Tired At The End of The Day!

Today I went to the International Home & Housewares Show in Chicago and I was over-whelmed by the size of the show and amount of items that were on display. Whew! I had to soak in a hot tub after I got home just to recover from all the walking I did. During the show I attended an enlightening seminar led by Leatrice Eiseman, a color consultant to Pantone, and Ken Mesnick from a fabulous store in New York called Gracious Home. They spoke on the forecast of color trends for 2008 as well as how certain colors make us feel. These color trends have been grouped into the eight color families below. I just loved the words they used to describe some of the colors.

1. Recollections: Tapestry blues, muted blue greens, elegant champagne and warm peach.

2. High Profile: Pristine white, ebony black, rich browns, silvery grays, accented by fushia, purple, gold and silver.

3. Ethnic Chic: Deep purple, misted yellow, stone gray, burnt orange, vibrant blue and brunette browns.

4. Chinoiserie: Violet, muted lime, cameo pink, hushed greens, and antique Chinese red.

5. Agrestic: Bruschetta browns, tender greens, golden yellows, accented with vibrant pink.

6. Wellspring: Blues, aquas, undersea green, violet, indigo, mother of pearl, and sandy tones.

7. Savories: Chocolate brown, daiquiri greens paired with bright colors.

8. Nuances: Rose, earthy browns, reddish plums, and green tinged bronze.

After the show, I checked out a sweet little store called POSH that I read about in the current issue of Romantic Homes magazine. It was a fantastic shop (it reminded me a little of Anthropologie) with interesting new and vintage merchandise similar to what you might find at a Paris flea market. It was all I could do to not buy out the entire store. I did manage to exhibit some restraint and in the end only bought an old French novel and a map of Paris. to use in my collages.
In other news, I got an e-mail from Betz White, the gal who made the darling little cupcake pincushion pictured above, and found out she has a new book called, Warm Fuzzies, which is due out at the end of the year. It has 30 felted wool projects to create. In addition to her website, Betz also has a little shop at Etsy here where you can buy her pincushions.