C2o—Lancaster Famine, Saturday, Way 2,19&1 Revamp your home with either... ...timely, BY DEBBIE KOONTZ LANCASTER - If you’re looking for just that right “touch of class” to change your winter-sick home for a short period of time (instead of doing costly redecorating), look to nature for ideas. Flowers, apple blossoms, green tree leaves and plants can bring the beautiful vibrant colors of the outdoors into your home. “Don’t be afraid of decorating and experimenting with flowers; do it because it reflects your character,” says Claude Jones, Jr., a Williamsburg florist. He recently presented a program at the Farm and Home Center. “You see flowers not only in wild life, but also in fabric and ar chitecture,” he explained. “Use them; they’re natural beauty. You can’t go wrong in designing an arrangement because flowers are beautiful before you even start” But he did have one piece of advice to offer those attending, “Your first attempt is always the best so put them in the vase or pitcher and leave it alone.” And Jones followed his own advice. Within minutes of begin ning each creation he had produced spectacular arrangements which brought loud praise and applause from onlookers, most members of the ..permanent This begins a three part senes on home design in conjunction with three workshops presented by Oons Thomas, Home Economist, at the Farm and Home Center. Look tor part two next week LANCASTER So you’ve decided to redo that troublesome room but you just don’t know where to start, and you can’t afford a professional designer. What do you do? You do it yourself suggests Doris Thomas, ExtensionN Home Economist. Whether you live in an old farm house, as most farmers still do, or in a newer home, everybody at one time or another gets involved in a decorating project Thomas says. “If you can afford a decorator to do your home, that’s great But decorators don’t take into account the family which lives in your home,” she explained. “Your accessories are you and you should display them.” Thomas advised before begin ning any decorating project to sit down and consider: 1. how much money you can spend; 2. how adept you are at doing some of the projects; 3. the ages of your children; 4. the type and amount of entertaining to be done in that room; 5. the color, never try to carry color in your mind, always carry a copy of the desired color with you when shopping. If you ever envy the way your friend can turn her home into a picture from House Beautiful, then these steps are for you to remember when you begin decorating. The first four points are very restricted to your budget and routine, but the fifth category is wide open and that may be what’s determg you from moving ahead with your decorating. Thomas felt it important enough to devote Tuesday’s entire workshop to it. “There are three things to remember when working with color: 1. hue, by the names of yellow, green, red, etc.; 2. values, beautiful arrangements, Green Acres Garden Club. Once a flower entered the green floral clay, it remained there until the finish. Jones never replanted any flower. Over 200 people witnessed the flower master produce his art at the program co-sponsored by the Farm and Home Foundation and the Garden Club. Jones and his art were featured in the 1960, January/February issue of Colonial Homes. His next piece of advice was to warn the ladies not to throw anything away. “If you keep anything long enough it will come back in style because style depends (Hi the past a great bit,” he said. The first creation to evolve began with an empty pewter pot. By simply adding tree branches full of green and brown leaves and yellow tulips, he produced an arrangement any homemaker would love to juse when en tertaining guests. If majority were to rule at this event, members would have awarded his lilac and tulip creation a first prize. This arrangement consisted of draping lilacs, roses, tulips and daffodiUs. About this flower gathering Jones said, “Never put roses in without cutting them with a sharp knife first. Shears dose the stem, don’t use them.” inferior decoration dark and light; and 3. intensity, dull and bright. To practice with color create your own colorwheel or ex periment with water colors. Don’t feel childish when trying color creation; some people spend entire careers working with color. To create a colorwheel, draw a circle and cut it in thirds as you would a pie. Label one cut blue, one red and one yellow. These are the three primary colors and all others derive from them. Next draw another line between each color and fill in green, orange and purple, making sure to place purple between blue and red and orange between red and yellow and etc. Color is usually the most im portant basic to a designer. The effects of using color can be so tremendous to any design that not knowing how to use it could destroy the effectiveness of any other qualities. Color carries with it a lot of psychological aspects. Warm colors, yellow, red, orange, urge and arouse you. Cool colors, blues and greens, make you feel relaxed and content and cold. For an experiment, set the temperature the same in both a blue room and a red room and judge which one feels warmest. The red or yellow one almost always will. Vivid, bright colors in a room tend to make the objects look closer and the room smaller. Place iual distance 0r... “Place flowers in warm water before using them so they stay beautiful longer,” he said. “As a preservative, try a can of 7-Up, 2 cans water and a tablespoon of Chlorox.” But don’t stop at the flowers for designing, Jones said. “Lily foliage is great to use for a hanging effect and Spanish moss is the best thing to use when covering the day. This moss also adds depth.’’ To hold your arrangements, Jones suggests mugs, old pots, cans, driftwood and anything your imagination creates. “If you use driftwood, don’t be afriad to join pieces together to create whatever effect you want,” Jones said as he hammered two pieces together. If you’re feeling particularly lazy this week or just want to enjoy your flowers outside a little longer, go to your nearest apple blossom tree and break off some branches. “This is the best way to make an easy simple arrangement,” Jones said. “Don’t let public opinion bother or deter you when you design.” After eight creations in an hour and a half, Jones summed up his work with these words: “Remember, a thing of beauty is a joy forever and it just goes on and on and on.” and one with a blue blanket. Doesn’t the red seem imjch closer? Use appropriate colors together. To determine what colors go well together, look at your colorwheel. Complementary colors are those opposite one another on the wheel. Use these for designing in two colors. If you want three polors, follow a triangle on the wheel. For instance, if you want to use yellow, try red and blue which complete the triangle. If you want to use purple, try different shades dominating in the room and yellow, which appears opposite purple on the color wheel. Another way to match colors is to pick a color and use one or two to the left or to the right of that color. These are called analogous hues, for they have a dominant color in common. Try your chosen colors at all hours of the day as light can greatly change color. For instance, southern exposures have more light. You may want to use cooler colors. It takes a lesser amount of warm color to balance a larger amount of cool colors. For instance, a small bit of red will balance a large area of yellow-green. The larger the area used, the quieter the color should be. Remember this also when plan ning color flow from one room to another. Don’t use such a drastic change that it becomes irritating. Sometimes deciding on step one, color, can solve all your problems, If not, look for next week’s hints.— „ J J justice to this purple, orange, yellow and red arrangement. But because beauty is in the eyes of the beholder, you can still appreciate it as is. Who would have thought branches and tulips could be so beautiful together? Want an easy decorating idea? Dig out those old blue medicine bottles, fill them with flowers, and they’re ready to grace your table. Old tin cans and vases make perfect bases for flower arrangements.
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