Vienna Paint -- Benjamin Moore

The folks at Benjamin Moore and the owner of Vienna Paint were fantastic hosts last night in their Finding the Perfect Paint Color class.  My friend Liz come as my invited guest (I had to do a little convincing to get her to do it...I'm so glad she came.  She enjoyed it too.) We both came home with super SWAG  bags.  The Benjamin Moore special reps, the Benjamin Moore designer, the coloristas (I love that title), and the store manager, and the store owner were all sooooo nice.   After hearing that I was using only fandecks for my Paint Consulations with clients, the store manager, Andrew was so nice...he went out of his way and gave me several Design Tool Kits that I can take on my Paint Consultations when I meet with clients. (I made sure Liz would get some too.)  I promised him a big thank you...I hope he likes Pumpkin Bars. (I'm kinda famous with the neighbors for them.)  The funny thing is...The colors of the pumpkin bars look like the Benjamin Moore Colors I have in my kitchen. 

Maybe I can decorate your house using the colors found in your favorite recipe? 

Brush Fringe is Messy

I'm not a fan of brush fringe on pillow edges.

...It gets tangled up and looks snarled after very little use.
Here's my solution...avoid long brush fringe on pillow edges or

Gently comb the untamed strands with a wide toothed hair pick when they look too messy.

--Try it,
SK  

Handmade Gift Box

My sweet friend Liz had a birthday this week. We're in the same industry and we talk on the phone almost daily. (Our afternoon phone conversations usually involve the topic of lack of energy, having so much work to finish, needing coffee, or not having any on hand at all.)

A few months ago I had re-created Liz's business logo for her and for her birthday gift, I wanted to create something handmade using her logo. I was going to make her a wall sign, but after it was finished, I thought it needed more. (Drapery ladies are really good at noticing when a design looks incomplete.) My backup plan was to give her some coffee or to make the sign into a box. So in my spare time over a few afternoons this week, I cut more wood, painted, stained, sealed, and assembled a supercool personalized wooden box and filled it with my favorite stovetop espresso maker, espresso, the recipe for my espressos and include a yummy, dark chocolate bar. What I loved, was that the gift was personalized, ON TREND in LIMEWASHED woodtones and used this season's top colors TURQUOISE and PURPLE. But the thing that was best of all was hearing the scream of delight when Liz saw her logo painted on the box. She loved it. She didn't want to open it. I had a great time making it.

I covered up the logo so she would be surprised when she received the gift. It looked like this when she first saw it: