Take a look!

http://www.graberblinds.com/solutions/window_treatment_selector.jsp

Personal Style

What is your personal style?
Anything you want it to be! There really are no hard and fast rules when it comes to defining your personal style — do what makes you and your family happy and comfortable. It’s not about copying an image or design you’ve seen on TV or in a magazine — it’s about creating real spaces where you and your family can live your lives. Of course, you can use images and designs you’ve seen as inspiration, but it’s all about adding personal touches that characterize how you live.

Your home is your refuge and retreat — you want to decorate it with comfortable furniture and accessories that reflect who you are and where you’ve been. You don’t want it to look like someone else’s.

Be imaginative — meld disparate styles and periods by focusing on their commonalities. Unlikely pairings can enliven any space. Casual elegance is not an oxymoron — even formal rooms can have a “kick off your shoes” mentality!

Find your inspiration in a variety of places — it may be in your favorite color, photo or painting. Or maybe it’s in your favorite collectible, piece of furniture or window covering.

And while it is all about individuality, there are some purchasing motivators that may help define your style further. Your motivator may be investment — searching for value and concentrating on neutral furnishings that last forever. Another motivator is buying whatever you like, regardless of fashion or price, just because you like it — it doesn’t mean being trendy. Someone who is trendy buys the latest thing, most-up-to-date design — you’re more impulsive and thrive on the unusual. Whatever your purchasing motivator, individuality plays a big role in defining your personal style.

Tips for defining your style

• Evoke feelings of familiarity, comfort and security
• Create living areas that encourage interaction for the family on the go
• Personal needs and lifestyle should be priorities in your room’s design
• Be confident — add an individual touch, express your personality, add character
• Surround yourself with things that bring you pleasure
• Mix fun with formality
• Infuse spontaneity into traditional
• Don’t be predictable
• Listen to your inner voice
• Create your own design rules
• Create a sense of drama
• Surround yourself with your heritage
• Mix old with new and add in some fun
• Elegant doesn’t mean sacrificing family-friendly

The key to a successful design is in selecting elements that cater to your specific lifestyle and personality.

By Deb Barrett

The days are shorter, the nights longer — it’s time to stop looking through that bare, black hole of a window and get it ready for the upcoming winter and holiday season!

Raise Your Room Temperature!
As the temperature drops outside, adding color, texture and window treatments will dramatically change a room from cool to warm and cozy. Adding panels and a top treatment can be just the thing to warm up a room (lined treatments act as an insulator). It’s a perfect time to change out your existing window treatments with wood blinds or cellular shades — their insulating properties will keep rooms warmer all winter long (and cooler next summer!)

Soft Treatment Trends for the Winter Season

• French flip panels
• Unusual pleated headings on panels — inverted, goblets, cartridges, ruching
• Color-blocked columns of fabric
• Classic swags and cascades with dressmaker details

Holiday Decorating “Buzzwords”
You’ll be hearing a lot about these holiday decorating trends as the season approaches!

• Warmth
  You’ll be seeing a lot of the warm side of the color spectrum — sumptuous reds, oranges, pinks, honeys and yellows. Create distinctive color schemes for the holidays with one or more of these colors. Pinks and reds are perfect for a nostalgic or Rococo-themed holiday.
• Retro/Pop
  Op-art patterns, strong contrasts, graphic looks — the attitude that “The Future is Now!” Don’t discount the classic looks as produced by the great couture houses — Chanel (tweeds and boucles), Pucci, Courréges, Mary Quant. Think back to the 50’s and the flocked tree with pops of brilliant color for your inspiration. Retro/Pop looks work in traditional settings as a wonderful contrast that creates variety, making a room or window come to life.
• Shock
  The colors aren’t new — clear, bright hues — but the interest is in the combination and schemes. Can’t find the right fabric for your holiday window decorating scheme? Create your own! Alternate panels in “shocking” combinations like fuchsia and berry, or coffee bean and citrine, on multiple windows.
• Applied
  Layer design techniques and methods in the room and on the window. Layered, feminine, girly looks are window treatments hottest new trends!

It All Adds Up to Pretty Decorating!
Take a lesson from the fashion runway and consider tweeds, plaids and stripes mixed and matched in panels and top treatments.

Buy some of the fabulous new brooches and pin them on tab top panels or use as holdbacks — buy several and attach them all the way down the edge of stationary panels for a sparkling effect.

Add some of the wonderful, wired ribbons (found in the holiday decorating aisle) down the leading edge of your drape. Soften the edge with a ruffle in a fabulous silk or velvet. Just gather and finish the edge, then attach with double stick Velcro (so you can change it out at the end of the season).

Accessorize! Accessorize! Accessorize!
As you’d accessorize your outfit with shoes, bags and scarves, don’t forget to add accessories to your room — they’re a key ingredient to its design success.

