D2S Editor Favorites for December

Favorite Flower Decorating Tips

Flowers are a great way to dress up an interior for a special occasion or enliven your decor with a special gift for yourself or others. Play the above video, and you can learn how to decorate with flowers for energy and wellness with personal fulfillment expert and Beverly Hills feng-shui guide, Jayme Barrett. 

Win a Free Sleep Number Bed

With the Thanksgiving holiday around the corner, Select Comfort will be offering their biggest deals of the season (you won't want to snooze through these deals!) in their retail stores and online at the Sleep Number site.

Learn about additional deals by following SleepNumberSara on Twitter, signing up for the Sleep Number e-newsletters on the Sleep Number site, or checking out the Slumber Party Blog.

Holiday Sleep Contest

Enter our special Design2Share & Examiner.com Holiday Sleep drawing for a chance to win a Queen Special Edition Sleep Number bed! Email irwin@design2share.com and tell Irwin (short and sweet, please) why you need a new bed. We'll have a drawing on December 29. 2008 to pick the winner.

No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. The Sleep Number Special Edition Bed Giveaway is sponsored by Select Comfort Corporation.

Open to legal residents of the 50 U.S. & Washington DC, who reside in and are physically located in the U.S. and are 18 years of age or older at the time of entry. Contest runs through December 28, 2008, and the winner will be notified directly by email.

Favorite Portrait Ideas

People portraits are so 5 minutes ago. Try a fresher idea this holiday season for someone special in your family. Give the gift of a pet portrait or a portrait of your home's interior from Lambertville, New Jersey artist Judy Henn. If you haven't been to Lambertville, you must go. It's a short (under two hour) bus ride or drive from Manhattan, its scenic location on the Delaware River is perfection, and it boasts a charming collection of antique stores and dozens of wonderful art galleries. Judy's Robin's Egg Gallery is one of them, and she welcomes everyone to stop in and say howdy. She's at 24 Church Street, and you can call ahead at (609) 915-6169 to make sure Judy's there when you visit.

If you have a favorite room in your home or a cluster of collectibles that is pure heaven, Judy can capture it in quirky, personality-filled, painterly style for you. If you have a favorite pet or family member, Judy can take a photo and turn it into a memorable work of art. Some of her work has even been featured in our city's temple to interior design, the Kips Bay Show House, and she often has works that sell through the prestigious Rago Auction house. Watch the video (above) for our recent visit with Judy in her studio and examples of her work.

Favorite House Tour

In mid-November we went on the 2008 House Tour with the Historical Society of Princeton. This New Jersey house tour is an annual highlight in the Society's busy social calendar, and unfortunately Saturday, November 8 was a soggy day. We either took our shoes off at the door of each house and toured what we were allowed to see inside, under the watchful eyes of volunteer docents, or we put on flimsy blue booties over our shoes to avoid tracking in leaves, mud, and water. (Things got tracked in regardless.)

Watch the video (above) for a slideshow of the homes we saw (no interior photos were allowed, of course), and we couldn't help but take pictures of other homes and yards we passed along the way. The field of homes was architecturally strong:

• Westland, the home Grover Cleveland lived in after he left DC when his second term as president ended, is an 1854 Italianate standout, designed by Philadelphia architect Theodore Vigo Wadskier. Roofing, stucco, and porches were replaced by the current homeowners, and dormers, a palladian window, and a belvedere added.
• A Queen Anne shingle-style house built in 1887 was designed by New York architect A. Page Brown, and the current homeowners received an award for restoring all their exterior shingles.
• A red brick Georgian revival house built in 1905 later became the residence of Margaret Carnegie Miller, Andrew Carnegie's only child and heiress and often called the richest woman of her time. The current homeowners created an amazing private garden space on their busy corner lot, focusing on an elegant harlequin-patterned patio and fountain wall.
• Charter House, built in 1903 as one of Princeton University's eating clubs, was once the home of singer Mary Chapin Carpenter. The homeowners moved this colonial home to a new location, added a new portico and dormers, and redid the interior floor plan.
• Rosedale House is an imposing colonial revival home built of native stone, designed and built in 1911 by Philadelphia architects McGoodwin & Hawley as a manor house on a 57-acre estate. The house has been restored, a new stone garage was added, and a new front drive and front entrance terrace was created.

