so many colors!!

I recently decided to paint the guest room in my home. As is the case every time that I decide to pull out the house paint supplies, I first have the "dilemma" of choosing a color. Being a designer who works with colors all of the time, my husband thought (back with the first house) that choosing colors should be easy for me, right?? Wrong. He quickly learned that I'm ultra picky and obsess over finding the PERFECT color. I start talking "tint" and "shade" and he gives up even trying to help. Now living in our third "fixer-upper" house, I've had lots of practice, but it's still not easy. There are a few tools that I've discovered along the way, however, that have made the process a little less torturous.

First, I've acquired color fan decks from both Benjamin Moore and Sherwin Williams. Just go in and ask them for it. Both places gave one to me for free without a problem. This saves me from going to the paint store, collecting a hundred of those little paint chips and then having them get scattered throughout my house! Although I typically do buy one of these two brands, I could also take the chosen color chip from either fan decks to any paint store and they will custom color match to that chip. I've learned that if I stick with a quality (i.e. more expensive also) brand like Benjamin Moore, the coverage is so much better that it requires less coats of paint, which, most importantly, means less work for me! Plus, needing more cans of a cheaper paint (to put extra coats on) is not really much cheaper in the end anyways. 

The problem with the fan decks is that they have... oooooh... about 1,200 color options! And once I had it narrowed down to wanting to paint the guest room gray, that only narrowed my options down to about 100 slight color variations. ugh!

Another trick I've learned to help me choose paint colors is to use the Personal Color Viewer on the Benjamin Moore website. You can choose one of their stock photos of a room that looks similar to what you will be painting. Then you plug in the Benjamin Moore paint chip numbers that you are considering to see that color on the wall, ceiling, trim or wherever you designate the color to go in the picture you chose. Of course every computer screen shows colors differently, but it especially helps me decide if I like two colors together, if they have enough contrast between each other, if they'll make the room look too dark, etc. I used it this time to see how dark to go with the gray. I wanted it just dark enough to have a good contrast with white trim.

The paint was chosen (I went with "Mindful Gray" from Sherwin Williams), it's on the wall and it looks great! I still have to get the trim/moulding back up, but it's such a relief to have the color decision successfully made. So far, my track record is 19 rooms out of 19 (between 3 houses) painted without having to switch colors in mid-project. I hope I didn't just jinx myself.... I still have a couple rooms to go in my current house!

Feeling official...

The past 7 1/2 months, since my departure from a "real job" at a design firm, has been quite a journey. Between the launch of Paisley Prints Etc. (my online card shoppe) six months ago and the freelance design jobs that I've been blessed to get hired for, I've found myself busier than ever with design projects... and I'm loving it! It mentally wears me out sometimes, a sort of creative overload at times, but it's a good exhaustion. Although I'm not a runner, I'd compare it to how a runner feels physically exhausted after a long race, but how it's all worth it because of the sense of accomplishment the run gave them. Maybe that sounds weird or over-exaggerated, but it makes sense to me. 

A few things recently happened to help me feel like my venture of being self-employed is no longer just something that I'm trying out, rather it's starting to feel "official". When people ask me, "So, what do you do for a living," I feel that I can finally confidently say, "I am a freelance graphic designer with an online custom card and stationery shoppe." One of the things to happened is that I hit the mark of **100 sales** on my etsy shoppe! Yay! Another stepping stone is that, for the first time, I am having a 4"x5" color print advertisement published for Paisley Prints Etc. 

Here it is!

The ad is going to be printed in a 44-page program booklet for a fundraising Gala that one of my clients, HospiceCare in the Berkshires, is hosting in June. I was lucky enough to be asked to design their Gala invitations (photos to come soon, hopefully, for you to see them), promotional items, as well as, the Gala program. Running my ad is not only promotional for me, but it's also supporting a wonderful company and group of people. Most hospicecare duties are not fun, yet so incredibly necessary and valuable. 

The past 7 1/2 months have given me the opportunity to meet some amazing new people and to work on some really fun design projects. Thank you to all that have been part of my journey so far. I can't wait for what the future has in store for me!