop blooming! I really hope you enjoy my series at Decor8.
xoleslie

Quick Hello

 Hello Friends,

I have been traveling and dealing with the flu with my little ones... thus I am seriously lacking sleep and ingesting a bit too much caffeine! So please excuse my absence...in the meantime, I did an interview with the very sweet Leyla Naghizada, I would love it if you could join me at her blog Leyla's Room for a read. I also worked really hard on another color story that you will be able to see this Monday over at Decor8.  

See you soon and please take care of your health!

xoleslie

Persimmon and Turquoise

Hello Friends, 

Here are my photographs from my "Color Me Pretty" column this week on Decor8. I also added a few extra to make it interesting for you! I wanted to work with one of my old favorite combinations -turquoise and orange. I like using the word persimmon because it sounds kind of special and some of the orange tones I am using are a little darker, a little more red, like an extra ripe persimmon. I also threw in some grey, a small amount of black and lots of neutrals.

Like many, I have been on the David Hicks band wagon for years. I think it was ten years ago to be exact that I dug through the shelves of a little second-hand bookstore on the Island (Vancouver Island) and found many of his old books, like "On Living with Taste" and "On Decoration With Fabrics", for next to nothing! Today these books are apparently worth much more. I am drawn to his fearless use of color and the very graphic nature of all his patterns. His son published a new book on him that has been released this week called "David Hicks, A Life of Design". For this post I created my own simple patterns that are very much inspired by him and I did them quickly in watercolor and acrylic ink. I know many companies sell fabrics with prints similar to these like Donghia and Kravet. I just needed to do them myself in order to get the right palette and its much more fun to create your own even if they are not always that original looking!

I scanned in some of my watercolor patterns to make a little wall hanging DIY project for you. I used my Marvy square punch and quickly stamped out the squares I needed to make a grid that I then drew out lightly on a piece of 12" by 18" paper. I used this size because I had an old frame this size that I wanted to use. I then lightly sprayed the backs of the squares with spray-mount adhesive and put them into the grid. If you use spray adhesive please do it outside or in a well ventilated area! I actually think this would look way better with the original watercolors being used instead of the scanned copies. Therefore, I think I will do this again and give it to someone for Christmas! This project is great for using up old paper that is in odd sizes or old photographs. A little tip if you are new to using craft punches -the bottom is often clear for you to see exactly where you are punching out the paper. 

These are some fabrics from my fabric stash that worked well with the palette. The bottom two fabrics are large table cloth size pieces of Otomi Indian embroidered material. I bought these six years ago and no longer have the name of the retailer I got them from but they are available at Jacaranda Home in a wide variety of colors.

I loved adding the persimmons, the chinese lanterns (Physalis Alkekengii) and the orange berries because they add touches of Fall to me in a more subtle way. I am not one to change out the color scheme of my home in order to match the seasons, rather I like making little gestures like the berries in a vase on my kitchen sill. Do you make large seasonal decorating changes in your home? Just curious...

I really hope you enjoyed this and can you believe November is just around the corner?  

Take care and I will see you soon! xo leslie