Throw a fabulous soirée....what are you waiting for?? ??!!! by Chintz

Well hello! Girl, you look fabulous...really!!

Ok, niceties aside, let me ask you a question. When was the last time you had a fabulous party? Let me clarify... by fabulous I mean effortless, beautiful, festive, affordable and a joy for you and all your guests.  Well, today is Saturday and my friend (the beautiful, the talented) Monique is having a birthday tomorrow. I will be throwing a fabulous party for her at her house. It will be a Fiesta themed party with the appropriate cocktails...margaritas and sangria!! I will be preparing a spicy lime tequila chicken that I will grill to perfection and pair it with homemade tamales (not my home, but more on that later), charro beans and fresh guacamole. Honestly, I have not fretted over this party for one second. Does that surprise you? Well, my dears, entertaining is my passion and over the years I have assembled all the basic elements that I need for any get together. Over the next several postings, I will walk you through the preparation, recipes, festivities, etc. to show you how easy it is to throw a fabulous party. I will also be posting pictures of all the phases of the event, so you can truly see how successful and effortless a great gathering of friends can be. I will warn you though of one thing.....I will probably have a cocktail in my hands at all times. Well, it is a party after all!!!

Until next time....Keep it Sassy! Keep it Fabulous!! Spread the word!!! The Design Divas can't conquer the design world if we keep this a secret!! I don't mind, really. Blab, Girl, Blab!

Chintz

STUFF-onomics....BOOK: 'Designers on Design' (silk)

Hello everyone!

Silk here reporting from the comfort of my bedroom - typing away in the middle of the night.

What can i say - design INSPIRATION strikes at the oddest moments and times in my life.

Tonight, i had a brainstorm of the things i wanted to share with you.
since my interests cover a large range of topics - i will break them down for you into various columns.
be on the look out for all of them as i shall start to post with more frequency in the next couple of weeks.

Today - i am writing a review for a book that you all must EITHER own in your growing design libraries or borrow from someone else to read and absorb...
while i was engaged earlier with updating my iTunes library with a new CD from Paolo Nutini (love it... must have for anyone else's library... but i digress) i flipped through this book that i have been reading for quite sometime.

"DESIGNERS ON DESIGN" by Terence Conran and Max Fraser

This is a fascinating book to peruse. it is a compilation of interviews with many of the today's most influential designers (architecture/interiors/product/industrial/graphic./etc.).
the authors decided to create this book in order for you (the consumer) to read and understand the motivations, inspirations, and characters of the designers responsible today for contributing to the changes we all see in our three-dimensional environments.

Some of the designers include - hella jongerious :netherlands, eoos:austria, james dyson:great britain, stephen burks:usa, marre moerel:spain, frank nuovo:usa, marc newson: great britain/france, james irvine:italy, and naoto fukasawa: japan
to name a few.

Their interviews are candid and honest - and some even humorous.
they answer questions about their products, their inspirations, their feelings on trends, teamwork, alternate career choices and aspirations for design. there are also photos of their works.

It was interesting for me to learn about what inspires them.
it is not always peaches and cream being a creative individual and i think moire and chintz will agree with me that INSPIRATION can escape you until the last possible second before you are suddenly hit with it.
By reading and learning about how and where influential designers (of any age) find that drive and push to overcome those creative roadblocks was an eye opener.

Let me tell you now that WE (silk chintz and moire) aspire to also make a difference - we want to inform you about design: its possibilities and its fascinations in any form that it comes in.

So be inspired!
Happy reading... and thank you for coming along for the ride with us.

until next time...
cheers!

Silk signing off now...

The Simple Home - by Moire

As both Silk and Chintz will attest, I like to keep things simple.  I tend to start my design process with a simple idea, then I simplify it some more, then I strip it back to it's bare bones to see just how simple I can make it.

My favourite way of simplifying a home is to have 'stations' for activities throughout the space.  When you think about your home in terms of 'stations', I bet you can come up with many that you had never even thought of before.  For example, the TV, sofa and coffee table together form a station for relaxing with your favourite beverage and watching TV; the bed and side tables form a station for relaxing and sleeping; and of course the most obvious is the triangle of fridge, stove and sink, your food preparation station.

My first step is to start with a stripped bare floor plan of the house.  If an existing one is not available, some basic measurements around the perimeter of each room can give you the basic shape of the floor plan, accurate enough for this exercise.  Sketch this out on a piece of grid paper.  Draw an arrow into each room and at the blunt end of this arrow list all the activities you use this room for.  For example, your list for the living room could read: watching TV, chatting to friends, answering e-mails on laptop, embroidery and sewing and writing letters and cards.  Your kitchen list could read: preparing and cooking food, everyday family meals, kids crafts, family calendar, pet feeding, paying bills & filing.  

Of course everybody's list will be different, even people who live in the same house will do different things in different rooms.  Therefore it is very useful to make a number of copies of the basic floor plan and get everyone in the house to do the exercise for themselves.  Gather all the information onto one master plan and look for areas which everyone uses for the same purpose and areas that different people use for different purposes.  This will be the basis of your 'stations'.

Over the next few weeks I will be introducing hints and tips for creating stations in your home for many of the purposes you will come across.  In the meantime, try out the above exercise, and see if you can identify your own stations.

Moire