Colour Addict

As much as I love the look of a beautiful neutral space, I've come to realize it is not how I was meant to live.  I am drawn to so many styles in home decor, but the one thing I've always found myself coming back to, is colour. I love the trend toward farmhouse/country style, shabby chic, industrial, and all things in between, but when I'm flipping through a design magazine, or watching HGTV, the rooms that really get me excited are the one's BURSTING at the seams with colour. When I see a space that has a unique colour palette, unexpected pattern, mismatched furniture and doesn't take itself too seriously, my pulse literally quickens! After all, decorating is supposed to be fun! When you're so concerned about everything matching or fitting into a "design box" it kind of takes something that is supposed to be enjoyable and turns into a job. 

As most of the large pieces in our home are neutral, I'm always looking for ways to inject colour through small accessories, like throw pillows, art, picture frames, lamps, and even shower curtains and towels! I've often wondered why the aesthetic appeal of many everyday, functional items is overlooked. Why can't an alarm clock serve a purpose AND be cute to look at, for example ;) (For the record, ours is NOT cute)

So, all that to say, my thought process for designing these multipurpose hangers, is that I wanted to create something that would not only be useful and functional, but also be a fun way to add a bit of personality and colour to your home in an unexpected way.  Stained, rustic looking coat hangers are easy to come by ( I saw a very basic one at the home improvement store with 4 hooks for $55) but I can say with confidence that you're never going to find a handmade, multi-coloured, patterned one at a big box store ;) 

Anyway, for now I've made 3 hangers in this style. If these ones sell, I will continue to make more! They are all hand-painted, ready to hang, and multi-functional! It's up to you where and how you use them. Available for pick-up in Regina! $90. Message me through Facebook or by filling out the form on my contact page. Thanks for stopping by!

Custom Signs

Last winter I made my first 20 or so signs as sort of a trial run. They didn't sell very well over Facebook, which was a bit discouraging, but has since influenced my decision to start selling my own sign designs over Etsy! Although this first batch of sign didn't result in many sales,  I had several people tell me that if I was to ever decide to start offering custom signs, they would be first in line.

Over the last few months I've had a few people contact me directly about making custom signs. Although I was able to take on the odd one before Christmas, I needed some time to think about the best way to open up these orders and start accepting them on a more regular basis.

There are a couple factors that make doing these personalized signs more tricky. For starters, these signs take such a long time to make. From buying all the lumber, cutting prepping and staining all the wood, to designing the layouts, painting, assembling and finishing each sign, it just isn't a quick process. If I was designing something totally different for each person, well, that could take a long time and have a big impact on the price, which isn't what I want. 

My second dilemma is that the enjoyment I find in making these signs comes from the creative element involved in coming up with the ideas myself. If I'm just making something exactly the way somebody tells me to, I start to feel like a production line, and where's the fun in that?!

So, I think I've figured out a solution. We'll give it a try at least and see what happens. At the beginning of each week I will open up 2-4 custom spots for a particular sign design. This week it will be the est. family sign below (with the house silhouette and heart) You will choose the colours you'd like me to include (as well as the name and date of course!) and if you'd like the frame painted I can do that too at no extra charge. This design would make an awesome wedding or anniversary gifts! These signs are approximately 13.5" square with the frame and will be $80.

*I will require a $40 deposit on these to secure your spot which can be paid by e-transfer. I also cannot offer shipping at this time so these will only be available locally in Regina. If you'd like to be scheduled in for this week, please send me a private message on Facebook (or just fill out the form on my contact page here), and we can go from there.

A New Year, A New Look

[Before I go into more detail about my site's new look, I should mention that the name of  my business has officially been changed from Happy Place, to Happy Place Design Studio! I gave a lot of thought as to whether or not I wanted to scrap the name altogether, but ultimately my reasons for choosing it in the first place just haven't changed. At the same time, I always kind of felt like it was missing something that reflected the creative nature of my business, and Design Studio just seemed fitting! So welcome to the newly renovated HAPPY PLACE DESIGN STUDIO! Thanks for stopping by :) ]

Over the summer, I decided it was time to update the look and function of my blog. To be honest, although Facebook will always be a good place to share my work, it's becoming increasingly difficult to get page views and make sales, which isn't my sole concern, but pretty critical in keeping Happy Place DS afloat.  I also felt like I just wasn't using my blog/website to its full potential, and that if I could spend a little time improving it (both in it's function and appearance), it could be an invaluable tool in the success of my business.

Because Blogger was the only platform I was vaguely familiar with (and I was pretty adamant about taking on this project myself), I really wanted to stick with what I knew.  The big problem that I ran into was that Blogger is very difficult to customize if you don't know what you're doing. And I definitely DID NOT know what I was doing. I had a very clear idea HOW I wanted everything to look. I was just clueless as to HOW to make it happen. At one point I declared I was just going to learn how to code the entire website by myself and took a trip to the library to sign out some books on the subject! :|  HA! At any rate, I got over my frustration, and challenged myself to figuring out just one small thing everyday. Adding a link to a navigation bar button, organizing my furniture portfolio into a grid, creating a background with a border! It took me literally 8 hours just to figure out how to add a simple contact form! But, with the help of many You Tube videos, and FB chats with my brother in Malaysia, I fumbled my way through it, and after 6 months, even though I could probably never explain how I did it, I now have a site that I'm pretty darn proud of!

First and foremost, I wanted to create a central location for my business where I could not only blog and get into more detail then I'm really able to on Facebook, about the projects I'm currently working on, but also keep a visual portfolio of my work, and have links to the other social media outlets that I use regularly (Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest) as well as my Etsy store where I will be selling my smaller handmade items, such as pillows and hand painted signs. I still plan to be very active on Facebook but I will mostly just use it to notify you as new things become available, new blogs are published, etc. There won't be a lot of info in these posts--just a brief description and a link back to this site for more details. More than anything I wanted the site to be user friendly and easy to navigate. I hope I've achieved that!

As for the look of my new site design, I just wanted something that was clean, simple, graphic and colourful. I logged many hours on PicMonkey editing photos, laying out graphics, and just working out every little detail of each blog element. I'm sure I will continue making tweaks over time, but for now it feels like a perfect representation of the Happy Place DS aesthetic :)

I hope you enjoy clicking through my new site. A good place to start is my ABOUT page which you can find in the navigation bar above. Please leave a comment to let me know you were here :)