• Complement your window treatments with pillows, runners, ottomans. Velvet throws with corded edges and tasseled corners in rich, dramatic colors are the perfect accessory for holiday. Think purple, berry, merlot, red.
• Dress up your existing draperies with swagged cording in an accent color or in one of the new metallics — silver, gold and copper — for holiday pizzazz. Change out your drapery rods in the same metals to reflect the romantic glow of candlelight at your dining table. A new pair of finials can change your room’s whole perspective — simply and easily.
• When you’re in the trim department, purchase an extra tassel or two for door knobs, to tie on a chair back, or wrap around a vase or candelabra. Remember to repeat an accent color or pattern at least three times for impact, and vary scale and size.
• Entertaining during the holidays? Buy some extra yardage when doing your windows and make 20″ napkins for those special occasions.

A Simple Idea
Still have a bare window — and no time to treat it? Shop for some wonderful handcrafted Christmas ornaments and sumptuous drapery rods and brackets. Hang the ornaments from the rod with fish line in front of the glass. Choose ornaments that sparkle and reflect light both day and night!

My motto is “The More The Better” during the holiday season — using any or all of these ideas will make your home .. and windows — a holiday to remember.

Until next time! Deb

Deb Barrett, owner of Window Dressings, Kaneville, IL, is an award-winning window fashions designer, professional speaker and author. She has built a reputation for cutting edge couture treatments, winning the Window Fashions National Design Competition five times, including its Award of Excellence. With more than 30 years experience in the window treatment field, Deb shares her talents through speaking, media tours and writing. Her work frequently appears in popular decorating magazines including Windows and Walls and Decorating Ideas, and she is the author of Tools of the Trade and Soft Furnishings Sketchbook.

Design trends for 2008 are running the gamut from “Earth Friendly” to “Glitz and Glamour.” The trend of coming home to a soothing cocoon at the end of the work day continues to expand design offerings to fit the requirements, varied needs and desires of consumers worldwide. Style also plays a huge role in determining color as well as psychological influences. Rooms are being created as an integrated mix that suits the personal style of the customer, with an end result that is an eclectic mix of pattern and color that is a statement of individuality rather than a grouping of matched “things”.

In the psychology of color we see two historical trends colliding. Normally in an election year we see colors becoming brighter and clearer representing the freshness of change. This is where colors have been predicted to go through 2009. However, with recent economic downturns and the continuing war this could be altered. When the economy is headed in a downward direction, or the country is at war, colors tend to move to grayer more somber shades. Stock market bounces as we saw this week could continue the clear, clean bright predications for colors and chances are that this will be the case.

Texture is still very important. Surface texture always adds depth and dimension to fabrics. Look for this trend to continue. Large over-scaled motifs are also important. It is a great way to update a classic design element. Cotton prints are being sought after in all ends of the marketplace again, and even chintz finishes are being requested. Roses are still the most dominant floral motif, but look for cherries to be seen in many designer showrooms as well. Menswear is also making a move in the “best supporting” companion role. Masculine tweeds and plaids are being paired with classic floral patterns for a fresh take on traditional looks. Attention to details is also an important feature that is taking hold. Fine dressmaker detailing is showing up at all levels of the industry.

Color trends have changed over the years. In the past color was a commitment that lasted. Today’s consumer views color as representing a current stage not a life-long commitment. It merely represents a statement of the present and can evolve with future changes and moods. All color categories have major food influences. Think biscuit, caviar, eggplant, ginger, coffee bean and cherry!

Current predictions for color directions are as follows:

· Metallics:

Metallics are still on the rise. Shown throughout European fabric fairs for the last two seasons this often trendy look is making a bid for style continuity. All levels of sheen are being seen from burnished metals to glossy mirror-like finishes. Silver, gold, bronze and platinum tones are at the forefront of this area of color.

· Reds:

Reds continue to play a starring role in the home fashion color palette. Bright red accents will mix with black and white as we move toward the Olympics. We saw this “world event” influence during the Australian Olympics as well. This is when “mineral” colorations emerged. Along with true reds, look for a softening in the red family as well to include rich raspberries to soft pinks. Pinks will also mix with the black and white palette as a sophisticated high-end combination. Brown shades of red will mix with chocolate and cocoa to create a homespun look that will influence the American country home style as well as reflecting the “cocooning” and “nesting” instincts. This color combination reinforces a sense of stability.

· Black & White:

These two colors combine to form a unified force. We do not see these as two separate colors but one. Black & white combinations are seen across the board and at both the medium and high end. Look for pairings with red, pink and browns as well as taking a solo role all to itself. Metallic accents also pairs well with this combination for a clean transitional/ contemporary look.

· Neutrals:

Neutrals are always the safe choice when dealing with color. These combinations are soothing and appeal to those looking for an “uncluttered” feeling. Also look for neutral palettes to pair with metallic accents for an updated blend.

· Purples:

Purples have remained the “new neutral” for over almost ten years, and show no sign of slowing in popularity! This is the color of the mind. Purples will pair with browns for a chic sophisticated combination. Pressing to the forefront are shades of lavender. Soft blue cast lavenders are predicted to be mixed with soft greens for a fresh, clean palette. Think Hydrangeas!

