Sunny Yellow Interiors

Hello, everyone! I'm so happy to be here with you at Twirling Clare with a guest post from Arcadian Home blog, a fantastic place to find lots of interior design inspiration including great decorating ideas for everything from fabulous kitchen lights to colorful decorative accessories. 

 Today, I've gathered images of eight spaces in all sorts of styles that show just how lovely and inviting sunny yellow rooms can be. I hope you enjoy! Thanks for letting me share! ~ Mari

 Shall we go glam with the first sunny yellow room? Golden stripes on the drapery panel and chair backs are beautiful with lemony yellow inside the stately chairs and on the rug. It's such a pretty feminine look.

 This sedate, but sunny, bedroom has a wonderful coastal vibe with its louvered ceiling and waterfowl prints. The intricate shape of the headboard and ethnic patterned textile on the footstools add a slightly exotic feel to the space.

 I return again and again to admire this brilliant yellow bedroom. I love the cheerful array of patterns on the bed and of course the massive display of painted blooms on the wall.

  Sunny yellow brings this pale contemporary space to life. Touches of black join the mix for a great modern look.

  Base cabinets in sunny yellow are beautiful in this chic kitchen. Creamy glass-fronted upper cabinets are just right, allowing the yellow and white backsplash and lower cabinets to shine. How perfect is that tiny modern pendant light hanging in the corner?

  Wow! Now this is a big pop of bright yellow, but it looks quite stunning framed with thin black borders. It's a great spot for a black and white clawfoot tub.

  Opposing walls of lemony yellow and deep raspberry work beautifully in this pretty living space. This color blocking of walls is a creative idea that warrants exploration.

  Sunny walls give this eclectic living room a vibrant jolt of golden yellow as a vibrant background for pale yellow and watery blue furnishings. Tall white contemporary floor lamps flank the curvy blue sofa.
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 What do you think about these sunny yellow rooms? Leave us your comments below and be sure to stop by our website for more home decor, lighting and interior design inspirations!

Guest post: House of Fraser takes the Maxi Dress

While up at OWU for graduation, the maxi look was EVERYWHERE. I don't have a maxi dress, but own several skirts and I definitely was not the only one sporting the trend. 

Alice, from House of Fraser, was so kind to contact me a couple of weeks ago asking to guest post for the blog. When we decided on maxi dresses for the topic, I couldn't have chosen a better theme...particularly in the wake of the styles I witnessed this past week. 

Enjoy her suggestions and have fun organizing your summer wardrobes, toodles!

How to wear a Maxi dress

We all wish that we had the “perfect” body shape, but it’s our differences which make us unique. Therefore it’s important to feel comfortable in our outfit choices so we can embrace the bodies that we have.

Luckily for us girls, this season’s hottest trend is the maxi dress, which looks fantastic on any shape or size. However knowing which style of maxi to wear for your shape can be difficult for many women. This is why I have chosen to write this post, to give everyone a few simple tips for picking the right outfits for our shape this summer!   

Pear

As a pear-shaped woman your strengths are your slim arms and narrow shoulders, so you should show them off as much as possible! This means when you are picking your maxi dress for this summer, you should opt for either a strapless, thin strap, or halter neck style maxi to show off your gorgeous assets. To slim down your hips whilst showing off your curves, opt for a maxi which pulls you in at the waste and floats out for a beautiful Grecian feel.

Pear: Jennifer Lopez

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Hourglass

Lucky hourglass ladies can show off their slimmer waist and curves by nipping in their maxi around the middle. Use a belt or choose a figure-hugging style in bold colours to accentuate your fabulous waist and hips. Bigger patterns have the ability to hide your shape, and as hourglass shapes are lucky enough to have such a fantastic silhouette you don’t want to hide what you have, yet flaunt it.

Hourglass: Holly Willoughby

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Boyish figure

If you have a straight-up-and-down kind of body don’t panic, you are not alone! With the likes of Alexa Chung, Kiera Knightly and Kate Hudson in the same category, the ‘banana’ shape can be an incredibly easy shape to dress. The best way to show off what you have is to invest in a selection of waist belts. Maxi dresses can look fantastic on this figure, as long as you nip in the waist; this will create curves in all of the right places. You also want to show off what you have by wearing a skirt which floats, this again will put focus on your tucked in waist and generate a curvier, fuller figure.

Boyish figure: Kate Hudson

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Apple

To all of you apples out there, your best asset is your neckline and bust, so when picking a maxi dress make sure you choose something with a strong pattern or detailing around the neck and chest. Remember, you don’t want a dress with an A-line skirt as this can give the illusion of a bigger stomach and hips. Choose an empire line to slim out your proportions and balance out your shape.

Apple: Queen Latifah

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For more Maxi inspiration visit we love: Maxi dresses

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Wishful Wednesdays: Sequins & Stripes

Hi there TC readers! Liz here from Sequins & Stripes filling in for Clare while she bounces around Europe {words can describe my envy, Clare!}. I am departing for Hawaii in a couple of weeks on a tropical break from chilly Chicago and I cannot wait, so today I am sharing a beach-y getup so we can all feel a little warmth during these winter months. 

Vix Linen Coverup  //  Mara Hoffman Bikini  //  Ray Ban Aviators  //  J.Crew Panama Hat  //  Korres Lip Butter  //  Michael Kors Studded Sandals  //  Charlotte Olympia Printed Canvas Shopper

Wouldn't you love to frolick on the beach in this breezy outfit? 

Hope you're having fun, Clare! xoxo

Wishful Wednesday: Julie Leah

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Hello, Twirling Clare readers! I'm Julie and I blog over at Julie Leah: A life & style blog, and I'm so excited to be here today sharing some travel inspiration with you all! I mean, how jealous are we of Clare gallivanting in France for over a month? Yes, that's what I thought. If we weren't going to be getting plenty of doses of Clare's French adventures, I probably would have chosen Paris for my destination today. However, lately I'm feeling like Italy is a close second. I envision something very similar to the image above - wouldn't this outfit be perfect for a day of sightseeing and gelato eating?!

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Tee // Skirt // Flats // Necklaces // Bag // Lots of gelato

Thanks so much for visiting today and a very big thank you to Clare for letting me take over her blog for the day while she's gone!

I hope you'll visit me over on the blog soon. You can find me on twitter, pinterest, and instagram, too!

xoxo

Guest Post: New Year...Organize the Wardrobe!

How's this for an effective start to the New Year? One project to tackle a huge chunk of the resolutions! My heartfelt thanks to Eve for her phenomenal suggestions!

Happy "Day 2", Toodles!

New Year, New Closet 

As the sound of sleigh bells recedes into the distance it’s time to think about how you’re going to stick to all those optimistic New Year’s Resolutions you’ve just made. Do you know what the top ten New Year’s Resolutions are? See if yours is on the list: 

Drink less alcohol

Eat more healthily

Get fit

Managing finances

Stop smoking

Save money

Get a new job

Get a better education

Take a trip to somewhere new

Lose weight

Sound familiar? Thought so. One of the most useful ways you can hit several on the list at once is to rationalise your closet. 

How?

It is well known that when your personal spaces are organised, it is easier to organise the rest of your life too. You become calmer and more clear thinking, which will enable you to look at the other issues, such as managing your finances, changing your job or planning a journey. You need time to make big decisions in your life – what sort of new job you want, what sort of savings scheme is right for you, where in the world you’d like to go.

Why?

You need a clear out. What was hip last summer just isn’t going to be hip when you hit the boardwalk in summer 2013. You’re going to need room for your new clothes, you’re going to be shopping in the sales, and there probably isn’t enough room in your closet as it is. As our clothes become more and more cramped and crumpled, the clothes we do have inevitably lose their appeal. They can’t be ironed and hung on a rail, but are just stuffed in amongst the other items. 

Lose Weight & Get Fit?

It’s no small undertaking to de-clutter your closet. It will probably take you a day to really sort things through, if you include drawers and the rest of the bedroom. Did you know that housework burns tons of calories? It’s a tenuous link, but every little helps. Think of the fat you’ll be burning as you haul black sacks of old clothes into the attic for storage, or downstairs to be taken to a thrift shop. More seriously, sometimes the fondness we have for a particular outfit can help fire a resolution to lose weight so that it fits again. If you have a little dress that you have happy memories of wearing, why not hang it up outside your wardrobe to help keep your weight loss resolution in your mind and your determination strong.

