Today was a big day.  We hosted our very first workshop in the Mustard Seed Studio!  Twelve delightful ladies attended and I think it’s safe to say that we all had an amazing time.  Here are a few pictures as a preview, but I’ll be sharing more, of course.  For Design Ramblings this week, we decided to chat about another trend prominent on blogs, Pinterest and in magazines – Farmhouse style. Why do we think this is so popular and what are some ways you can bring that look to your house…

Kriste and I thought we’d mix up the ramblings a bit and talk about contentment and how it relates to our homes.  I’ve written about contentment before and it’s something I’ve struggled with off and on.  I’m sure it’s something we all struggle with, especially in the day of blogs, magazines, Pinterest, HGTV…there are so many sources of inspiration, but they can also make you feel like what you have isn’t good enough.  It’s easy to stir up feelings of discontentment when taking in so much eye candy! As we’re working in the studio, Kriste and I often talk about heart issues, so we figured we’d carry that over into our ramblings…

It’s time for another Design Ramblings…  I hope you’re all enjoying these, because we sure are! I think Kriste and I are both getting more comfortable chatting together in this format.  Since it is “design ramblings”, most of the episodes will be us talking about a specific design-related subject, but we already have some field trips planned as well as videos that are more instructional. In this episode, we answer three questions from our first “fan letter”, which we were pretty excited about.  We talk through the sliding barn door trend, what to do with a house full of paneling and should you paint a fireplace… Yes, “soundproof-ness” is a word.   So, I ripped on diagonal paneling in the video.  Then, as I was looking for a picture of beautiful room with unpainted paneling, I remembered the room by Amy from The Little Farm Diary that I featured a few weeks ago.  Lo

If you’re plugged into the design world, even a little, I’m sure you’ve heard about the color of the year announced by Pantone.  In 2015, it’s Marsala… In episode three of Design Ramblings, Kriste and I decided to discuss the 2015 color as well as the whole idea of a color of the year… I realized after I talked about the bluish/green paired with Marsala that those colors are both in the rug from my Opa’s house.  It actually looks amazing with the navy, cornflower, brick and even that pea green!  Whoever put these colors together had a wonderful eye.  I always feel like rugs are a challenge for me, but I do think they can be a great jumping off point for the design of a room.  As I mentioned in the video, we mixed our own version of Marsala with MMS milk paint just for fun.  The Pantone Marsala does have a