Colour my world 4

Neutrals by nessa-elle featuring Moschino dresses

I've left NEUTRALS and MONOCHROMES for last. Most of us have a wardrobe full of NEUTRALS because that's what retailers and magazines tell us we need! Everyone needs a little black dress or a white shirt, right? Well no! Actually black and white are 2 of the hardest colours to wear, they don't suit many people. But because of the feelings they give us, most of us have black in our wardrobe (does wearing black make you feel slim or elegant?). NEUTRAL usually means without colour. Examples of NEUTRAL colours are WHITE, IVORY, BEIGE, TAUPE, GREY and BLACK. I also think of BROWNS, NAVY and DENIM as NEUTRALS, because they tend to be good bases that combine well with other colours.

We often tend to combine NEUTRALS with a brighter colour which looks good but we are trying to try something different. Have you ever tried combining NEUTRALS together? I have to admit I'm a new convert to this. If I wore black I always wore it with a bright colour eg. BLACK pants with a RED or PINK or AQUA top. My bottom half would disappear and the bright colour on top would stand out. Lately I've been trying combinations like BLACK with STONE or NAVY, it is a lot more subtle and somehow sophisticated looking. It also gives you the opportunity to show off the texture of clothing more or your jewellery as it stands out against the subtlety of colours.

MONOCHROMATIC colour schemes use multiple shades (VALUES) of the same HUE. For example wearing ROSE PINK, RED and BURGUNDY together. As I explained on Monday RED is the base colour, we add WHITE to it to get PINKS and BLACK to it to get BURGUNDY. They look good together because they are from the same colour family. This is also a more subtle way of combining colours but if wearing contrasting colours such as the TRIADS or COMPLEMENTARIES is a little to way out for you, this is a good way of trying some new combinations.

If you have an area of your body that you don't want to draw attention to, always wear the darkest colour on that area. With colours, dark colours recede and light colours bring forward or highlight. When we do our make-up this is why we put a darker colour in the hollows of our cheeks or in the crease of our eye, we're trying to make that area recede and create a thinner face or better structured eye. We then put highlighter on the areas we want to stand out- our brow bones, our cheek bones. This is because the light and shimmery highlighter, highlight that area, making it more noticeable. So if you feel you've got a big chest and you don't want people looking at it, wear a dark (doesn't have to be black) top. If you've got full, curvy hips and you don't want that the first thing people notice about you, wear a dark coloured skirt. BUT if you're going out with your husband and he loves your curvy hips and you want to show them off for him, wear a light coloured, sequinned skirt! You can wear light or bright colours any area you want to highlight.

Well I hope you enjoyed reading about colours as much as I enjoyed writing it. When you're out and about take a bit of time to look at how God uses colours, COMPLEMANTARIES- RED roses with GREEN leaves, PURPLE irises with their YELLOW highlights. ANALOGOUS BLUES & GREENS in the ocean. The colours of fruits like plums with their DARK PURPLE skins, their YELLOW ORANGE flesh and their GREEN leaves. Every colour created by a loving God for us to enjoy.

Keep blossoming!

xx Vanessa.

Colour my world 3

Have you started to look at your wardrobe with new eyes? I know when I did this myself in January I found it really challenging. We tend to have our ideas of what goes together and what doesn't. I forced myself to do a week (well 6 days) of COMPLEMENTARY colours and I found it hard, partially because I was not used to wearing those opposite combinations of colours and also because the items I had in the correct colours, the styles didn't always go well together (if I wear a looser top I like a fitted bottom & visa versa, I was forced to wear loose tops & bottoms!). I'll admit I bombed out on day 5, I don't really have any orange and it was too hot to wear the couple of things I do have with orange on them. But it challenged me to shift my paradigms and I like that!

Today I'm going to look at the last to ways of combining colours TRIADS and SPLIT COMPLEMENTS.