Save Money

By rediscovering old clothes that you had forgotten you might be able to save money on replacements, which will help with personal finances. An afternoon sorting and pairing stockings and socks will yield more pairs than you imagine. Losing sight of clothes we have in the disorganised chaos is a key cause of duplication. Find it, sort it, throw it. Another way of saving money is to swap items you don’t want with friends. You can always sell clothes on ebay too, use a local second hand clothes retailer, or a site like ClosetDash for the one stop option. All this will help save you money and think more clearly about managing your finances.

Clever Closet Clear Out Tips

Set aside plenty of time for this task. First of all you need a clear space to sort clothes. You need to start four piles for the clothes you sort.

1. Clothes your will definitely keep

2. Clothes to throw away

3. Unsure

4. Thrift Store.

You then need to gather up all your clothes into one pile and start sorting. Keep a reasonable pace up to help you make decisions more quickly. Decisiveness is addictive. Try to keep the ‘Unsure’ pile of clothing as small as possible, and ask yourself, honestly, if your will wear the item with pleasure again. If you haven’t worn it in the last two years it should go, unless it’s a beautiful cashmere jumper or some Chanel boots of course. Some classics need to be worn rarely for maximum impact. Once you have finished sorting the piles deal with them quickly. Don’t leave them hanging around or you will be tempted to change your mind. The ‘Unsure’ pile should be stashed away, and if you haven’t worn anything from it after six months, get rid of it. Decide how you want to sort clothing in your closet and stick to the plan, be it color coordinated, whole outfits, or seasonal.

Helping Hand

If you want a total overhaul and need help with closet organisation, try some of the storage solution websites for ideas on keeping things tidy. Pliio have a good ‘folding and filing’ system for clothes, NeatFreak have a wide range of storage options and IKEA or Muji always provide plenty of inspiration. Be ruthless with your New Year Closet Regime, and see how many resolutions it helps you to stick to.

Guest Post: A New Twist on the Holiday Parties

How to Make the Most of the Holiday Season for Networking

The holidays are a great time to enjoy festivities with friends and family. However, they can also be a great time to build business contacts. While everyone else is chugging back the eggnog and planning a rendezvous under the mistletoe, you can be networking and laying the groundwork for your next job or your next big deal.

Not sure where to start? Here are a few tips for how you can make the most of the holiday season for networking:

Fill Your Dance Card

Everyone is in the mood for a party during the holidays. Take advantage of this opportunity to meet as many new people as you can and accept all the invitations that you are given. Even if the invite comes from your annoying neighbor who's been unemployed for months, you never know if one of the guests will include an uncle who works at one of the biggest companies in town or an old high school friend who just so happens to be the hiring manager of a company you've been trying to work at for years.

Host Your Own Party

Even though you already know all the people you'd be inviting to a party, you never know who those people may bring along. Host a large party, and invite as many people in your contact list as you can afford to host. Then encourage those people to invite friends. You can also invite clients and former clients, some of whom may become repeat customers or who could help lead you to new opportunities.

Mix Business and Pleasure

When you network at parties, you have to know when to talk business and when to just have a good time. No one wants to be cornered at the cheese table to talk about that investing opportunity you think is going to be gold. Make sure you strike the right balance between having a good time and making social conversation and talking about business plans and opportunities. Remember: If the time isn't right now, you can always plant the seed for follow up later.

Send Cards and Small Gifts

Even if you can't meet your contacts in person through parties and other holiday events, you can still connect by sending out cards and small gifts. By doing so, you are supporting your ongoing relationship and smoothing the way for future networking opportunities -- like when you hear about a job opening at that person's company in a few month's time. Be sure to include a personalized note with your card or gift.

