Sheer Simplicity

Valentines day has come and gone.
I wanted to share my sweet dog Goldie's valentine look - she is ready for LOVE. She is singing the blues cos she has nowhere to hang her bag of bones, love is thataway.

and when I think about Love, I think about what is truly essential in life -its all about keeping things simple and focusing on friendships and feeling good.

Organizing your closets - giving away the excess for another person to enjoy.
Good vibrations all around when you shed the weight of all those possessions.
The unbearable LIGHTNESS of being.

Living clutter free and loving it Having space in the closet where nothing hangs, having drawers that are empty.
Space on the bookshelf and room in your garage to park a car.

a space in the garage to use with impunity.
a camping shelf or a ski area.
Perhaps creating a fantasy room within the garage for the family to play in.
an Art center at the ready.
A stage for shows. or a craft center.

Make room for life, and letting go of all those darn things.

When I was young I constantly foraged for items, longing to pack my life full, with the debris of living and shopping and collecting.

Now, now I long for peace. Expanses of empty spaces. Clean living. Bare cupboards.
I am loving that empty feeling now its gone, gone, gone.

Imagine a closet where you use everything at least once. Once a day, once a week once a year.
Buying a few good bold pieces you love.
Buying what you love, loving what you buy, and asking yourself - can I do be do without all this dough bought stuff.
What could I do with my time, if I didn't have to buy, clean, care, for all my things?

I would have time to create living moments. Moving memories.
I could write a song about being free - having nothing left to lose:
the blues that left me cos I went and threw it all out .....
dont need no more magic tools that dices and slices- just a good bed, a candle and a book.
Ok maybe a couple candles and a good light. The sweet luxuries that are fabulous.

If you had to make a list of what you couldn't live without, what would that list contain?

after all this rain is done I will head for the hills in my head.

Decorating with love

How sweet it is! a pink frozen milkshake with the cherry on top. We captured this at Sun City in South Africa on a visit a couple years ago, sitting at an outdoor bar, with a huge dome ceiling overlooking a pool that appeared to be a ruin. Magic, absolute magic. and doesn't this confection look good enough to eat?

Its Tuesday night and I am back pounding the keyboard.
Goldie is up on daughter's bed, queen of all she surveys. Although the witching hour is approaching and Goldie's eyes are very heavy. Not much to do but sleep at this point.
And suddenly the world seems ROSY.

and full of promise.
there is an opportunity to re purpose the gifts and colors of the world around us. Opportunity and Adventure await. in cans of paint or in moving items around.
Decorating is fun. Especially when we reinvent those ideas from the world around us.
Like these outdoor pink cement bowls at Taliesin west in Scottsdale Arizona, - I took some pictures on our visit there a couple of years ago - I was fascinated by the shapes, the colors and the textural contrasts. I love to mix and match not only pattern, but texture too, to create a rich story. Not only when I decorate, or design but also when I dress or create things.

Below is a pink styled quick art piece I created from some found objects and paint to enhance my red pink brick fireplace.

Those red bricks abound all over this area. So many clients' homes have one of these brick fireplaces.....crying out to be saved, enhanced or remade.
Creating items for my foliage and frame piece and put this together. I was entranced by the idea open space and stylized framing.




and here the complete opposite - real art from nature - Peonies in a gorgeous glass vase spied in a shop in Toronto on our trip in July 2008.
My absolute favorite flower. The color, the texture, the naturalness, capture my heart.



on the same trip we visited Montreal - another fabulous city and we were lucky enough to have the opportunity of experiencing the battle of fireworks - countries from the around the world get a night to explode their firecracker power. We witnessed the Australian show. It was thirty minutes of absolute magic. The picture below evokes the drama and amazing color range found in the pink of it all - brilliant!

Wouldn't these colors make a sweet combination in a room?
In fact we did work on a client's dinning room that has those very colors. The colors were there, we changed the accessories to enhance the space:

we used the green and cream artwork to bring out the green in the upholstery, and some modern pieces our client had to create more balance. The only items the client bought were new candles and a stand for the one plate, and three small pieces of green and pink art on the wall across.
Can you spot the differences? Our client could, and she loved how we changed every room in her house, using what she already owned. The three little pieces of artwork were the only purchases she made for the entire home. Think how you can change you home in small ways.
Its all in a flick of the wrist !

Well, I have so many more pink thoughts, and ideas but I will leave you with this clever idea I spotted at Ralph Lauren store in San Francisco

they cleverly combined pieces of rugs to create one big one - it shouldn't work, but it does.
It gave the store a warm inviting feel. Old stuff is still good stuff.