Lifestyle & Aesthetic

When my grandparents offered me these vintage aluminum children's chairs, I gladly accepted them. At the time, my cousin was pregnant with her first child and I knew these chairs would be a perfect gift. We had played on them throughout our childhood and I was excited to give them new life.   Cost: About $45 Materials Chalk Paint Polyuruthane Foam Padding Staple Gun Staples Fabric Tools Paint Brush Screw Driver Staple Gun Scissors How to Refinish Aluminum Chairs with Chalk Paint To begin, I took apart the old chairs. The frame was one solid piece. The wooden seat was [...]

My last entry in this series of color palettes lacks profundity. I found a simple moment from this past summer — purple leaves with touches of red and brown. It's witchy and rich with tones I've found myself referencing frequently this week. I'm not ready to announce what I'm doing next. As a teaser, it will be color-focused and catalog my inspiration. Stay tuned.   https://www.instagram.com/p/CNjAOLfll_m/   https://www.instagram.com/p/CkVzYbzIs1D/

Sometimes, it's hard to believe that chocolate brown was considered a strong, replacement neutral. In the early 2000s, browns (especially in luxe textures) replaced solid black. Light gray then, soft beige followed. New neutrals are always a "thing" because they provide the baseline for trendy accent colors. They change more slowly too. You'll notice it anytime you're looking for something that has a long use life such as boots, furniture, appliances, fixtures, or coats. Lately, browns have been coming back — a warm turn away from blue-grey neutrals. It falls in line with that 90s return that hit us hard [...]

Walk around any secondhand store and you'll find dusty pink tones — particularly on upholstery and reproduced art. The colors of my childhood comfort me when I uncover them in bins and boxes. My mother decorated in a neo-victorian or maybe Edwardian look. We had a velvet couch, faded maroon. The living area was sponge-panted in pink hues — hand-done by my mother with tips from a ladies' magazine. Every room, from the bathroom to the hallways had printed floral paintings, often with picnics and ladies with parisols. Above these, faux florals hung — also in faded burgundy tones. As [...]

Everyone has stories that are part of their personal lore. They become our own legends, retold by family and friends. They define the way we see ourselves and make up part of who we are. When I was three, my favorite color was lavender. Everyone who loves me loves this story. My late grandmother, my aunts, my mother, and now even my little son, know my favorite color has always been lavender. Not purple. It's a story that I remember more than the moment itself. I do remember the lavender touches in my little-girl world. My comforter was lavender. My [...]

Winter loses color like rain falling from darkened clouds — dripping its ink onto the grown below. But, where do the colors go? The sky shines lightest gray. The grass stands the softest brown. The world aches for sunlight to awaken sparks of color. Does it jump around the planet — somewhere on the other side? Does it slink off to the tropics to take a vacation? I imagine it sinks deep down into the oceans, rivers, and lakes to hibernate for a while with the mermaids and dryads. Maybe the oceans are bleak in the summer and turn brilliant mid [...]

This week, I selected three books from my local library, Wasted by Marya Hornbacher, selected short stories by Edgar Allen Poe, and a DIY book on home office organization. I've wrapped up several projects recently and my head is in a creative space of brainstorming new things. That energy drew me to these shades of yellow this week. They're pulled from this painting I snapped at the Taubman Museum of Art. I wish I'd taken better notes when I was there. What drew me to this particular painting was that it was a double-sided work (so visceral to imagine an [...]

I enjoy making collages and I am very bad at them. Every few years, I ask for a magazine subscription for Christmas. As I finish reading each magazine, I rip out the pages with images and text that inspire me. Sometimes, it's whole articles. Most of the time, it's just advertisements and features with colors I like. I pile them up and sort them by color. I modge-podge them into sketchbooks, filling up as much of the page as I can. It's a mess. I often have to cut out pages to make room for the extra thickness that my [...]

Where I live, November is beautiful. The weather is so temperate that you can wear shirt sleeves up until Christmas. The trees are often vibrant — at least there are pops of yellow amid the slowly-sombering browns. As much as my retail-focused mind races straight from September to big Christmas sales, I find my soul takes a little rest mid-November. With my holiday campaigns are put to bed (glittering, gold, and glowing), I circle back around to those cozy browns. It's still time to drink coffee, wander through markets, pile up books, and run my hand along the curves of [...]

Social media has become the suburbs. Once, it was a brand new front tier with tales of ragged exploration. Villages, towns, and cities sprung up quickly — populated by a mix of unexpected characters. Now, even the newest platforms drift into curated aesthetics and planned content quickly. The deliberation is fierce, expected, and capitalized. This is not a criticism or applause. Lately, I've been looking for any disruption in the careful aesthetics that drop before my eyes. https://www.instagram.com/p/Cje8NRXtLjv/ I find seas of beige, with warm, desaturating filters that create enticing contrast between skin tones and shadows. https://www.instagram.com/p/CiSgnzLrd2q/ Then, you find [...]