Follow Up

Once the parties have ended and the cards have all been trashed, make sure to follow up on the work you have done to strengthen those connections. Send an e-mail after a few weeks, or make a personal phone call. Ask to meet for coffee or lunch to talk about your ideas or to explore opportunities together. Networking is about building and fostering relationships, so you should follow up regularly to maintain the connection.

The holidays are a great time to network because everyone is in a festive mood and is ready to rub elbows with new people. Take advantage of this time to reach out to new contacts and to reconnect with old ones. You never know what new opportunities you may discover!

How do you network at the holidays? Share your tips for success in the comments!

Sarah Clare is a writer and oversees the site projectmanagementsoftware.com, where she has recently been researching project scheduling software. In her spare time, Sarah enjoys cooking and scrap-booking.

She Flies With Her Own Wings

One of my nearest and dearest friends, Chelsea, was featured on my blog this past spring. She has a wonderful tumblr for the past few years inspired by Eleanor Roosevelt's quote "Do one thing that scare you everyday". 

This summer Chelsea went to Leadershape and the conference motivated her to create a site called, She Flies With Her Own Wings. It is honestly one of the most beautiful and heartfelt projects for women. The blog focuses on empowering women physically, intellectually, and emotionally. I believe there is a need for a strong foundation of women in today's society...particularly this generation of young women. I try and motivate women through this blog. I want to inspire girls in a life & style realm. For that purpose, I really appreciate Chelsea's blog because it is a wonderful compliment to what I try and establish with Twirling Clare. Where I try and promote an aesthetic in my pictures, suggestions, and whimsical ideas, I feel as though Chelsea provides the perfect complementary elements. 

That being said, I would love for you to take the time to visit Chelsea's site and share it with some of your friends. We have the ability to encourage young women to be independent, confident, and engaged. Thank you for helping her empower women with possibility.

She Flies With Her Own Wings Facebook page HERE.

Toodles!

Back to School Guest Post

Amelia Wood has some tips for you on how to start off this school year (and fall season):

         

Back to School? Four Ways to Start the Year Off With a Bang

At the end of every school year, students across the nation are released from the confines of their campuses and set loose into the wild – free to do whatever their hearts desire for the summer days and nights. Yet as the months slowly wither away day by day, before these students know it they'll have to return to their school campuses and start another year all over again.

For some students, going back to school feels as invigorating as waking up to a snowy Christmas morning – full of surprise, cheer, anticipation, and excitement; for others, going back to school may feel something like a harsh prison sentencing. Yet there is no reason going back to school should fill anyone with dread and angst; in fact, if anything, going back to school gives everybody the opportunity to embrace a new beginning. For those of you who are about to start a new school year, here are four ways to start the occasion off with a bang.

Make at least five new friends

It's tempting to jump right back into your old ways when school starts up. I would always look for my closest friends when I got back to school – hoping they would have similar schedules so I'd have someone to hang with during the day. Even though it's great to reconnect with old friends, a new school year offers us the chance to meet new people, and one should always take up that opportunity. It's not always easy to start up a conversation with people we don't know, but sometimes just sitting next to a new person and asking how their summer went is a great start to making new friends. I always made it a goal to make five new friends in my classes, and it somehow always worked out. Sure, it might sound challenging at first, but, believe me, it's much easier than you think. Just take your time and start conversing with those around you in the early days of your classes. Before you know it, you'll have a handful of new friends.

Go out of your fashion comfort zone

Back-to-school shopping isn't the cheapest thing to do, yet most of us will end up biting the bullet and shelling out cash for new threads. You may be tempted to flock to the clothes you're most comfortable wearing when you start shopping, but for the sake of shaking things up, go ahead and venture out of your fashion comfort zone. Let's say you're used to wearing blue jeans and a t-shirt; well, perhaps you should walk to the opposite end of the store and try on some colorful pants (which are very much in style right now) and a more elegant top. You don't have to go crazy and replace your whole closet, but sometimes integrating a few new pieces here and there will make a big difference. You don't have to limit your fashion changes to clothes either. If you want to change up your hairstyle, shoes, makeup patterns, or anything else, go for it! You're only young once.

