Where do you look for inspiration?

My jar of inspired objects includes green glass
knobs, paint samples, pretty threads, gold keys,
a silhouette of a little boy on a rocking horse,
and a celebratory cork from a bottle of bubbly
opened in honor of my first design show.

Last week I mentioned that I was chosen as one of the top 100 entries for the Design Sherpa “What Inspires You?”contest based on my submission of a chosen photo accompanied by a 100 word post explaining how the image inspires me. My photo? Glinda the good witch from the Wizard of Oz. What does Glinda have to do with interior decorating and good design? When we base our choices on what we love, and surround ourselves with the people and memories that are important to us, we are being authentic – and good design always comes out of authenticity.

Well this entry qualified me to move on to the second round of judging! Phase Two required a 350 word post “on an interior or architectural design topic that communicates both your unique passion for design and writing style.” And guess what? The judges (who include talented design-industry professionals Diane Carroll, Tobi Fairley, Michael Fink, Elaine Griffin, Marcia Sherrill and Clinton Smith) liked my post enough to qualify me to be one of the top 10 entries! I am not sure if they plan to share the 350-word posts we submitted or not, but I will
let you know if they do. In the meantime, this week
on the Design Sherpa blog, our 3-minute video submissions required for Phase Three are
up for *everyone* to see!



We were asked to provide a video that was “both entertaining and informative about some element of home design.” It is harder than it looks to be both entertaining and informative in a mere 3 minutes (all without the aid of a teleprompter or video crew -- I give those Design Star contestants a lot of credit!)
Plus we were required to condense our .mpeg video to less than 10 MB in size so the end result of the submitted versions appears pretty grainy. When I was “filming” this video, shortly after my trip to see The Nate Berkus Show and just a day before New England Fine Living opened, I had no idea my video would actually make it online. But here it is.

So far, six videos have been shown and the remainder will be aired in the next couple of days (I am guessing). The winner will be announced on or around November 7th so I am thinking it may be as early as this Friday!

{Photo from the Hotel Recamier website}

Did I mention what the winner of this social media driven contest will receive? Just a 10-day trip to PARIS, hotel accommodations at Hotel Recamier, and a 4-day VIP pass to the Maison & Object trade show, PLUS $10,000 (!!!!!) and the opportunity to blog as part of the Design Sherpa site!

(click here for all the fine print)

{Image from the Maison & Objet website}

If you know me at all, you know I am good at keeping a secret. All I am going to say for now is that I would love to put the six years of French that I took to good use, and would love even more to discover the amazing home fashions that will be on display at Maison & Objet. Just to walk the streets of Paris would be a dream! And who couldn’t use an unexpected 10 grand these days? “Hello” unfinished design projects!




And speaking of winners, I would like to properly introduce you to the winning eco-friendly chair from Project UDesign: the Alifair designed by Savannah College of Art and Design student Ryland Quillen. Even though my posts featured the Kona chair by Emily Carpenter, I thought each of the designs had style and merit. The well-tailored Alifair almost
looks a little French to me ...

Congratulations, Ryland, and to everyone who participated in and organized this inspiring competition. A little competition certainly goes
a long way in raising the bar on good design!

Kona Chair at the High Point Market

Kona Chair at Century Furniture by designvignettes
on Polyvore.com

Today is the first day of the High Point Market in North Carolina where over 2,000 exhibitors will present some of the newest design trends in the furniture industry. It is also where the winner of Project UDesign – the first crowd-sourced eco-friendly wing chair – will be announced at the Century Furniture showroom. Three designs are in the running and I have already announced that my favorite is the Kona Chair designed by SCAD student Emily Carpenter. There is still time to cast your vote on the BiOH facebook page up until
the contest closes on October 19th.

Click here to read more about
the final voting process.



Screen capture from Project UDesign video on YouTube


Even though I will not be able to attend the
6-day long event at High Point, I will be in the
showroom “virtually” by means of a really cool
video that features the three finalists along with
the blog posts created to spread the word
“that sustainable design is beautiful design.”

Ash Entertainment Credenza


So in honor of the Kona making it into this final round, I have chosen some pieces from the Century Furniture line that have the same laid-back vibe as the original room that I designed for Alluminare. I can definitely see the Kona being featured in one of these gorgeous room settings for Century or paired with some
of their nature inspired accent pieces.



