Just Google Color Blocking and you’ll get about a zillion great fashion images. The images for interior design Color Blocking aren’t quite so prolific. Have you wondered how to pull off the look in your space without looking like a preschool classroom?
Not a science by any stretch, there are a few tips on how to successfully get interesting color combinations. I’m a bit smitten by the trend because it takes so much of the confusion out of it for me.

Lucky Magazine has a smart little primer on color blocking. It’s aimed at fashion, but again, fashion and interiors go hand in hand.

Opposites attract. There are a few things to remember when it comes to color-blocking with the right colors. Make sure you only have one neon color. While it’s totally okay to rock three bold colors, only one of them should be super bright. We like this formula: one bright, one bold, one neutral.

PhotoImage:DesignSponge.com

So, for me, it boils down to combining simple, interesting colors and shapes. That’s it, it’s all I need. If there’s a piece of fabulous art in there, that much the better. In the next week or so, I’ll be dabbling with color blocking projects to get this urge out of my system.

The look can also be done in a subtle and stunning way by keeping things very neutral. Just look at this simple, calm room, yet the yellow adds just the right zing to make it anything but blah.

PhotoImage:imgfav.com

If committing to big, bold colorful furniture is a bit much, just go for a color blocked canvas like this one from The Selby? Very DIY-able.

PhotoImage:TheSelby.com

Until then, just look for color combos that are unusual and easy to live with. Even if you only find them in fashion, it’s all translatable (is that a word?) to pillows, headboards, privacy screens, walls, dressers, etc.

Any of these combos could work in a room. Muting ultra bright colors down for interiors makes them more liveable.

PhotoImage:ManiacMagazine.com

PhotoImage:ithinkfashion.com

See More on my Color Blocking Pinterest Page.

This past weekend, I hosted Upholstery Bootcamp VI at my Indianapolis studio. Man, oh man, I had six live wires who arrived bright and early Friday morning and left way after closing time on Sunday afternoon. Let me just say, this was like an AP Upholstery class. Talk about staying on your toes…no strangers to fabrics, the sewing machine and materials, it took very little instruction to point them in the right direction for each phase of their Chair Rehab.
Here’s who came:

Tyler from Chicago

Natalie from Cincinnati

Cindy from Annapolis

Jean from Annapolis

Monika from Cincinnati

Carmen from Indianapolis

I’ve written it before, but I have to say it again. It’s an interesting phenomena to gather five or six strangers together for a weekend of creative furniture redesign. The awkwardness of meeting strangers lasts about one hour. If we get through that, we’re good. One of the perks of my business is getting to meet a new group of mostly out-of-towners, at least once every two months, get to know them, work along side them and hear about their interesting life adventures. Has everybody traveled around the world, except for me? I need to get on it and make some travel plans, STAT.)

Instead of belaboring the upholstery process, I’ll just post pics for you to enjoy at your leisure.
It was rainy and cold outside, but warm and cozy inside. As usual, Mr. Mod made three fabulous desserts for our afternoon snacks, the class trekked over to a local antique mall, and some even managed to pack more chairs into their cars for the ride home.

I’m assuming my six campers gained some confidence in their ability to tear down, rebuild and reupholster simple side chairs. They have my email address if they get stuck.

Look at their shy faces in the Before shot.

Studio cleanup is a must.

We also got to see handmade shoes by Cindy. (Are you kidding me? She also makes her own high heels?)

Ahhhh, the petrified foam story.

They learned how awful tear down is. (Makes the rebuild that much better)

Tyler ran out to Target, bought a scarf, and fused it onto muslin for the outside back of his chair.

Cindy’s Marimekko shower curtain was amazingly easy to use for upholstery.

Jean knocked that chair out like nobody’s business.

One down, seven to go for Carmen. Good thing she lives close to my studio.

Monika, moving along.

See Bootcamp I
Bootcamp II
Bootcamp III
Bootcamp V

Would you just look at my snazzy book cover?! Designed by the ultra talented and funny Carrie Keplinger, here it is! I have to say, I’m so excited and nervous to put my first ebook out there in the world. Yikes, scary. Makes me feel extremely vulnerable. But the brave me will tell you this:

If you’ve ever taken any of my classes, you know my teaching style is very straight forward, casual, and, hopefully, very easy to understand. Personally, I always struggled with people giving me verbal instructions without being able to experience something visually. This makes me try extra hard in my classes and tutorials to explain techniques, tips and tricks of the trade in simple, easy and practical ways.

Far and above the technical lessons, I’ll take the fear and anxiety out of the idea of sewing and upholstering. The information and projects in Intro to Sewing & Upholstery is presented to the beginner. It will reassure you that there’s nothing to dread. I make this fun for you. If it wasn’t fun to create furniture and accessories for my house, I would not be doing it. It’s a welcome break from your otherwise hectic life. You can relax, get in your creative groove and relax. Nobody’s looking over your shoulder to criticize your work. If you get frustrated, put it down, try again later. Learning new skills is very, very good for you and your brain. By the time you’ve mastered these projects, I’ll have another book for you. And remember, if you want it done right, you have to do it yourself (or pay a bloody fortune). You CAN BE your own designer.