Set new fitness/nutrition goals

You don't have to be overweight to consider making some changes to your nutrition and fitness goals. Everybody could use a few changes in their eating and workout patterns every now and then. Oddly enough, starting the school year is the perfect opportunity to analyze your eating/fitness patterns and decide how you should change them up. Perhaps you don't work out as much as you should or maybe you eat unhealthy snacks whenever you're on campus. Wherever you see your weaknesses rearing their ugly heads, do yourself a huge favor and take control of your health. Improving overall health has an immense effect on how we feel about ourselves, which helps us interact much better with the people and environment around us.

Become more school spirited

When I was in college, I couldn't wait for class to end so I could run home and watch reality television shows on Tivo. As you can imagine, I wasn't the most school-spirited person of all time. Some of us are born with pride; others must cultivate it. Believe it or not, there is a way to make yourself become more school spirited, and you shouldn't waste one minute not being proud of your university. After all, didn't you pay to attend it? You don't have to go to the next football game and paint your chest with school colors to prove your pride; in fact, your efforts could be as simple as volunteering for an organization, joining associations or groups within your major, attending occasional sporting events, or reading the student newspaper. By learning a bit more about your university and increasing your involvement with it, you'll eventually find yourself feeling full of pride for your school.

Starting the new year may feel a bit overwhelming, yet sometimes all it takes for us to get excited about the event is to start incorporating some new habits into our lives. See how you can integrate some of these four exciting changes into your new school year.

Amelia Wood is a blogger and freelance writer with a passion for helping people find medical billing and coding jobs. She welcomes suggestions and queries at amelia1612@gmail.com.

statement necklaces

Today I am guest posting over at The Daisy Diaries!

 

Shelly has a wonderful blog and I am so pleased to be featured. 

I hope you can stop by to check out her darling site and see my post on statement necklaces. I have both inspirational photos & links to buy the fabulous necklaces below over on The Daisy Diaries.

Happy Tuesday, toodles!

Spring Fling from Design Shuffle

Hello, everyone! It's Mari here from Design Shuffle, a fabulous social networking site for interior designers and design lovers from around the world. Being a writer for Design Shuffle allows me to visit great blogs like Twirling Clare as a guest blogger. Today's post is all about decorating ideas for spring vignettes. Spring is my favorite times of the year—perhaps because everything feels so fresh and new. Ever notice how intensely green the new growth on grass, plants and trees looks? As for decorating with vignettes, how quick and easy is it to make rooms feel refreshed by arranging or rearranging favorite decorative pieces, and yes fresh flowers, into lovely little collections? Here are eight ideas to inspire you to create your own spring vignettes. 

Enjoy!

 

What every formal space needs—a spring vignette with fresh flowers in an unexpected container, a big fat clear glass jug. I'm thinking those are art, architecture or interior design books all ready for browsing. 

 

From gorgeously formal, we turn to appealingly casual. This living space with two delicate chandeliers has been dressed up for spring with tabletop vignettes in blue—one with pink blooming branches and one with yellow daffodils. 

 

This large tabletop vignette is a beautiful way to transition from winter into spring. How lovely this would look in a foyer, living room, dining room or bedroom design. 

 

It must be a party or perhaps this colorful vignette was created for a family brunch to celebrate the coming of spring. Whatever the occasion, it shows off lots of ingenious decorative details. 

 

Another celebration of springtime, this slightly rustic vignette is filled with favorite objects, written words and organic elements. What signifies the change of seasons more eloquently than the iconic spring blooming bush, the sunny Forsythia?

   

A spring vignette that includes cut flowers is a perfect way to freshen up any bathroom designs. It's a lovely way to pamper family or overnight guests. 

This gorgeous kitchen has been turned into one enormous spring vignette with fresh flowers and lovely touches of turquoise. Can't you just taste that refreshing beverage? What an appealing color it is. 

 

Sometimes a vignette can be taken to a whole new level by the background against which it is set. Isn't this a beautiful way to enhance an already stunning bouquet? Add favorite found objects and you have spring vignette perfection. 

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These Spring Vignette inspirations are absolutely gorgeous! Be sure to check out San Francisco interior designers and Atlanta interior designers for more inspirations so that you can be ready to decorate and implement Spring design ideas for your home decor!