Thursday, April 12, 2012

A Different Kind of Painting

While I was cooking dinner last night, Beth let me know about this Home Hardware's Ladies Night at the Tantramar Theater.  Recently, we have both been playing around with the Benjamin Moore site. You can create an account, and then with a little bit of time and patience, upload a photo and virtually paint your room! How neat is that? I've spent more hours than I should admit perhaps 'painting' my nest on the website. So when she said the focus was on Benjamin Moore paints, I figured there was no harm in going. I could learn a few tricks and save them for when I finally get to paint my nest!

What a night! There were two girls speaking, though sadly I only know how to spell one of their names. Sophie was a funny and colourful speaker. She is actually the Design Manager, and works with the Colour Marketing North America group. She and her colleges get to travel the world for inspiration for new lines of paint. She had just returned from Paris before doing this seminar. Inspired by current events, politics, travel, special events (like the Olympics), and just about everything else you can imagine or draw inspiration from, they create a colour harmony (schemes) for the year.  Blues are a popular colour this year, with 'wythe blue' winning colour of the year. Many of the colours have been inspired by the elegance of the 1800's including 'storm cloud', and 'montpelier'. If you check out the colour trends of 2012, you will find these colours along with some painting inspiration. Another colour trend for this year, which Sophie claimed was surprising, is the return of yellow in a neutral colour.

Sophie introduced us to the flexibility of 'wall tattoos' which is a neat way of saying stencils, without it sounding dated haha. She recommended checking out Cutting Edge Stencils . I think for myself, I would rather draw out the 'tattoos' if I choose to use any. I'm thinking a Moroccan theme, so there are lots of neat designs to add around the nest for flare.  She also explored the world of upcycling - for those not familiar with that term it means giving new life to an item you already have (for example an old desk) by changing it's appearance.

I also learned something called "The Golden Rule", which reads as 60%-30%-10%. This has something to do with your primary (main) colour, secondary, and accent colours. I'm not one for following rules when it comes to creativity, so when Sophie expressed that rule is flexible I did let out a sigh of relief (not that I would have listened anyways if it was a rigid rule ..shh haha). She also said "complexity in the colour is in", I chuckled to myself thinking, if I were a Benjamin Moore colour I'd be the most complex haha.

Sophie explained that when picking out colours, particularly for a wall and ceiling, hold your chips so that they reflect how they look in the room. For example. Hold the wall chip straight out and then lay the ceiling paint chip over top (like when you make a house of cards). Apparently the ceiling has 30% less light than the walls, so holding the chips this way, will help give you a better idea of what to expect.

Another neat trick Sophie really stood out for me. Ever see those homes with the cluster of random art (photographs, paintings, etc)  on a wall? There seems like there is no order, and yet they each seem to have their own perfect position and placement? Well, put aside the pieces you want on your wall. Using newspaper, cut out the same size as the pieces you want to hang, and then using tape, arrange the cut up newspapers on the wall. Sit with it for a few days and make any changes as you see fit. This way, you don't have a kazillion holes in your walls as you nail and then re-nail, and you can find what arrangement works best for you before committing! I thought that was a neat beans idea. I even won a door prize! Some lucky my birthday falls in the month of March ahha. There was a book on gardening in there too! Meant to be! haha.

Well, definitely not the sort of blog I thought I would be posting about, but here it is! I enjoy how the walls are bigger canvas for me to spread paint over. I think it's so important to have your nest reflect the colours that make you feel good. So although there are suggested 'trendy' colours of the year, no need to hop on the fad train, follow your heart and add a whirl of colour to your nest that makes you feel like the king/queen of your castle!

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