I know it’s not really proper blog etiquette and I’m not that tech savvy about how to sell things here, but I’m just going to do it this once. To buy this little gem, click below. Oh, by the way, it’s only $12.95! That’s less than $15.00 to give you the oooomph to jumpstart your creative life.

I’ll be working on a better way to make this must read available on the side bar.

One last frontier manufacturers haven’t thought of is adding some jazzed up colors to a big box store line of ceiling fans. Maybe the high end lighting stores or catalogues have them, but I’m telling you, Lowe’s does not. My options were brown paddles with either brass, chrome or antique brass, one black one, and one semi-white washed one. Even though I could have easily bought a cheap, new one, and customized it for my porch, I decided to do a good deed and patronize the local Habitat for Humanity ReStore. It was a cold and rainy day, but I found a $25.00 brass, five paddle fan just sitting there on the shelf waiting to be adopted.

Even though I stuck with neutral gray, you could go all out and spray paint your fan bright yellow, hot pink, turquoise (oooh, that would have been good). I’m all for customization, but my policy is keeping the big items and fixtures neutral, while dancing around with fabrics and textures in pillows, throws and art.

Click here for my IndyStar.com tutorial on how to successfully transform a basic old ceiling fan into a nice little added detail in your room.
(Now, just be on the lookout, somebody on HGTV will probably use this idea. hehe!)

Next up is Laura’s bluebird chair. Fantabulous. All she has left to do is put on the outside back and add a dust cover to the bottom. The fabric is a printed design on linen, so there’s not much stretch available, but I showed her how to show that unflexible fabric who’s the boss.

As people start finishing up, I’ll be posting more pics. Don’t forget, if you’re from out of town, we’ve got plenty of Out of Towner 3 Day Bootcamps (I mean upholstery spas) for all of you.

Aren’t you shocked that I’d even reveal this horrendous mess of a mudroom? It’s the first place to drop stuff off when entering through the garage, and the last thing to dump junk before leaving the house. Difficult to keep orderly, but so delightful to step into this fresh, made over back hall, it was worth the effort. All I did was clear out the junk, cover the walls with the wide, horizontal gray and white paint, add my newly redone orange table for keys, sunglasses, etc. and then put up a big, heather gray curtain to hide the storage shelves. What you can’t see are the newly organized back hall shelves, as well as the nearly empty coat closet.

Read about the process here.
PhotoImage: IndyStar.com

Remember Interior Designer,Jennifer Adams’ orange vinyl chair BEFORE?

Here’s the AFTER for her new home office.

The new class schedule is posted for May, June, July and part of August.
We’ve got:

Beginner Classes
Slipcover 4 Week Workshop
Pillow Workshops
Boxed and Corded Cushions
Boudoir Bench Workshop
and the Elite Big Ass Upholstery Project 8 Week Class!

Click HERE to see what works for you. This is the summer to learn a new skill, meet new people, and get your DIY on.

It should come as no surprise that I grabbed these two folding tables from Goodwill for some future project I was imagining while in a creative frenzy. That was two years ago. This week was The Week!
Let me show you how I transformed the outdated, drab toteable tables into cushy, upholstered, Swiss Army themed folding camp stools? They turned out quite dandy, if I do say so myself.

Sources
Burlap: BuythePiece.com $5.49 per yard. I used 1 1/2 yards of red and 1/4 yard of ivory
Tables: Goodwill Stores

I had been itchin’ to do something other than a pillow using the red and white Swiss cross design, but wasn’t sure how to sew it so that the white cross peeked through from behind the red fabric. It had to show through from under the red while the edges of the cut out red fabric were tidy, finished and top stitched for a smooth, professional look. I was mentally engineering this project for a couple of weeks. Why I like these kinds of challenges, I’ll never know. Oh, and I almost forgot the biggest challenge of all—-sewing with burlap. Read on to see how I mastered the technique. Every now and then it’s quite exhilarating to feel like you’ve solved a riddle.

Here are the tables right after I brought them home.

I cut out foam tops, used adhesive to secure the pad on the table top, and then attached dacron batting all around. I also added a band of dacron to cover that exposed wood, but no picture was taken of that.

I need to side track for a moment here, and chat about burlap. For a nice change of pace, I found 60″ wide burlap in an array of colors. You may be surprised to know that burlap is a dream to use for upholstery fabric. My new stash includes red, soft slate blue, forest green, classic black and a versatile ivory. For me, plain colors allow me to be more creative in my designs. Right now, I’m all about color block designs.

