For the love of color

Can color alone make someone so happy? Well, yes, I think it can. I can stand for hours in the paint store looking at paint chips, fanning them, arranging them, rearranging them, refanning them, restacking them and then happily leaving with them. Then I get home and start the process over again.

Two of the four people in this family do not understand that at all. And well, I feel sorry for them, I really do. Oh, to be missing out on the love of color. I have the daughter though, and she’s right there with me in a wonder-spectrum-land. We’re a little like Alice in her wonderland, but with the drug of color pulling us down that rabbit hole.

Many times when I start a new collection I get out the trusted paint chips, deal out the colorful cards, and see just how that hand will play out. It’s just as exciting as beginning new sketches, playing with shapes for the patterns, and wondering just where the collection will end up. I never have the entire design in my mind, but I have a very good sense of what I want it to become.

Here is a little study in color I’ve added to the Beau Nouveau collection. One of my all time fave color combinations is using the warm and cool blends of a color together. In that I mean, a coral (pink-orange) with a bubble gum (pink-purple), or a chartreuse (yellow-green) with an aqua (blue-green). When I can mix colors in that way I am in my wonder-spectrum-land of happiness. That’s all it takes.

What goes around, comes around

Do you ever see a new dress, or tea towel, or umbrella in the store and think, where, where do I know that print? I could swear that I had a skirt out of that exact print when I was a kid. Well, more likely than not, you may actually be seeing the same designs coming again thirty years later.

I have been working on a collection for quite some time now and remixed, recolored, renewed and rejazzed it up to become a fun, floral, feelin’ free group of prints that fling me right back to high school mini skirts and neck scarves. Get ready to step back to the past, or if you’re young enough to find it brand spankin’ new, enjoy the trip, but know the style wasn’t first with your gen.

I present Retroflection, where we reflect on the past with a renewed spirit of style!

Nouveau, Nouveau?

When something is even newer of the new, what do you call it? The collection I have shared on another occasion or two is called Beau Nouveau, or New Beauty. Well, I have just remixed the collection once again and now it’s New, New Beauty or in French maybe it would be called Beau Nouveau, Nouveau. Whatever the case, here is a reblending of a favorite floral collection that I have designed.

Some of elements within the collection will be showing up on my new website. Yes, my “nouveau” website is on its way and hopefully I will be able to “sher” it with you by Valentine’s Day. That would make my heart happy, anyway. This new website is way overdue and hopefully it will provide the opportunity to see more clearly the collections I am working on, the products that are being produced and latest news and information about Sheri Berry Designs.

I have been in the design stage of a number of new collections over the last few weeks, months even, and plan to share sneak peaks of many of them over the next month or so.

Stay tuned, and share the news with your peeps when the nouveau website is up and running. Let’s just refer to that as SherWhere, so when they say “where do I find Sher?” You just direct them to my SherWhere site known as Sheri Berry Designs.

Happy New Year to all. May your nouveau year be filled with many blessings. Sher

My Joys at Christmastime

I have recently learned about a quilters magazine that wrote a little blurb about the Christmas fabric collection that I did with Northcott, The 12 Joys of Christmas. This magazine is Quilters Newsletter (QuiltersNewsletter.com) and the issue is December/January 2011, page 30.

This collection has such sentimental value to me as it really does showcase the joys our family has this time of year. The holiday season will always be filled with gifts, but so many of the gifts this family receives are those of family time together, memories we are making for our kids to look back on, and our own treasured memories of our childhood with family and friends throughout our past. No beautifully wrapped box with a wonderful gift inside can ever replace the cherished moments we share with those we love.

The 12 Joys of Christmas collection does bring me joy, but this season I remixed the color palette to reflect my Sheri Berry color style and every time I get to put a little pink into anything, the joy is enjoyed by me even more. Here are some holiday cards in the new re-pink-mix colorway.

Take this season to find joy in every moment and with every person you spend this holiday with. Have a blessed and joyous season.

Latest postcard sightings, or shall I say signings?

Time to update the postcard designs for the collegiates. As this year comes to a close and the school year is now half over, I am halfway through the “snail-mail postcard project” that I have been doing with the daughter and a handful of her friends this year. It is probably more fun for me, but I have been told the girls are all about it too. Well, sure, they get fun stuff in their mailboxes, not bills and junk mail like I get. We are now up to sixteen cards and here is the latest installment to share.

Okay, this lot covers the Thanksgiving and Christmas season, week by week, starting with a happy thought that should leave you feeling all warm inside.

A recipe for a hot, spicy, cranberry and orange cider accompanied this card on the back.

A listing of my favorite thanksgiving hymns, poems and songs embellished the back of this one. Yes, “We Gather Together” was among them. :)

General merriment in a winter woodland. Well, we can all pretend, can’t we?

Time for some great flicks all should see at least once in their lifetime, better yet, once a year.

A list of some of the best Christmas stories were encouraged, as the kids will have a few weeks off to sit and read by the fire, or cell, or laptop. That is, when they aren’t facebooking. Rudolph, Frosty, Scrooge and Grinch accompanied Santa in this list of the best.

Merry Christmas to all, and to all a good read!