Cute Giveaway at perch.!

Where has the week gone? It seems all I have had time to post are guest bloggers and contests, and now a giveaway!

I am doing a couple of huge projects, and will blog on them soon. I don't have too much time for blogging right now, but I am checking in every once in awhile to keep up with you all!

Go on over to perch. HERE and check out the giveaway to get one of these darling Ikat frames. So far no one has named all of the ladies in the frames above. Can you? If you comment here perch. will count it as a comment for the giveaway.

More later...xo xo

I Heart Fabric.com

Fabric.com is a great resource. They have the most reasonably priced fabric, much of it on trend.
Even though I work at a wonderful home furnishing store with access to every designer fabric, I often cannot afford it even if I can get it at cost.
And sometimes I have a client who is on a very tight budget, and I need to find great looking designer fabric really really inexpensively.
Fabric.com is my go-to source.
The customer service is great. There is free shipping if your order is $35. or more.
I have personally used their ivory burlap for drapes, their heavy white cotton for slipcovers, their solid color silk and linen for drapes, their lining and interlining.
When trends first break, prices are high, and it make take a year or two for them to trickle down to the mainstream. If you aren't stuck-up about a designer name, and you can use your creativity to get the gesture of what you see in a magazine, Fabric.com will be a wonderful resource for you.

Fabric trends

Here is a round up of some of my favorite fabrics at Fabric.com based on looks you all once drooled over. I for one, still appreciate them.

One hot fabric is the Lee Jofa Confetti Dot designed by Kelly Wearstler. Lots of you drooled over this, and I have used it for clients. But it hovers around $100. a yard or more.

Lee Jofa Confetti Dot

Fabric.com has something in the same vein, and in many different color ways (gray, orange, black).

Fabric.com Togo print HERE

The very talented Nicole Cohen from Sketch42 used the Lee Jofa fabric in her home.

She added the beautiful trim, no doubt from her family's fabulous store M & J Trimming in New York. I found some very cute zebra print ribbon at Fabric.com for only $1.24 a yard that would work just fine for a girl on a budget.

Zebra print ribbon from HERE

Skirted console by Nicole Cohen

Madeline Weinrib has some of the best Ikat fabrics, but they are very pricey. I wish I could afford them!

Fabric.com has some prints that really have the feeling of some of the Weinrib dot Ikats.

This dot Ikat-like fabric comes in pink, orange, black, yellow HERE

Madeline Weinrib Ikat pillow around $400.

Of course Fabric.com has Suzani too. Again in many color ways HERE
This black and white one really looks like a Weinrib Suzani.

Black and white Suzani HERE $6.98 per yard!

Madeline Weinrib Suzani chair

There's been alot of flak about trellis like fabrics, but again I still think they are very cute.

Trellis print on Lucite stool

Trellis print from Fabric.com HERE
It comes in so many colors!

Another trellis style print HERE

Greek key style fabrics are fabulous. We all loved what Jonathan Adler did with them.

Jonathan Adler stool

Maybe you have a chair seat or a little stool that you can recover.

Fabric.com has this Waverly Cross Section fabric in several colors HERE

For all you black and white lovers, there is a huge selection of black and white designer style fabrics available. And you have to remember that all these fabrics start at $6.98 a yard and go no higher than $12.- $15. per yard!

Trellis style print drapes

I just ordered a yard of this black and white fabric to cover a couple of Saarinen stools.

Get this fabric HERE - $10.98 a yard!
It reminds me of Windsor Smith

The chevron pattern is great, and beloved by many of us.

Chevron print drapes

Chevron fabric HERE
Again it comes in many color ways

And if you want the carpet to match the drapes ha ha, get over to La Dolce Vita to see these very affordable Flor carpet tiles(!!!!), and enter a giveaway to win a rug! HERE

And some more Ikat - I think this one is as beautiful as any Weinrib fabric. I love the painterly quality of it.

Blue Ikat from Fabric.com HERE

Blue Ikat furniture is so pretty

Have you ever used laminated fabric? It was a big thing to cover dining room chairs in laminated chintz in the 1980's.

Fabric.com has quite a few good looking laminated fabrics that would be wonderful for chairs.

Laminated fabric HERE
It reminds me of Trina Turk

Trina Turk fabric on a chair from perch.

I also love a link pattern.

Links from Fabric.com $12.98 per yard HERE


Windsor Smith links print fabric from Kravet about $150. per yard
See a great DIY project from Nest Egg HERE

Here are just a few images to remind you of how great print fabrics and wallpaper are.



And the use of color is pretty great too.


This images are of the Redbury Hotel.


Hope you can use Fabric.com for a source to get great inexpensive designer style fabrics!

Melissa Rufty And My Ikat Pillows

I love Melissa Rufty's work. She elevates the traditional with her own expressive use of color and fabrics and wallpaper.

Melissa Rufty uses Ikat pillows

I was doing some photo research for a post on here HERE.

Melissa Rufty has a terrific editorial featuring her home, in the October 2010 issue of House Beautiful. And while I was gathering images I saw these Ikat pillows, and had an OMG moment.

Visual Vamp living room at the very very beginning
Check out the Ikat pillows!

I purchased these pillows on layaway at perch. long before I worked there, and long before I knew who the fabulous Melissa Rufty is.

I've moved those Ikat pillows around alot

Melissa stops in perch., and we like her so much. The last time she came by, we were all squealing like school girls over Sandra Bullock shopping on Magazine Street.

Visual Vamp living room now
So much has changed! But I still have those Ikat pillows!

