Pantone color of the year 2017- greenery

The new year brings new ideas, new decisions, and new resolutions to the forefront. It reviews the past year of design with the good, the great, and the please let's let that one go! It brings things like new technology with the CES show and of course, the color of the year from Pantone.

Greenery is hopeful, growth-inspiring, and peaceful. Concepts that we could all use. It is also a reminder of spring in these months of winter, like seed catalogs!

This year's color of the year that every eco-friendly desigher can get behind! 

To quote Pantone themselves, "Greenery is a fresh and zesty yellow-green shade that evokes the first days of spring when nature’s greens revive, restore and renew." It looks great with everything from navy to orange to rich pink. Crisp green has been on the color scene for a couple of years in small furnishings. I am hoping to see it more in a commitment like paint colors.

Navy Chair from DWR.com , Floriculture knob from Anthropologie, Butterfly lamp from CB2.com, Demijohn from Etsy.com, Moss Pillow from Etsy.com,
Kitchenaid mixer, Paint swatch from Benjamin Moore Color: Rosemary Green 2029-30

Easy floral arrangements

Here are some photos of my recent easy floral arrangements from yesterday's photo shoot.

This photo of white roses was a easy grouping of palest peach to cream. Pretty roses made prettier with a few photo stylist tricks.

1. Start my trimming the end of the roses about a 1/2" and place in warm water. This will begin to open the roses.
2. Grab the hair dryer and turn it on, to the coolest of slightly warm setting, to blow the rose petals open. The warmth will aid the wind in opening the petals.
3. Re-cut the stems so that the base of the flower is and 2-3 inches above the vase. The larger the vase the longer the stem- this vase was about 5-6 inches tall.
4. add greenery from the yard- whatever is the greenest without and brown marks or holes.

easy rose arrangement

Contemporary arrangement-
I like a bold color combo in my contemporary arrangements. I also see inspiration from the Japanese Ikebana tradition of simplicity and scale. In this arrangement below, I used purple, fuchsia and lime green. Here's the steps-

1. Choose your color inspiration and consider the two colors close together on the color wheel and one that is opposite.
2. In your "clean lines" vase, group the colors together and look at scale.
3. place your largest color flower, or group of flowers in the vase, then the second color and lastly the third.
4. to keep the lines clean and visually uncluttered, I wrapped the stems of the gompherna in a host leaf, since they looked messy. Messy tends to not work in a contemporary arrangement.
For this arrangement the purple hydrangea is the dominate, followed by the hosta leaves then the gompherna. I also looked at the pattern story that this tells- mass of lightly patterned purple, smooth lines of the green and dots of the fuchsia.

The third arrangement was just greenery from the yard- cheap and easy! It included, boxwood, ivy, juniper, and ligusterum. Because easy plant has a markedly different texture, I  grouped them for their textures- like a landscape of trees. Boxwood in the center, ligusterum and ivy for height and juniper is the filler.