Sunday, March 21, 2010

By Leslie Linsley Special to The Citizen

"What's the name of your egg?" my friend, Betsy, asked when she rang me up the other day. She was referring to the ostrich egg I was decorating for the AIDS Help Art Auction. The theme of this year's auction is "Retro," and each contributor/artist was given either a cigar box or an ostrich egg to decorate in his or her particular style.

Since I do decoupage, I chose to use some of the 19th century prints I found in London to completely cover the egg with lacy, coral-colored flowers and delicate green stems. Twenty-five coats of finish gave it an ivory look and feel -- smooth and sensuous. "Tell people to pick it up and feel it," I suggested, as this is part of its appeal.

I've always liked the shape and colors of eggs. Ask any designer to name the most perfectly designed item and the answer would probably be an egg. And with Easter coming up soon, eggs are on my mind.

It also happens to come in all the shades of natural colors that I love. I've never been too crazy about pastel Easter colors, but the various shades of white, ivory and browns found in eggs is mind-boggling and a source I return to often when decorating a room or selecting products for my store or when buying clothing.

When I'm in my studio in Nantucket, Mass., it is easy to gravitate toward, even embrace, all these colors, but here in Key West it is virtually impossible. Brilliant colors of orange, lime-green, fuchsia and magenta scream out to me. Suddenly, anything beige or sandy seems washed out. Stark-white, on the other hand, works well in Key West houses and becomes the perfect canvas for adding bright, colorful pillows, scatter rugs and paintings.

Every year manufacturers of all sorts of products from paint to clothing introduce "the color of the season." This spring manufacturers of home furnishings are using yellow big time.

When you think about it, yellow goes with just about every other color. Like white, there are many shades of yellow. Citrus colors have been making a big splash, and right up there is lemon-yellow, along with buttercup, butterscotch and squash. The latter two are more subdued, but they all do well with almost any other color you can think of.

Imagine a white wicker chair or chaise piled with yellow ticking canvas pillows for outdoors or in. Then there's a white linen sofa with butterscotch plaid polished cotton.

I recently bought soft, buttery-yellow, hand-printed fabric with blue shells overall to make into pillows. I used a very pale blue, yellow and white plaid fabric for the back of the pillows and added piping covered with the backing fabric for the trim. If you can picture them, the plaid trim covering the piping around the shell-printed front is a nice contrasting detail.

Eighteen-inch pillows work well when grouped together. If you have a deep sofa, 22-inch pillows work best.

Soft yellow is pretty in the bedroom and a brighter hue works well in any Key West living room. If I used it in my Nantucket house, friends would truly question my taste credibility. But yellow is so cheerful. It's hard not to feel uplifted in a yellow room.

If you don't have a room that needs repainting, consider sprucing up the inside of a closet with a coat of yellow paint. Use semi-gloss or high-gloss for a durable and sleek finish. Every time you open the closet door you'll feel good, even if the closet contents are a mess.

Several years ago I decorated a house for a magazine story about furnishing "on the cheap." One of the sponsors was Rit fabric dye and we used it to tie-dye pillowcases from the thrift shop. Not wanting the bedroom to look like a '60s throwback for a hippy kid (it was a master bedroom), I used pale pastels (in this case pastel works) to match an antique quilt on the bed. The yellow dye in particular came out soft and marbled and had a cloud-like, rather elegant effect, much like subtle sponge painting.

So with Easter coming, consider dying a bunch of eggs in different shades of yellow and use as an accent in a room. Or, even better (and no work), fill a basket with different, natural-colored eggs. They are rather perfect the way nature intended.

Leslie Linsley has written more than 50 books on crafts, decorating and home style. She resides on Nantucket with her husband, photographer Jon Aron, and has a store on the island that specializes in her one-of-a-kind creations. Her latest book is "Key West: A Tropical Lifestyle" (Monacelli Press), with photos by Terry Pommett.