So much has changed for me in the last couple of years. I'm back at work in the design world, and loving every minute of it. I've met so many wonderful people because of blogging and working at perch. And I still have those first Ikat pillows I bought!

Melissa Rufty in October 2010 issue of House Beautiful
She changed the pillows!

Readers Projects: Casting Call for Cowhide, Ikat, And Suzani

Thank you for the great response to the casting call for photos of how you are using cowhide, Suzani, and Ikat in your homes. Decor bloggers and readers are dedicated to making their homes beautiful, and we constantly inspire one another.

First up, is Roybn Henderson from My Southern Cottage. Her classic and clean use of a zebra printed cowhide is beautiful. Check out her blog - she has so many great tips and a DIY project for the cute burlap pillows on her sofa that is genius.

Robyn says: "I feel that's what these blogs are all about- throwing yourself (or your home) out there for everyone to see and take the good with bad comments. I definitely need another eye to see things and tell me what to do. I just don't want to pay for it, so I blog. Sometimes 100+ bloggers is alot better than one interior designer."

Robyn Henderson's cowhide on seagrass

Jamie Rogers from Doxa Home sent this to me. She has a great post on living with pets and light color furnishings.

Jamie Rogers has a cowhide on the floor of her home

I had to dig in the vault for some more photos, and I found this image of a beautiful living room from the home of Gina from Willow Decor. She recently added a white cowhide rug.

Gina from Willow Decor added a white cowhide rug on top of sea grass

Another example of white cowhide comes via a photo from my friend Peg DeFilippis. This is her New York City loft apartment.

Peg placed a white cowhide on under a modern chaise on the hardwood floor in her NYC home

You know by now that I'm a huge fan of cowhide. Here's my living room with a brown and white cowhide rug.

I just purchased two white cowhides on eBay.
To parapharase eBay, I am awaitng their delivery!
I already have one white cowhide that I used in my office.

Valorie Hart white cowhide on the floor in the office

I said, used. I have started a new project! I am turning my red office back to a dining room, and after five years, am changing the red walls for another color! Stay tuned for how it turns out!
In the meantime, I threw the rug from the floor onto the table! I love it!
I predict draping cowhide on tables and on furniture will become a hot trend this year!

Valorie Hart - A sneak peek at the office conversion to a dining room

The white cowhide moved from the floor to the table!

The next call for entries is about Suzani. I didn't get any photos from you! So I dug in the vault for this photo from Joni from Cote de Texas, who really informed us all about Suzanis. This is photo of how she used it as a table covering in her home.

Joni Webb - Suzani table skirt in her home

She also has one as a throw at the foot of her bed.

Joni Webb - Suzani throw at the end of the bed in her home

My friend Peg got this cute bedspread from Urban Outfitters a couple of years ago for her daughter's room.

Peg's Suzani bedspread

Joni inspired the Suzani I got for Christmas 2008. I love it, but I really didn't know what to do with it ha ha. Here I draped it on a counter in my office/dining room.

Valorie Hart - Suzani tablecloth

ERROR

My Suzani is small. It's actually a vintage tablecloth, so I thought I'd try using it that way on my kitchen table. This vintage Suzani came from directly from Uzbekistan.

Valorie Hart - Suzani in the kitchen

The Ikat trend came out of the Bohemian/Hippie Chic fashion and home decor trend that was a hot topic among decor and fashion bloggers starting in 2007. Courtney Barnes of Style Court enlightened all of us, and we fell in line.
One of the most charming images she showed us was of a vintage chair frame reupholstered with an Ikat fabric Jen West found on eBay. I think Jen West launched a thousand Ikat chairs! And I think she had this chair for sale in huge purge HERE! Jen if you didn't sell it e-mail me!

Artist Anne Harwell made a painting of this chair, and subsequent prints, that are still a huge seller in her Etsy shop.

Blogger Renae Moore and I have been searching for well priced Ikat fabric. We both love Madeline Weinrib, but that company is an independent, and only gives a 20% discount to the trade of its very high priced fabric. I have been trying to get our shop to carry MW but the owner thinks the line is too pricey and the trade discount too small.
Another line Renae and I were excited to see is Trina Turk for Schumacher. Renae got some memos and sent me some photos. She was thinking of doing up some Ikat pillows for her couch.

The Trina Turk fabric wasn't what she had in mind, and she found something else for her pillows.

Renae Moore Designs - Ikat pillows on her sofa

She also was getting ready to reupholster a pair of wing chairs, and considered this beautiful burnt orange fabric.

Renae Moore shows some Fabric choices for her chairs and pillows

But in the end she chose this classic gray green.

Renae Moore Designs - a pair of reupholstered wing chairs

The last images are certainly not the least.

Rebeka Lambert of artsy-crafty babe send me some photos in a e-mail entitled "Love My Ikat!".


She says: "Well, I'm no designer or decorator, but I love ikat! This summer I slipcovered a thrift store wing back chair and made a table skirt from some blue ikat-ish fabric. I'd have a cowhide rug in my house if my little dog wouldn't chew it to pieces - I can see that disaster already :)".

Rebeka Lambert - artsy-crafty babe - made this Ikat slip cover

She also made this very cute pillow!

Rebeka Lambert - artsy-crafty babe - made this Ikat pillow

And she made this table skirt!

Rebeka Lambert - artsy-crafty babe - made this Ikat table skirt
She has an Etsy store too!

I love doing Readers Projects posts. Thanks again for participating.
You don't have to wait for another casting call. Just e-mail me your projects, especially of the things you are doing in your own homes.