With the gorgeous weather this past weekend, and a wonderful Mother’s Day celebration, I took a little “me time” to read up on my magazines. I was going to post another inspirational post from High Point but decided to save that one and run this one instead because I was so excited when I saw the possibilities stemming from House Beautiful‘s regular Paint Palette feature. I love how they pull the paint colors out from an image as in Audubon’s painting, Roseate Spoonbill.

Then I got to thinking why does this have to just be paint? Why heck, we have all these colors as the Karen Robertson Collection Stripes and as Wallfinishes, seen below.

Even some of our Organics  (faux bois and raw silk) would be a similar match to these colors and if not, you could customize it by giving us  paint or Pantone colors to match. Easy and limitless possibilities.

Now let’s see what all this might look like in a room setting. To do this, I use Olioboard to get a sense. I’ve pinned other boards on Pinterest.

Creative concepts make decorating a lot easier if you can conceptualize it before you have to do it.  Casart coverings makes it a whole lot easier than having to paint! Casart is one of the most versatile repositionable wallcoverings around. It can go over itself without permanently sticking + commercial grade so thick, durable and mold and fire resistant.

Try it with our products on Olioboard and see what you get. Let us know what other ones you want us to add.

If you missed our Mother’s Day sale, it’s not too late. You have until May 20th to order from any of our Botanical Designs. Contact us for the special code at contact@casartcoverings.com. This Pink, Black & White Flower Power was one of the more popular items on One Kings Lane. These flowers last long after the real bouquets fade.

One other extension of Mother’s Day that you may also find interesting is this article that proposes Mothers would make good business women. Why? Because they’ve been practicing the art of “conflict resolution” known as E=Q*A in business lingo. Read more here. It will make any mom feel good about child rearing and giving themselves often unnoticed (except one day out of the year) credit for all the hard work they do.

– Ashley

No, not what you may be thinking of…or is it?….We’re talking about what uplifts you — what brings you pleasure…Get those dirty thoughts out of your head. Oops, maybe that’s not what you were thinking of…Inspiration is the key subject here. Inspiration and a talented painter.

We have added more vintage paintings to our Katherine Collection. These are new images that are only available at Casart coverings. They were originally painted by Katherine Jackson, a talented painter in her day and can now be enjoyed as wallcoverings in large scale format. They have been reprinted as removable and reusable wallcovering for a focal wall or in smaller scale to “hang” as a painting without nails or a frame. You can get the popular “vintage look” with these beautiful works of art that can be made contemporary with your own decorating style. We love this Red Canoe with its pop of brilliant color, as seen conceptually on Olioboard.

Casart Olioboard - Vintage Made Modern

Katherine Jackson was born and lived in the geographical center of Kentucky; land-locked and surrounded by the American scenery of knob land, lakes, horse farms, blue grass and bourbon distilleries.  Yet her artistic soul was never far from water and boats.  She painted all kinds of boats, sailboats, skiffs, canoes, fishing boats, in and around the US and whenever she traveled internationally — enough for us to introduce The Boat Series.

She painted boatloads of boats, and you can see a few more on our website. It must have been a great inspiration of hers and is ours, as we recognize her passion for the subject and it’s interesting to see how her style depicting these changed throughout the years. We thought it fitting to introduce in April — to help you forget about all those rain showers (that we may be getting in High Point) and think of boats that won’t leave you washed up instead.

We also thought if you had a boat, you may want to travel to a serene, surreal beach, with our new Guiding Light Casart Photo. Check the website for other new introductions. These scenic images leave you restful without feeling stranded. They are all unique photographs, only available through Casart coverings You can always upload your own and you can even further customize your Casart here.

I decided to do a little search for boats used interior design and besides some murals and plenty with sailboats motifs, I was surprised that I could not find that many for less fancy boats — except for ones that stood out as being unusual — all from Houzz, one of our favorite interior design resources.

This “boat hanging” is a novel approach from Beth Welsh of  Interior Changes, but being unsure of certainly and with just my luck, it would have me looking up, if I were sitting below. I could also be mesmerized by its dreamy blue painted interior.

This contemporary boat painting, uploaded by Mark Dodge caught my attention for the strong use of bright, bold colors. Notice how the other painting is more traditional – an interesting dichotomy for display.

Finally, this image, uploaded by Horchow, is gorgeous! Although, I’m not quite sure why it popped up in a “boat” search, I’m glad it did. It has me thinking about our upcoming new designs. I like the abstract painting in particular, the colors, and mix of sheens in this room — pretty inspirational and enough to float my boat.

– Ashley

As an artist I appreciate mock ups. I know there are typically a lot of conceptual sketches that get drawn before the actual design gets produced and this takes a lot of time. Many fields require this creative process but up until recently there have not been sufficient tools to help in efficiency and decrease the time this process takes.

I was very impressed with Cheryl Howard’s solution when I saw her booth at High Point. Her company is E-Z Decorator™ – Design and Decorating System to help with interior design’s creative process. She has invented a way for professional interior designers as well as the creative decorator in all of us to view our interior design ideas before they are finalized. With a series of hand drawn templates, grids and removable and reusable furniture and accessory “overlays” and static cling stickers, one can easily visualize their project’s scope, change things around and alternate different wallcoverings or paint swatches with clear overlays. Although I’m all about drawing and illustration has been the foundation for all my artwork, this gets the concept “down on paper” quickly and easier than drawing. Her designs come in Custom 3-ring binder sets with over 5,500 illustrations from which to choose. A Standard E-Z Decorator™ System costs $299 plus shipping and includes 1,600 hand drawn ilustrations in a 3-ring binder. Additional systems and supplement sets can be ordered.

Ashley & Cheryl Howard @ High Point E-Z Decorator™ booth

Now granted, Cheryl already has a lovely line of fabrics and wallcoverings created for her by Rasa Arbas that can be used with her decorating system; however, there are no decorative finishes from which to choose. Voila, therein comes Casart coverings. We not only have decorative wallfinishes as removable and reusable wallcoverings but also murals and patterns  — one of the largest collections of repostionable, temporary or long-lasting wallpaper — and everything can be customized to personalized color choices. We also have the exclusive Mary Douglas Drysdale Signature Color Collection. Once can easily order some of our samples to view as backdrops for the E-Z Decorator™ System.

Cheryl makes the point that her design system is also faster than designing on a computer, which may be true but the advantage of a computer based system is that it is in digital format and can be sent to clients or shared easily. Studio by Minutes Matter has this type of software solution. Prices are determined by what software package you purchase from Studio M Wall Templates ($32.25) – The Design Solution (entire package bundle for $1,558). Debbie Green also has great business solutions as a CRM (Client Management System) to Measuring System to a Design and Directory of Windows +. These could be very helpful for the business of interior design. She also has a great blog and mentions that she saw tufted headboards all over High Point. We did too and since we sell a Casart Faux Padded Headboard, we were happy to notice this as well.

If I was an interior designer, I would investigate both of these types of business solutions. Presently we use Olioboard and like it very much for mood boards but this is time consuming to upload and create and gives one a very rudimentary mood board concept; whereas Cheryl’s solution is more realistic in scope and Studio is more technical in presentation. You can choose which style or combine versions of what you like or what suits your work and clients best. The point is, there are finally some great variety of tools to the trade that make the business of design a whole lot easier and fun while creating.

Fall Living Casart's Renaissance Modern Moodboard on Olioboard

– Ashley