Design Duo Top Tips

Cara Fazio & Maggie Ross of my Design Duo mystery series offer these interior decorating tips:

Whether you live in a tiny apartment, a sprawling house or a penthouse loft, surround yourself with things you enjoy. It doesn’t matter if it’s a flea market bargain, family heirloom or a designer chair, decorate with what inspires you, feels comfortable and makes you smile.

#1   Combine things you love and they will go together.

#2   Avoid going overboard with themes, matchy-matchy or collections.

#3   Dare to blend styles, as well as woods & metals.

#4   Color & texture add depth to a room.

#5   Furniture appears smaller in the showroom.  Always check dimensions before buying.

#6   Bold colors, patterns or prints in fabrics, pillows and accent pieces are more easily switched out than an expensive sofa.

#7   Create vignettes. We call it spot decorating. Imagine each area as an artistic snapshot.

#8    Weave beauty with the W guide.  Vary height and size whether you are hanging a wall grouping, arranging flowers in a vase or decorating a fireplace mantel.

#9    Capture the magic of three.  Cluster a trio of candles. Three of something adds an artistic touch.

#10   Build your decor around an object that enchants you.  It can be a painting, a fabric swatch, a Tuscan wall hanging or a flower pot from the garden.  Maybe your favorite mug or toss pillow? Use the colors and design to guide your choices.

Make your home the place you belong, a place as unique and special as you.

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WRITING VERSUS LIFE

by Karen E. Rigley

Writing and life clash. They each steal time and attention from the other, so a writer exists in a constant battle zone. We want to write. We need to write. Does life allow us to write?

Not without a battle. Whenever I hear the expression the writing life, I laugh. No such thing. You are either dealing with life or writing. Whichever creates the loudest demand at that moment determines which you are doing.

Juggling families, jobs, deadlines, and inevitable life crisis shoots holes through the best planned schedules, so writers constantly adapt often writing at weird times, odd places and occasionally awkward moments.

It’s agonizing to be struck by muse or impending deadlines right when life bombards you. So a writer charges forward plunging through the war zone attempting to successfully conquer both life and writing.

At this moment writing is winning – an hour from now? Oncoming fire.

TELL ME A STORY

Fly me away on the wings of dreams
Weave me sounds of laughter or screams

Scorch me with fire of dragon breath
Haunt me with tales of impending death

Introduce me to people I’ll never meet
Transport me to a distant or imaginary street

Thrill me with legends of brave young souls
Frighten me by evil spells, witches and ghouls

Entice me with magic of a lover’s kiss
Excite me with blaze from a laser gun miss

Enchant me with myths of lost jewels, genies and gold
Challenge me by ancient mysteries; puzzles of old

Tease me with shadows flickering in candleglow
Intoxicate me with joy, passion or woe

Whirl me toward heaven in a tornado high
Blow me like stardust across violet sky

Whisk me away to worlds, future or past
‘til my eyelids drift closed and I sleep at last.

DOUBLETIME

Blending two careers is my aim.

It’s all in organizing they claim,

yet, all the books and articles I read

fail to explain how to achieve

the unattainablse quest,

how to get enough rest.

 

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FIRST FRIDAY ART SHOW & STROLL

by Karen E. Rigley

It’s an event I look forward to the first Friday of every month. The evening highlight is more than dinner at the Grill. Usually several artists are featured, the displays mixing media. Generally, one or two artist collections of paintings or photographs, punctuated by three dimensional pieces such as sculpture or pottery in two different gallery shows.

It’s a treat to attend the new art shows, plus if time and weather allow to stroll along the renovated heart of town wandering into art galleries and antique shops.

Unfortunately, this month I’m sitting it out. Broken bones midwinter can do that. Knowing my disappointment, my sweet daughter brought me a take-out order of chicken carbonara and a yummy soup that tastes like Italian wedding soup minus meatballs.

This evening, I miss the art, the artists, as well as the delightful dinner company First Friday usually supplies, but next month I intend to attend the event and to appreciate it more than ever.

This is the just the first Friday of 2012, so the year will produce many more. As we flip the calendar to this new year to share New Year wishes, count our blessings and muse about the future, melancholy blends with anticipation. It’s a good time to reaffirm our faith, goals and dreams.

Time to celebrate the blessings in our lives and those we love as we step forward into a new year with hope and determination. This poem of mine fits a new year as well as a new day:

TODAY

New day

dawns

a

fresh sheet of paper

waiting

to

document

a

bit of history

in

the book

of

life.