In between ringing up purchases at the RIFA Thrift Store, Elaine Taylor made sure to listen for decorating tips at a recent class taught at the store.

Interior designers Cheryl Thomas and Teresa Bush offered expert advice about home decorating on a budget. Thomas also is a store co-manager.

Taylor hopes to apply the decorating tips in her home, she said.
The focus: How to coordinate fabric and spring decorating.

“Everyone should have a home to come home to that’s nice or pretty,” Bush said.

She received her bachelor of science degree in interior design from Lambuth University in 2000.

“Working and coordinating fabrics can be difficult. A fabric store is bombarded with color,” Bush said.

With that in mind, there are several steps to take.

First, select a fabric with colors you like.

“Find color that inspires you,” she said. “Go to your closet. We tend to wear colors that make us feel good and confident.”

Fabric designers have done the hard work by combining colors that go together, she said.

“Pick a fabric that has three or more colors in it. That provides more variety and interest.”

Then select three colors from the fabric. These are the anchor, secondary and third colors.

The anchor fabric is used in 60 percent of the room; secondary, 30 percent; and third color 10 percent.

Tone the colors down when taking them into other rooms in the house, she said.

Olivia Rogers said she hasn’t always liked to decorate but decided to attend the class since she recently began remodeling.

Rogers learned she can mix fabrics with stripes and fabrics with flowers, she said. She plans on using Bush’s 60, 30, 10 percent rule when coordinating the fabrics in her Jackson home.

Thomas offered spring decorating tips using items in the house or back yard.

# Hang an Easter egg wreath on your door or window. You’ll need plastic Easter eggs, hot glue, ribbon and an inexpensive wire found at any craft store.

# Place a rose bud in a large wine glass. Snip a rose bud from your garden. Place in a large wine glass for decoration or for a centerpiece.

# Make Easter baskets. Add flowers and a stuffed animal from a past Easter.

“It doesn’t have to be expensive to be pretty,” Thomas said.

All of Thomas’ examples were made using items from the thrift store.

“Cheryl is so good at taking small things and making an arrangement out of it,” Linda Montgomery said.

Montgomery was the first person to arrive at the class. She and Thomas attend Forest Heights United Methodist Church.

Thomas helped Montgomery decorate her new home after Montgomery married 15 months ago.

“It’s the little ideas that really make the room,” Montgomery said.

Bush also suggests dressing up pillows using items already found in your house, such as belts, ribbons, ties and jewelry.

“The fact that I can use a men’s tie and put it around a pillow - I’ve never heard that before,” Debra Rodgers said.

Rodgers is excited about the idea of using items in her house to decorate rather than throwing them away.

She mentioned an abundance of ties at her house her husband no longer uses.

“I’ve been motivated today to go home and dig up those ties and decorate some pillows,” she said. “That way no one will lay on them.”

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- Kelly B. South, 731-425-9688

source :www.jacksonsun.com

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