Tuesday Shoesday: The Color Brown

Got a favorite color? A color you despise? Or are you neutral when it comes to colors? When forced to pick a least favorite color last week, I chose brown.
 

The Finds (top clockwise) : Rain in Spangles Dress, Bubbly, $74.99; Ariat Shelleen Boot, $189.95; Lace Convertible Satchel, $49.95.

 

I don't really have a least favorite color so I quickly looked at a color wheel and chose the one that stood out: brown. Our assignment once we chose a color was to seek it out. (See Monday's Shades of Brown post for the brown items I found around our new flat.) Excluding furniture and hardwood floors, a lot of brown was found in my closet. Most of my favorite clothes -- sweaters and dresses -- are brown, so I decided to take a closer look at the meaning or psychology of the color brown.
 

The color brown has both positive and negative meanings.

Positives
• Associated with all things natural or organic
• Gives a feeling of solidity, family unity
• Creates a warm, comfortable feeling of wholesomeness and dependability
• Says stability, reliability, and approachability
• Gives a feeling of relaxation and home coming
• Makes you feel cozy, safe, and warm
• Implies genuineness
• Symbolizes humility and poverty

Negatives
• Shows no direction or attitude
• Hides your true nature
• Can be sad and wistful
• Can be a repressed personality or a lazy person
• Is the color of mourning because it resembles dead leaves

Now that I know the positive and negative connotations associated with the color brown I still plan on wearing it.
 

What's your least favorite color? Do you have it in your closet?
 

Ciao Bella!

Eden

 

Credits: All images taken by their respective sellers: DSW, ModCloth, and Nordstrom. Collage created by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

 

Sources:

• Beading Design Jewelry
• Emily Gems
• Elizabethan Era
• Info Please
• Sensational Color

 

Tuesday Shoesday is a bi-monthly series, published on the first and third Tuesday of each month. Posts from April 2011 to December 2011 are available at A Timeless Affair - Life with a Vintage Touch. Posts prior to April 2011 are available at A Timeless Affair - Inspiration for Vintage Weddings.

Seen Today: Shades of Brown

To improve my eye and to challenge me creatively, I've been participating in a couple of Photo-A-Day projects. One, the 2012 Photo Challenge, has me choosing a color each month and actively exploring it. When my Do What You Love for Life e-course asked us to observe our least favorite color, I combined projects. Here are some of my favorite shots from this month's 2012 Photo Challenge.
 

 

Besides improving my photography skills, these projects make me contemplate my everyday surroundings. (You can see more photos in the Color Brown Challenge on Flickr.)
 

As I mentioned in Friday's Overlooking the Familiar post, I discovered even when I thought I was actively looking I was still missing things. For June's color, I'll be picking another "background" or ubiquitous color - black.
 

What's your least favorite color? Have you ever tried seeking it out in your surroundings?
 

Ciao Bella!

Eden

 

Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

Reflections: Overlooking the Familar

Today's exercise: Pick a color and find it - really search for it - around you. Once you've got a color, do the following: Stop and look. Look again. Now really look. Repeat. Miss anything the first time you looked? The second time? It's not as easy as you think, is it?
 

 

I repeated this exercise over the course of three days with the color brown, taking photographs of every brown item I saw. In my first look at a room or a space, I noticed that I often overlooked brown items that were sitting just outside the frame. For example, my favorite mixing bowl, which holds fruit or vegetables, sits on the kitchen counter NEXT to our coffee grinder. I didn't notice that I hadn't taken a photograph of it until the THIRD day even though I'd been regularly taking vegetables from it. I then wondered:
 

How often do we go through our surroundings on autopilot,
without really noticing characteristics?
 

When we read text, we often overlook missing words, filling them in as we read. An editor once taught me a couple of tricks for editing my own work:

1. Read your writing backwards, word by word to catch typos.
2. Read your writing backwards a second time, sentence by sentence to catch incorrect (you're versus your, its versus it's, hear versus here, and so on) and/or missing words.

Going forward I'll be routinely picking colors and objects to actively look for each day to keep me from operating on autopilot.
 

What are your tricks for truly observing your surroundings and avoiding autopilot operation?
 

Ciao Bella!

Eden

 

Credits: All images taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

Thursday Purseday: Purple with Classic Dots

I have a confession. I'm a klutz. This means I've got very few light colored clothes. Today I find myself daydreaming about a cream colored skirt to give a purple handbag some pop.
 

The Finds (top clockwise) : Color Block Easy Tee, Gray, $27.93; Palm Groves Medlinda, Natural/African Violet, $278; Fidji Bobbi G282, $188; Farran Skirt, Tapioca/Shore Khaki, $425.

 

What do you think of light colored skirts or pants?
 

Ciao Bella!

Eden

 

Credits: All images taken by their respective sellers: Express, Kate Spade, Tory Burch, and Zappos.com. Collage created by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.

Sneak Peek: Our New Kitchen

On Thursday, May 10, we left our cozy Edwardian apartment at the edge of Hayes Valley and The Mission for a larger Railroad flat in the heart of The Mission. Starting at the back of the flat with our kitchen, over the next couple of weeks I'll give you a tour of our home.
 

 

We always knew we'd be moving. In fact, we started looking for a new place before we got pregnant last May. What we didn't plan on was moving so soon after Gates was born; we'd even given up the search. Our new home, however, was too good to pass up.
 

We now have almost double the space, approximately 1,600 square feet, gaining a breakfast area, a dining room, and another bedroom. We have both a full-size washer and a full-size dryer in the flat. We have on-site storage. And, we have parking. The only downside to our home is the lack of a bathtub.
 

New space means decorating opportunities. And more space means new furniture. The first room we need new furniture for is the kitchen. Right now our only seating is in the living room at the front of the flat. This means we're eating a lot of our meals while standing in the kitchen.
 

The Finds (top clockwise) : 40" Quarry Dining Table; Gray Jake Chair; 46.5" Billsta Table; Erland White Chair; 36" Axel Dining Table; Rex Grey Arm Chair; 42" Drop-Leaf Kitchen Table.

 

Which table and chairs do you think would look best in our kitchen?
 

Bon Appetit!

Eden

 

Credits: All product images taken by their respective sellers: CB2, Crate and Barrel, IKEA, Room and Board. Top photograph taken by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life. Collage created by Eden Hensley Silverstein for The Road to the Good Life.