{ let's imagine } just a touch of colour

Today's post brought to you by Kelly
Have you been thinking about adding some colour to your house, but you're not sure you're ready to make an all-out colour commitment? Well, here's an easy way to add just a hint of colour in an unexpected place... on the edge of a door!

Image via Martha Stewart Living

Image via indulgy

How's that for a totally easy, and non-committal way to bring a touch of colour into a room?! Of course, you can always go all-out and paint the whole door a fun colour with a contrasting colour on the edge...

Image via indulgy

Or how about a chevron door?

Image via Camille Styles

What do you think of painting a door edge a bright & fun colour?

{ let’s imagine } a beach-inspired front porch

As I mentioned in this post last week, I decided to paint my front door {again!} a beautiful blue from Sherwin Williams called Oceanside. I decided to go all out and paint both sides of the door, seeing as the interior side was a bit banged up and needed a fresh coat of paint anyway. I did four coats on the interior side and was up to three coats on the exterior side before I ran out of paint and warm weather. Well, not stunningly warm – I needed temps of at least 10 Celsius, which didn’t happen on Monday or Tuesday. So the paint job is on hold till later this week when it warms up. I’ll post some pics when it’s all done.

In the meantime, I’m thinking about how to decorate the front porch this summer. I usually stick a bunch of impatiens and something tall into a planter and call it a day. But this year, I’m thinking of doing something with a beach theme – the door is Oceanside, after all :-) Although I’m really not sure what beach-themed planters look like. So I did some searching, and this is what I can up with.

This first planter would be easy enough to do, seeing as I already have a similar planter on the front porch. I love the wispy grass and the fact that the plants aren’t all bunched up together, so you can really see and appreciate the different colours, shapes, and textures. The driftwood is the perfect beachy touch, and I could put in one or two of my glass floats too.

Image via Sunset, photo by Rob D. Brodman

Succulents seem to be popular for beach-inspired planters. Hahaha! That reminds me of an exam I wrote back in University. One of the questions was “What is a succulent?” I had no idea {must have missed that class ;-) }, so I almost wrote “the guy sitting in front of me” {he was hot!}. But I decided on “a juicy steak” instead. Anyway… our porch faces south, so it gets a lot of sun over the summer – perfect for heat-loving plants that don’t need a whole lot of water.

Image via Flickr, photo by poppy2323

Love all the pretty colours in this succulent planter.

Image via Apartment Therapy

I wouldn’t do a cinder block wall, but I like the look of a group of single succulents in their own matching pots, maybe combined with some grasses.

Image via Zack Benson Photography

These little concrete planters from FMC Design in Montreal would be perfect.

A couple of ideas for small-scale beachy planters with air plants.

Image via Garden Party Flowers

Image via Completely Coastal via Beautiful Details

This one literally puts the “beach” into a beach-inspired planter! Maybe not so much for my front porch, although the mini flip-flops are seriously cute!

Image via True Blue Me and You

Speaking of planters… I really like the look of square zinc planters, like these ones from Restoration Hardware. I’m hoping there are some crafty bloggers out there who have written tutorials on how to create DIY zinc planters, ‘cause the RH prices are just a bit too steep for me!

I’m really looking forward to doing something different with the front porch this year. I’m pretty sure I’m going to combine wispy grasses and succulents. That means I’ll need to find a place inside to keep the succulents over the winter, but that should be easy enough to do.

Are you planning your summer gardens and planters yet? Do you do the same thing every year, or do you like to change things up?

{ let’s imagine } pretty pillows

Victoria ~ EdinHome Co.

A few weeks back I purchased this fabric to make pillows for my new product line, The Edin Collection (launching in mid-May)…

I really enjoy the design process involved in creating lovely and unique soft furnishings, especially with fun fabrics like these! Before I started cutting I played with the fabric to determine which coordinating fabrics and patterns worked best together, I sketched a few pillow-front ideas like using buttons, incorporating fabric/pattern blocking or taking advantage of directional prints and – based on my sketches – I created some patterns to get me started.

Before I can get down to the business of creating though, I seek out inspiration! Interiors shared on all my favourite blogs are extremely inspirational, and of course I devour the beautiful pages of my Canadian House & Home and Style at Home magazines!!

Real-life inspiration is the best though!!

Like this sweet pillow from Anthopologie…

I explored this wonderful new-to-Vancouver store yesterday while on the hunt for drawer pulls for my “new” bathroom vanity (a soon-to-share story!!) and was immediately inspired by this flower appliqued pillow. I found myself thinking how not only could I make a pillow like this, my coordinated fabric would be perfect!

So don’t be surprised if you see a similar pillow as part of The Edin Collection :-)

{ let’s imagine } design inspiration from dkor interiors

You never know where a mouse click will bring you and the inspiration that you’ll find when you get there. A couple of days ago, I clicked a link on Facebook that brought me to this bathroom designed by DKOR Interiors:

Isn’t that agate wall is amazing!? Seeing as I was there, I had to browse through the rest of the portfolio. Here’s just a small sample of DKOR Interiors’s residential projects…

           

But this is what really caught my eye:

   

I love, love, LOVE the detail on these doors. As soon as I saw them, my mind started working… and now I have another project to add to my ever-growing list :-) It won’t be doors, but it’ll be very inspired by the design of these doors.

Speaking of which – I’ve been working on something this weekend that I’ve been wanting to do for a while. I saw lots of this “something” on blogs last week, which really inspired me to get going on one of my own. My handy assistant a.k.a. hubby has been more or less off the hook with this project – no power tools required. Unless you count a sewing machine {which he had to teach me how to use. I know, pretty sad, isn’t it?!}. The reveal is coming soon, so stay tuned!

What have you been inspired by lately?