Burlap drawbacks: It’s scratchy and it’s difficult to keep straight due to the loose weave. As any Halloween costume maker can attest to, it’s tough to keep a true, straight line when stitching two pieces of burlap together. You think you have a straight cut, then, it suddenly becomes wavy. My only hope was that if I cut straight, pinned like crazy and sewed carefully, it just might work. I bossed it around and it worked! I’m kind of (really) proud of how these turned out. (Great source for burlap is listed at the top, as well as washing instructions below, to soften it up.)

1. I cut a piece of red burlap large enough to cover the stool top.
2. With a piece of computer paper, I cut a 9″ x 3″ strip and two 3″ x 3″ squares to make the Swiss cross pattern.
3. Next, I cut out another square of red burlap to be used as the interfacing for the cross. I had a moment when I remembered cutting arm hole interfacing on the bias, so I decided to turn that square on the bias.
4. I traced the cross pattern in chalk, pinned the interfacing piece to the big piece and stitched the two pieces together.

5. Next, I cut out the center of the cross, leaving a 1/2″ seam allowance. Then, I made some inside and outside clips, snips and cuts to allow the interfacing to easily fold under and get pressed in place.

6. After giving it a good steam, I top stitched a line of stitching approximately 1/4″ from the folded edges of the cross.

Then, it was time to sew the striped piece.

7. I cut out two 2 1/2″ strips of ivory burlap to stitch to the red burlap, creating two stripes.
8. After carefully sewing the stripes in place, I steamed the fabric and top stitched 1/4″ from each edge of the red burlap.

Upholstery Time.

9. Measure and make sure the stripes are equi-distance from one side of the stool. Secure in place with staples.
10. Next, attach the top pieces using the basic upholstery technique. Align fabric on top of stools. Secure the fabric in place by placing 4-5 staples in the center of each side.
Start with one side, smoothing and stapling up to about 4″ from each corner. Move to the opposite side and do the same.
Then, you work on the left and right sides. It’s important to check to make sure the fabric design stays in place and is still aligned. In a nutshell, you pull the fabric evenly and snugly out from the centers of each side towards the corners.
TIP: Use your open hand to smooth and pull fabric, rather than using your fingers.

10. Finish up by making nice, crisp, folded corners.

11. The only thing left now is to cover up those staples on the bottom of the side rails. I simply cut cardboard tack strip and stapled it in place for a more finished edge.

Total cost: Under $30.00

I’m going to test a piece to see if I can reduce the scratchiness by washing it.

It’s tricky to wash burlap, but the manufacturer’s directions are to hand was separately in cold water and mild soap and hang to dry. Do not over agitate it or leave it wet.

This morning I woke up ready to do a few projects in front of a video camera. This was it! I was putting my inhibitions aside and was just going to do it. Surprisingly, I wasn’t even that nervous about the idea. I arranged to have it shot and edited with a college student who said she loves doing both. It was perfect.
Until I stumbled into the kitchen to make my coffee. While waiting for water to boil, I read her email that she couldn’t do it today, she had to work. Wasn’t this work? I was going to pay her. In the next moment, I just moved on. It didn’t matter, I have so much on my To Do list that this was a negligible setback.
Wait!! Is this me talking? Usually, I go through a sequence of emotions like irritability, anger, disappointment and then all sorts of criticisms of the current work ethic out there in the world today.

Not today. It was fine. I was fine. Now I could move through my list of errands, shop work and other details that have been hanging over my head. Could it be that I’ve changed? Let’s see…I’ve been working out every morning at 6:00 am, I’ve been doing yoga before bed to sleep better, and I’ve not been eating so much sugar. I don’t know, but I’m liking the new me a lot better.

Now, see how much better it is for your skin to NOT get agitated. Upward lift, not scowl faced.

My family doesn’t have the flexibility gene. Well, maybe a half of one. Most all of us react the same way I (used to) do. It’s such a waste of time to get your knickers in a bunch over stuff you can’t control. By now, we all know the only thing you can control is how you react to things. NOTHING seems to really be within our control, otherwise. That morsel of wisdom is great, but much harder to live by when we’re wrapped up in the moment.
I’m just going to give myself a pat on the back this morning, take my bike in to get fixed, buy a new pair of running shoes and go to my shop for a much needed cleanup, as well as a great little furniture tutorial (sewing and upholstery) I’m working on to post before the end of the week.
Man, that was so much easier than stalling out today because things didn’t go as planned. Maybe I’ve hit a new level of emotional maturity. Wouldn’t that be something?!

Leave it to my good old buddy DIY Maven to take a not-so-ordinary, ordinary tripod lamp, give it her magical touch, and poof, it’s not only like new, it’s been modernized. How I miss Her Nibs. (That’s what my mom used to call her good friends). I owe her for teaching me the very basics of writing the basic How-To tutorial, and when we were working on the Curbly books, I think I was emailing her questions about every ten minutes top get photography tips. If she lived closer, I think we could spend many hours cooking up creative furniture makeovers.

You can read all about her full lamp makeover, as well as perusing her many, many DIY projects over on, aptly named, DIY Maven. Also, she’s still finding the good stuff and writing all about it over at Curbly.