Wedding Planning Details: Drinks at the Reception

The Sheffield School's Complete Course in Wedding and Event Planning gives us a great excuse to keep researching the latest trends in weddings. I'm noticing that many weddings are starting to feature one or more "house cocktails" that guests can indulge in at the reception. The venue is usually well stocked with serving stations that contain signage explaining the drink choices and attractive displays of ready-to-serve selections. It's easy, convenient, and gives the wedding planner an opportunity to tie in the overall wedding theme with the beverages. Example: a Mexican-themed wedding gets an assortment of South of the Border cocktails.

From our friends at 100 Layer Cake, the top wedding and inspiration blog, I've selected a few reception drinks tables that illustrate this trend. Remember that today's weddings are all about good styling and details, and even drink signs will carry out the details found in signage, invitations, and other print throughout the wedding and reception venue. Click on each photograph to see more photos from the wedding.

Thanks to 100 Layer Cake for their beautiful photographs, posts, and wedding and event inspiration. 100 Layer Cake is a unique, comprehensive wedding and event planning resource for and by thoughtful, crafty modern women. Their vendors, projects, weddings, resources, sponsors, and marketplace are hand-picked and thoroughly researched with the hope that every single one is a truly unique addition to both your wedding and your planning process. Visit the 100 Layer Cake website today.

If you're interested in learning more about wedding planning and decor, 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.

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Taking It from the Streets: Graffiti Inspiration for Home Furnishings

Yellow Mirror by Luis Alicandu

Graffiti's many admirers have created a demand that has brought street art into many homes through a number of furniture designers. We've chosen a few of our favorite pieces. Click on each image for more information on a style trend that's guaranteed to add both edge and street cred to your decor.

Imperfection 6 armoir/chest by Jimmie Martin

Deer Head with Winter Grafitti by MIHO

Red-Black custom painted chairs by Stephen SelzlerSquiggle Dot Com bedding by SIS CoversCustom painted furniture by UK's Graffiti Kings 

 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.

Interior Design Trend: Carpet Tiles Rewrite the Book on Floor Covering

The question is: Are you brave enough to decorate a room with carpet tiles? In case you've been living on the moon for the past few years, carpet tiles - loose carpet pieces that can be joined together with other pieces to create a free-form rug arrangement - are providing a fascinating option for interior design.

Vorwerk Carpet - Free-Form Carpet Tiles

We once were locked into three floor fashion options: (a) uncovered flooring like stone or tiles or wood planks, (b) wall-to-wall carpeting (see top photo, a beautiful design by Vorwerk Carpet), or (c) area rugs over the flooring material. But with carpet tiles, we're freer to create patterns and shapes on our floors. Art is no longer just the province of the four walls in a room!

Vorwerk Carpet - Free-Form Carpet TilesVorwerk Carpet - Free-Form Carpet Tiles

As you can see from the Vorwerk Carpet tiles above or the FLOR carpet tiles below, one can create patterns that form an area rug or asymmetrical shapes and various floating carpet pieces can decorate the floor. The challenge is to not compete with the decorating in the rest of the room, but if you have a stark space that could use a free-form carpet tile solution, by all means go wild and have your flooring shout out, "Look at me!"

FLOR - Carpet Tiles (Dashed Off pattern, Jailbird color)

FLOR - Carpet Tiles (All Dolled Up pattern, Grey color)

FLOR - Carpet Tiles (Suit Yourself pattern, Raffia color)

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.

Interior Design Trend: Tricked-Out IKEA Interiors

Stunning tricked-out IKEA kitchen cabinets (Apartment Therapy / House Beautiful)

When Apartment Therapy and House Beautiful start to include design details that feature modified or "tricked-out" IKEA fixtures and furnishings, then you know you have a serious trend on your hands. Modifying the clean design of IKEA's furniture, cabinetry, and other home goods has become a global pasttime as do-it-yourselfers and home designers make modifications to create custom looks from basic pieces. The kitchen cabinets in the photo above, for instance, never looked like that in the showroom or catalog; they were custom detailed and finished to elevate the look. Saving money on the basics is what IKEA is all about, but elevating and tricking-out the basics to create a one-of-a-kind end result is what interior designers and DIY homeowners are all about.

The Gallant wall storage shelves were tricked out to create a new media console (IKEA Hackers) 

This trend has become so hot that there's even a popular website documenting a wide array of tricked-out projects: IKEA Hackers. Here are a few tricked-out projects that really caught our eye. Click on each photo for more information.

High gloss red tabletops become a backlit headboard (IKEA Hackers)

Regolit lamp covered with paper muffin liners (IKEA Hackers)

Click to read more ...

Decorating Trend: Embellish Everyday Objects with Precious Stones

We're seeing the strong trend in everyday objects to guild the lily by adding a jewelry element. Today's design must be both beautiful and functional. Take a spatula, for instance. We could have a boring, traditional stick of wood with a white rubber spreading tip affixed to the end, or we could add color and interesting materials like bamboo or steel or resin to really make the object pop and distinguish it from the ordinary.

UK artist Damien Hirst's diamond-encrusted skull, 2007, helped start the trend

Enter the jewelry effect. We're seeing precious and semi-precious stones added to art, like Damien Hirst's diamond skull (above), and everyday objects to greatly increase both their bling and price tag. Click on each photograph for more info on the be-jeweled items.

Vertu: diamond-covered model is costliest cell phone in the world

The Natural Sapphire Company: $700,000 for its white gold and sapphire-encrusted iPad caseIndia's Nano Car: the cheapest car in the world has a gold, silver, semi-precious stone edition

HYLA Vacuum: $21,900 model boasting 32,000 Swarovski crystals

Dussault jeans: $10,000 denims boast gold, diamond, ruby wallet chains

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.