Water Hyacinth Sofa

New Traditional Display Cabinet

Table Lamp with raffia shade



“X” Bench from the Metro Luxe collection

Console Table with antique white-wash finish

Inlaid Capiz Shell Mirror

Oscar de la Renta Occasional Table

Vote now for The Kona Chair
by Emily Carpenter



“What I like best about the
design of the Kona chair is
that it can easily fit in with
today’s modern take on the
traditional. It looks both
comfortable and solid,
while still being fun.”


Tune in to twitter on Monday, October 18th
starting at 5:00pm EST for a tweet-up with
the Project UDesign finalists and the press!

Use hashtag
#ProjectUDesign

The mecca to Nate and back

Thanks to the Moggit Girls (lifelong friends Joy and Janet were behind me in line and are seen in picture above) Boston designer Julieann Covino of the blog CreateGirl (not pictured here but I did get a chance to finally talk to her in person but my camera was all the way across the room!) and the power of twitter, I had the opportunity to be an audience member at a taping of The Nate Berkus Show yesterday. And it wasn’t just any old audience that walked in off the streets of New York to be there. Just about everyone there was invited because we share a love for Nate, inspired design, and a hard-to-put-into-words passion for social media. Big time gratitude goes to everyone behind the scenes at the Nate Show for hosting with stylish grace and
lots of humor (that would be Dena), and for
sharing Nate with us for the day!

Bloggers traveled from both near and far, leaving work/school/families/and their computers behind to be a part of this special Nate Day audience. Having the opportunity to meet so many fun, creative (and well-dressed!) personalities from the same industry *in person* was well up there on the list
of highlights from this trip.

I chose my outfit based on a recent post collaboration with Fashion Coach Susan Kanoff that featured the color purple. The silver rose pin from Stella & Dot is my favorite way to dress up a strand of pearls.

New York native and design blog author of Focus on Design, Rosanne Palazola, was the perfect traveling companion. She kept me entertained on the 4 hour journey with stories about her career in design, her close encounter with Nate this summer, and life in general. We also talked about our joint venture at the new lifestyle boutique New England Fine Living which will open in Middleton on October 1st. She also knew exactly how to get where we had to go in the city in the shortest amount of time, which certainly came in handy with all of the traffic in NY this week!

Friends Sara and Harold were behind us in line at CBS studios where the show is taped. Both were quite charming and appear to have bright futures in design.

Met through the blogs: Marcy of Pine Creek Cottage lives in Connecticut now, but loved my posts and pictures from the historical design show in Danvers
(which happens to be her hometown).

The audience was just as captivating as the host.
So many star sightings for us design bloggers! Our collective stories could probably be a design show series in itself (will send memo to HGTV!) which may explain why Nate could not call attention to all of the creative efforts of those gathered in NY to enjoy this amazing opportunity to meet and greet. Did I mention Emily Henderson was there??? Be sure to watch the show to catch her segment on how to showcase the treasures in your home. Oh, and she blogs, too.

Souvenirs from the trip: my VIP ticket, a gift card to Payless (perfect for budget-conscious fashionistas), a stunning necklace provided by Send the Trend and promoted by Project Runway star Christian Siriano who shared a few of his fashion tips with us. My box of new business cards also came home with me as they were not needed thanks to a new blog friend, Chanee, who went out of her way to create an entire Who’s Who of faces and contact information for each of the bloggers invited to the show, which was extremely helpful in putting names with faces and blogs!

As bloggers, we are a diverse community of many voices, but we all share a passion for design. Almost everyone in this shot lives in the Boston area.

Sabbespot, Everything LEB, Perfectly Put Together,
Deliciously Organized, Haven and Home

The weather was perfect. The city was full of life.
I wish we could have stayed longer. Next time!

Even though “our driver” was picking us up at 7pm, we still managed to enjoy some food and beverage at Affina before making the trek back to Boston. And even though we missed a couple of blogger events (please don’t remind me!) that we just could not squeeze into our quick trip to New York, I was happy to spend the day in a different kind of reality!

I will post the air time of this show when I know the details, and will link to more photos that Rosanne took from her point of view. She may have caught me talking with a few women involved in ProjectUDesign like social-media extraordinaire Leslie Carothers, Maybelline Te of Snug Furniture, and Nicole Nachazel from BiOH. I hope she caught me in deep conversation with both CreateGirl and Jonathan Legate (a rising star in Canadian design) as we amazed at the fact that it took about 140 characters to make
this dream our reality.

And thank you, Nate, for bringing us all together. Some people have the ability to draw a crowd and shine a light on others at the same time. You have that gift along with a generous spirit and big heart! Best of luck with your new show (insert virtual hug here!)

xoxo
yvonne