· Blues:

Surprise…spa blue combinations are still in the spotlight! Spa shades are like animal prints they have passed the “fad” stage and have taken their rightful place as a major force in the blue family. Peacock and Turquoise are also making strong fashion statements. Normally, these shades are seen as accents in a color palette, but now they are taking on the primary focus. Blues are being shown in all shades from the lightest sky blues to medium federal and Wedgwood all the way to deep navy.

· Greens:

Green may be the most talked about color of the season! In the past when we talked about green we were talking color. Today it can be color or eco philosophy. As a color family, greens are evolving from classic gray-greens to more yellow hued lifestyle nature colorations. Green represents life, growth, fertility and financial stability. Soft greens are associated with calming influences. When mixed with blues and aquas, greens take on a soothing tropical note associated with rest and rejuvenation. Acid greens will be seen mixed with purples at the upper end. Even old friends like the ever-popular 1970 trademark avocado is re-making itself but this time the colors are called wasabi or gingko! Green is making its way to the head of the class as the new neutral of the season. From an eco standpoint, green Earth friendly products are not only becoming more in demand they are being offered more readily than ever before! The marketplace has seen a resurgence in linen, bamboo, wood, jute and hemp products for the last few seasons. More ecological materials are being introduced as well from recycled plastics and rubber to used x-rays and tires! Design and color must still be right for consumers to purchase these more ecologically minded offerings, but the demand is there. Cost of eco products is high as these items currently are expensive to manufacture. Earth friendly products are still in the early stages of development and can be thought of similar to organic foods just a few years ago and look how far we have come in this area today. Our industry is scrambling to address this category of products because inevitably sustainable green is a long-term necessity.

Color Class

By Deb Barrett

Color Your World
Our homes have become colorful places — with “ooh-la-la” red on walls to turquoise haze in our bedrooms! Whether you’re venturing into color for the first time or are re-thinking a current color scheme, it’s important to know how color impacts a room and its window treatments.

The first thing to consider is the actual room you are decorating. What will you use it for? Does it receive plenty or little sunlight? Answering these questions will help you decide what colors to choose. For example, you may not want bright colors if you are trying to create a relaxing bedroom. If you will use your room only at night, choose colors and fabrics in that lighting.

If your room features south facing windows, use colors on the windows to drop the room’s temperature a degree or two. A general rule is to choose warm, muted colors and soft textures for north and east windows. If you are dressing south or west windows, use cooler colors.

Create the mood
Warm Colors (red, red-orange, orange-yellow, orange, yellow-green, yellow) — These colors tend to stimulate, are informal and casual and create friendly interiors. People talk, take risks and are noisier in warm rooms.

Cool Colors (blue, red-violet, blue-violet, blue-green, green) — These colors are relaxing, more formal, and less approachable. People tend to be more reserved, better behaved and less talkative in cool interiors.

Get Comfortable with Color
Once you’re ready to make your color decisions, think of colors you are comfortable in. Open up your closet and look at your clothing. The colors you feel most comfortable wearing also will make you comfortable in a room. Select one or two colors you like best to start with when building a color scheme for the room.

Color Schemes
Plan to use three colors for your room. One should be dominant, or about 60% of the treatment (the blinds, the drapery panels, the dominant fabric). The second color should cover 30%. This is contrast lining, under sheers, coordinating valances, banding and top treatments. The third color should accent the room. It accounts for about 10% of the color, and is found in the details like cording, ruffles, tiebacks, buttons, etc.

• Analogous Color Scheme
  This color scheme can be either warm or cool. It’s the use of colors that are next to each other on the color wheel (yellow, yellow-green, and green). Choose one color to dominate, one color to complement, and use the over-lapping color as the accent. Vary intensity and values so the colors don’t compete with each other.
• Complementary Color Scheme
  This scheme uses colors opposite each other on the color wheel (red and green). It pairs a cool color with a warm color. Let one color dominate and use the other as a complement (remember to vary intensity here too). The largest areas on the window treatment are most beautiful when neutralized by its complement. To draw attention and create a focal point, use brighter colors against lighter values of its complement.
• Triadic Color Scheme
  This color scheme is built by three colors that form a triangle on the wheel (red, blue and yellow, or green, violet and orange). This color scheme works well when doing kids or thematic rooms.
• Split Complementary Color Scheme
  This color scheme is made up of three colors. Choose the first color (your dominant one) and find its complement (opposite) on the color wheel. Then use the color on either side of the complement as the other two colors in the scheme. For example, if you choose red, its complement is green, then use blue-green and yellow-green as the other two colors in the scheme.

Get Personal
Color is personal — though color schemes should be appropriate, above all they should make you happy. Rules were meant to be broken — or at least bent a little!

Until next time!
Deb

Deb Barrett, owner of Window Dressings, Kaneville, IL, is an award-winning window fashions designer, professional speaker and author. She has built a reputation for cutting edge couture treatments, winning the Window Fashions National Design Competition five times, including its Award of Excellence. With more than 30 years experience in the window treatment field, Deb shares her talents through speaking, media tours and writing. Her work frequently appears in popular decorating magazines including Windows and Walls and Decorating Ideas, and she is the author of Tools of the Trade and Soft Furnishings Sketchbook.