Favorite Holiday Decorating Tips

We find that homemade holiday decorations look umpteen times better than what you find in a store. Our first rule of decorating is to add personality to your interiors, and homemade decorations reinforce the personal touch that avoids a machine-made feel. 1-800-FLOWERS decorator Julie Mulligan demonstrates in the above video how to make several holiday decoration projects, including mantel arrangements, a flower snowman, holiday table place settings, and a front door wreath.

See D2S designer Irwin Weiner's recommendations for holiday decorating do's and don'ts.

Check out our alternative holiday gift-giving and eco-conscious thoughts about Christmas!

Happy holidays to you and your family from Design2Share!

D2S Editor Favorites for November

Holiday Gifts from Our Favorite Design Catalogs

Wisteria's German Silver Bowfront Chest is a perfect home storage solution, and the hand-applied silver applique work makes this piece of furniture sparkle and shine for any room in your home.

This Reclaimed Oriental Rug is a VivaTerra offering made from recycled packing materials and plastic bottles, and this makes these lovely flowering vine rugs a cinch to clean.

This Black Leather Throw from Vivre is crafted by SURevolution and would be a chic, biker, goth way to add some edge to any decor. Imagine it as the tonic to counteract all those boring granny-style throws for beds, couches, chaises, and other furnishings.

These Lotus Bowls and Plates, designed by Katunori Ito and offered by the MoMA Store, are graceful porcelain creations that mimic traditional lacquer goods.

Soda Club brings us the Fountain Jet Home Soda Maker, an eco-friendly way to turn plain water into fizzy seltzer or soda.

VivaTerra's Ship Wood Bench is a great use for the warm glowing wood of old ships. The clean lines of this bench would work in both traditional and contemporary interiors, and how versatile! These benches would look nifty in mudrooms, foyers, children's rooms, porches and decks, and kitchens (they'd be great in a pair with a banquette in between).

Look at the sparkle this Antiqued Peacock Mirror from Wisteria adds to a room. It would be smashing above a fireplace or dining room sideboard, wouldn't it? The large mirror is gracefully surrounded by many small mirrors in a hand-forged feathery metal framework.

The Pigeon Light from Vivre is Ed Carpenter's lustrous design for a warm, glowing lantern. Handy clips fasten these lights to the edge of a table, bookshelf, or desk.

The Leather Chaise Chair from Wisteria is a soft and cushy seating option that says Heck No to run-of-the-mill club chairs. We also like the rolled leather cushion with a vintage look and feel and the stainless steel tubing frame.

Holidays will be more festive with these colofrul Murano Goblets from Vivre and crafted by Rosie NYC. Lovely gold leaf detail.

We like the cool colors of these Josef Albers Nesting Tables and practical glass-acrylic tops on these oak frames. From the MoMA Store.

The Misprint Tea & Spice Chest from VivaTerra is made from recycled product logos and sustainable wood. 

The Portable Ice Maker from Frontgate is a plug-in, add-water, no-plumbing solution to making 12 custom-sized cubes (three sizes) every 6 to 8 minutes or 30 pounds of ice in 24 hours. Great for parties, picnics, and outdoor entertaining.

Ronel Jordaan, South African textile designer, made her Felted Wool Stones for VivaTerra to be comfortable additions to your living, media, family, and bed rooms. These floor cushions are easy to hand wash in cold water, too.

Favorite Book Signing Party

The new book Bringing Paris Home by interior designer Penny Drue Baird is creating an impressive public relations tsunami. We enjoyed Penny's special evening at a Le Cirque dinner party on October 7, celebrating the release of her new tome which is filled with great photos and great tips and resources for adding French design panache to any residential setting. One of the big highlights, besides Penny's heartfelt thanks to all attendees, was an impromptu serendate of Penny from Ashford and Simpson (". . . ain't nothing but the real thing, baby . . ."). Here is a photo of Penny with Design2Share's Irwin Weiner at the Le Cirque evening. Check out Penny's book.