What’s your creative media? How do you paint your palette? Some would say traditionally and others described here might say with flowers.

Fabulous Florals and Garden Mania are just a couple of headliners used recently by Traditional Home and the New York Times Magazine / Design Issue to describe the current fascination with floral design fancy.

Traditional Home, New + Next, May 2013

Party planner David Stark’s book Party Favor, shows multiple ways to use flowers for table decoration and for entertaining, and is featured in Traditional Home’s New + Next column.

You have to go to David’s website! It’s one of the most fun and interactive sites you’ll ever encounter. You’ll enjoy the wind chime tags where you can see examples of his many extraordinary creations, including this handmade screen of flowers for a Bat Mitzvah he designed at the Rainbow Room in NYC.

Paper cut flowers become a screen by David Stark for a Bat Mitzvah at the Rainbow Room in NYC

You’ll also enjoy popping bubbles with a pushpin and using the large hand as your cursor and even hole punching his books. But go to his blog, where you’ll discover all the incredible things he’s done with his highly creative team, including an entire pop-up paper flower shop for the opening event of his David Stark Design book in 2010. Yes, I’d say he likes flowers as well as paper. He’s inspired by artists like Daniel Murphy and Claes Oldenburg, whom I also enjoy. He states about his flower popup shoppe, ” I was inspired by the concept of the now iconic show presented by Claes Oldenburg in his studio in the 60’s called THE STORE.  In our flower shoppe, we created a stylized stage set where the purchase of accessible hand-made art objects became part of the theater piece.” He might like this incredible display cut from styrofoam “paper” cups by Katie Martin. It blows me away.

Flotant, paper cup artwork by Katie Martin

The New York Times Magazine recently touted the use of flowers through historical references, including: Gustav Klimt, Christian Dior, Chanel,  Isabelle de Borchgrave’s beautiful sculptural paper dresses, and murals in their spring Design Issue.

NYTimes Magazine – Design Issue, April 2013

These curvy floral mural panels in a sumptuous room designed by Peregalli and Sartori Rimini remind me of Kristin Nicholas’ Garden panels below.

Kristin Nicolas’ Garden of Family Farm Life Mural

Amazing the resemblance!…Finally, this clever piece that House Beautiful does had me dreaming of flowers and more ways to use our Multi/ Bold version from our recent photo shoot.

House Beautiful, March 2013

Here’s a way to make wallcoverings work as artwork in this Mixed Bouquet in a Floral Salon Olioboard.  If you like it, give it your vote!

A Mixed Bouquet in a Floral Salon

– Ashley

I don’t think it’s just me but I’m seeing color, pops of color and unexpected color all over the place. Just an example, my latest grandinroad catalog has bright colored outdoor benches and chairs where they would normally be unpainted wood, wicker, white or beige. They are calling the change their “Spring Awakening” in celebration of their 10 years. No, I’m not their spokesperson but these just brightened up my day to see. Click here to see more.

Not only are catalogs using color for their products but interior designers are as well in their projects. Below are a bunch of snapshots of where pops of color can make a room sing through the following ways. Hopefully they will equally inspire you with lots of colorful decorating ideas.

Furniture:

Yellow & Pink Furniture – Artistic Design For Living

Green Sofa & Chair – Barrie Benson

Orange Chairs – Burnham Design

Red Chair – J. Allen Perceptions Interiors

Monochromatic Styling:

Red Carpet Stairs and Linden Museum Displays – Crux Creative

Red – Barrie Benson

Green – J. Allen Perceptions Design

Lime – Civility Design

Color Blocking:

Homepage – Poplin & Queen

Stripes – Bolick Interiors

Curtains – Barrie Benson

Rug – Angie Hranowsky Design Studio

Wall + Rug + Chairs & Desk Area – J. Allen Perceptions Interiors

Nursery:

A Nursery no longer needs to be pastel – Selma Hammer Designs

Crib Detail – Selma Hammer Designs

Multi-surface:

Custom wallpaper + Accessories – Little Crown Interiors

Remember Spirograph? – Little Crown Interiors

Chairs + Tile + Rug + Walls – Design Club

Unexpected & Unusual Locations:

Floral Entry – Rachel Halvorson Designs

Reclaimed Wood – Rachel Halvorson

Look up! Orange Antler Chandelier – Civility Design

Floral Spontaneity – Barrie Benson for Poole Shop

You can see room views of Casart’s pop of floral color here with our Flower Power Design.

Casart Flower Power makes Art for Your Home easy for renters

Casart Flower Power – Pops with color in a Teenager’s Room

Accessories:

Shades & Pattern as Artwork – Seaside Interiors

Orange – Kristy Cohn Design

Desk Caddy – Frugal Finds

A Clever Blue (Foo) Lab? Bookends – Frugal Finds

While I’m thinking of all these ways to interject color, I can’t help but circle back to grandinroad’s cover picture on their website, which makes me daydream of the restful days of summer and clear colorful, beautiful blue skies and pops of seaside color surrounding. Color can be so soothing….

grandinroad’s inspiration from Nature

– Ashley

Remember those showers I mentioned a while back?  Well, it’s May and here come the flowers those showers bring!

May Elle Decor has an article titled A Budding Romance with this byline-”Whether they appear in fashion, fabrics, or jewelry, in traditional forms or innovative guises, flowers are ever inspiring-and ever fresh.”  The eight page article produced by Florentino Pamintuan and Sabine Rothman included wonderful photos by Martyn Thompson of jewelry, china, fabric, furniture and even a chandelier.

Elle Decor-A Budding Romance-photo by Martyn Thompson

April’s House Beautiful has an article featuring chintz in designer Connie Newberry’s home.  Newberry says she loves chintz because the color combinations add vibrancy even bright solids can’t.

Designer Connie Newberry’s Hudson Valley home. Photo-Jonny Valiant

And Traditional Home ushered in their May issue with Fabulous Florals for the subject of their New+Next by Tom Elliott and Mimi Faucett, with 5 pages of Flower Power items, including these short and long lovelies.

Traditional Home, New + Next

The byline Traditional Home used began with a Ralph Waldo Emerson quote, “The earth laughs in flowers.” and continued with “That is certainly the case this season, when big floral prints are bursting with color and personality.  From sconces to teapots, let unabashedly bold posies help you usher in spring.”

Of course, we took all this advice to heart and are featuring our own Flower Power wallcovering design as well as our indoor/outdoor matching pillows this month.

Casart coverings’ Flower Power can enhance a romantic interlude

Casart’s Flower Power Pillow

But wait, there’s more flowers to be had at Casart, so take your pick!

Kristin Nicolas’ Garden of Family Farm Life Mural

casart Botanicals, Peony Pattern in Pink

New Casart design, with or without wording, in different varieties

The camellia design was done by Ashley from a photo I sent of flowers in bloom in my garden.  She surprised me with the design on Mother’s Day!

We even used Casart to enhance real flowers at Antiques in Alexandria recently.  Laurel Francis of Creative Presentation designed a unique bouquet.

Floral Presentation’s use of Casart “leaf” in floral boquet-Antiques In Alexandria lunch

-  Lorre Lei