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For being a knitter, crafter, designer and someone who just wrote a book about color knitting for cryin’ out loud, my house is not at all colorful. We moved in almost exactly four years ago and every single room is still beige.
I know painting is not the only way to get color into a room, and while I do want to paint a little now (like, maybe a wall in my office) I’m more inspired to fill my rooms with colorful crafts thanks to Kristin Nicholas‘ lovely book Crafting a Colorful Home: A Room-by-Room Guide to Personalizing Your Space with Color.
Kristin is a knitter, crocheter, embroidery lover and all around guru of color, and the book is a tour of her house, looking at the color choices she made, why she made them and how you can get a similar look with colors you love in your own home.
It also includes crafty projects and techniques ranging from how to color wash a wall to how to decorate terra cotta pots with broken pottery.
There are projects and ideas for every room in the house, and so much great color you’ll want to just pore over the pages without even reading the text.
But you should read the text too, of course, because there you’ll learn more about how Kristin and her family have built up their home over the course of many years into the colorful and homey delight it is now. It’s fun to see how all the different projects come together to make a colorful home.
Inspiration in Action
Usually when I review a craft book like this I try to do a project or two to give you a taste of what it’s like. I haven’t yet had time to do that, but I wanted to share the book with you anyway because it’s excellent and a lot of fun and a great thing to look at on drab winter days.
You can bet, based on my recent obsession with pompoms, that I’ll be making the Toran project (a swag of different sized, multicolored pompoms hung with bells).
I want to make some dish towels or napkins for the girl and I to stamp (hers are linen and printed with potatoes). I love the fabric lanterns made with embroidery hoops (which happens to be a project you can grab for free from her publisher), and the stamped tablecloth would be a lot of fun to make with kids, too.
There are lots of painting techniques I’d like to try, and there’s a fun pillow painted with squiggles that are then embroidered that has got my mind turning.
In other words, this book is completely full of inspiration that will suit just about any household, even if you’re not about to paint your door yellow or cover your dining room with a giant mural. I can bet I’ll be showing you some inspired projects soon.
How do you add color to your home? Or is your house all builder beige, too? I’d love to hear your thoughts.
