Jewelry Designers Should Be Avid Jewelry Collectors

The Carrotbox is a site dedicated to all those wonderful rings made of glass, lucite, resin, plastic, jade, wood, bakelite, metal, and even stone. Alice Matsumoto from Vancouver, BC, Canada has a ring shop and has kindly given us permission to inspire our jewelry lovers at Sheffield with her discoveries. But unlike past posts, I wanted to share some of the rings in her own personal collection. She ingeniously enables people to click on a color to see her sorted-by-color ring collection, and they've certainly helped to inspire her own jewelry designs. Here are a few colors in her amazing ring collection.

I'm green with envy over Alice's collection of green rings.
 

Alice has only taken 333 photos of rings in her collection - but she has countless more to take!
 

Some of Alice's own ring designs - diverse, unique, playful.

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

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Design Video: Lulu deKwiatkowski on Living the Designer's Life

 

We always want each student we teach in our Complete Course in Interior Design to learn the basic elements that comprise great design and then add liberal dashes of your personal style and creativity to select a path that feels "so right" for you.
 

 

We found this video featuring textile, wallpaper, and product designer Lulu deKwiatkowski, and she examplifies how we'd like our students to morph into their own creations, find their own style paths, and celebrate the design heritage they grew up with.
 

 

What inspires you? Where do your best ideas come from? Where is your passion for design? Ask yourself these questions while you're mastering the basics of interior design, and you'll be on a solid path for personal and professional growth. Please visit Lulu's Lulu DK website to see her inspiring creations, and click on any of the photos for more information.
 

 

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

Our Favorite Wedding Floral Headpieces

One of the most beautiful uses of fresh flowers in a wedding is the artform we know as the floral headpiece. The really good ones are masterpieces, adding to the beauty of the bride. Our students in the Complete Course in Wedding and Event Planning know that trends are important to keep abreast of, and many engaged couples are opting for more naturalistic weddings. A floral headpiece dramatically carries out this theme, adding great romance, beauty, drama, and earthiness. Here are some of our favorite floral headpieces. Click on each picture for more information, along with photography and floral styling credits.

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Decorate Your Tabletop: Spring Has Sprung!

Haviland's Rose Centifolia

Have you noticed how April showers usually always bring May flowers? Well, it's true this year as a bumper crop of floral designs are now gracing new dinnerware collections.

Coeur Rouge Dinner Plate from Anthropologie

Evenings in Quinto Dinnerware from Anthropologie

Crate & Barrel's Lotta Melamine Plate

Interior design aficionados and our students in the Complete Course in Interior Design should be aware of seasonal decorating trends, and floral themes pick up steam appreciably when the weather turns warmer.

Amour En Cage Tea Cup and Saucer from DeVine

Collage Peony Dinnerware from Lenox

Pottery Barn's embroidered floral Sierra Dinnerware

Click on each photo for more product information, and think spring this year as you aim for chic spring tabletops that wow your family, friends, and design clients.

Butterfly Floral coupe from DeVine

Anmut Bloom Dinnerware from Villeroy & Boch

Sheffield School began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.

So What's Going on with Rugs These Days?

Bidjar Muted Chrome rug by Jan Kath

There's one subject we love to teach in our Sheffield School Complete Course in Interior Design: spotting trends and how to incorporate trends into a client's overall decorating scheme. We don't want to be slavish to the "latest thing," knowing that it will be kicked to the proverbial curb next year, leaving the client with a tired "so last year" interior. 

Grafitti-inspired Tagged rug by Jan Kath

The secret, of course, is to carefully incorporate accessories and other easy-to-replace pieces that are trendier with more solid signature furnishings in a room. You won't want to trade out a sofa or dining room table, but you won't mind swapping artwork, a vase, or a rug to keep the room current and fresh.

3D plush Mienterra rug from the Terra collection by Stepevi

Which brings me to rugs. If you've been an astute observer of industry trends lately, you might have noticed that rugs aren't following the norm. Like many design categories, they're breaking out, and now we have many companies coming out with categories called Contemporary Rug Art. Art you walk on? Well, why not?

Caucasian Silver Frost from the Deluxe Collection by Calle Henzel

We know that flooring is a basic design component in any room. They provide color to a room, texture, and utility. Utility? Try living in a New York City apartment where everyone is piled on top of one another; if you have wood floors and you don't have rugs down, you'll soon get complaints (so utility can equal both comfort underfoot as well as vital sound proofing).

Aldo Taccono Intense rug from Second Session Collection by Calle Henzel

I've chosen some of my favorite modern rug art pieces, and you can click on each image for more product information. Stay current with rug trends (and other design trends)! It's surprising how much things are changing.

Rugs from the Diamond Dust / Nordic Raw collection by Calle Henzel

If you're interested in learning more about interior design and decorating trends, we encourage you to explore the Sheffield School, New York, NY. Sheffield began as an Interior Design school in 1985, and then expanded our course offerings to train people in other design-related fields, including Feng Shui, Wedding and Event Planning, and Jewelry Design. With thousands of active students and more than 50,000 graduates, Sheffield has trained more design professionals than any school in the world.

Request a free Sheffield School catalog describing our distance education courses.

Subscribe to the Sheffield Designer newsletter.