Let's start with TRIADS. If you look at the colour wheel above today you will see a triangle with TRIAD on it. Pretend this triangle can rotate around the colour wheel, it can stop on any 3 colours. TRIAD colours are equidistant from each other on the colour wheel. They create colourful and bold mixes. They are combinations of cool and warm colours but they stay with in their school system. They are-

RED, BLUE & YELLOW- primaries

PURPLE (VIOLET), GREEN & ORANGE- secondaries

RED PURPLE (RED VIOLET), BLUE GREEN & YELLOW ORANGE- tertiaries

BLUE PURPLE (BLUE VIOLET), YELLOW GREEN & RED ORANGE- tertiaries

SPLIT COMPLEMENT colour schemes seem complicated but they are really just a variation of the COMPLEMENTARY colours. In the split version you pair one colour with the two colours adjacent to its COMPLEMENTARY. Again if you can visualize the small isosceles triangle moving around the colour wheel, you'll know what I mean. Examples are-

RED, PURPLE (VIOLET) & YELLOW GREEN

BLUE PURPLE (BLUE VIOLET), BLUE GREEN & ORANGE

GREEN, YELLOW & RED PURPLE (RED VIOLET)

YELLOW ORANGE, RED ORANGE & BLUE

There are 12 SPLIT COMPLEMENT combinations in total. Academichic also did a colour project in recent months, click HERE to see some examples of the outfits they came up with.

There's only 2 subjects left to talk about colour-wise, MONOCHROMES and NEUTRALS so look out for them in the next few days.

xx Vanessa.

Colour my world 2

In yesterday's post I explained how we can mix our 3 Primary Colours to get 12 colours to work with. Today I'm going to talk about about how we can use these 12 colours effectively in our wardrobes. I will talk about neutrals another day, most of us have no problem with neutral colours. We live in them most of the time as they stay in fashion, go with everything and are generally flattering to everyone. But colours tend to scare people, which I think is sad. God made so many AMAZING colours for us to enjoy! Why not inject them into our lives, colours boost your mood and the right colours positively uplift the people around us. See my Rainbow Challenge to learn more about the Psychological Effects of colours.

We identify colours by hue, temperature and value. HUE is defined as the name of the colour, which is basically what we looked at yesterday. Examples are RED, YELLOW and GREEN.

VALUE is the lightness or darkness of a hue, which I also touched on yesterday. When talking about the TEMPERATURE of colours, we can look at the Psychological Temperature or the Relative Temperature. Psychologically, RED feels warm and BLUE feels cool, each colour gives off a psychological feeling but relatively there are warm and cool reds and there are warm and cool blues. When we look at the colour wheel above we can split it in half to get our psychologically cool colours- PURPLE, BLUE PURPLE, BLUE, BLUE GREEN, GREEN & YELLOW GREEN. Our warm colours are- YELLOW, YELLOW ORANGE, ORANGE, RED ORANGE, RED & RED VIOLET.

One of the easiest ways we can try out some new colours together is by using ANALOGOUS colour combinations. Basically ANALOGOUS colours are any colours next to each other on the colour wheel. Examples using 2 colours are-

BLUE GREEN & BLUE

RED & RED PURPLE

ORANGE & YELLOW ORANGE

You could try 3 (or more!) ANALOGOUS colours together. A few of my favourite combinations are

BLUE GREEN, GREEN & YELLOW GREEN

PURPLE, BLUE PURPLE & BLUE

What combinations can you try?

If you're feeling game, why not try COMPLEMENTARY colours? COMPLEMENTARY colours are colours opposite each other on the colour wheel. It's combining a cool with a warm colour so it's great if you've had your colours done and perhaps you prefer colours that are opposite to your colours. Here are the 6 combinations-

RED & GREEN

RED PURPLE & YELLOW GREEN

PURPLE & YELLOW

BLUE PURPLE & YELLOW ORANGE

BLUE & ORANGE

BLUE GREEN & RED ORANGE

These are very striking combinations. Because they are complete opposites, COMPLEMENTARY colours make each other seem intense. It can be difficult to wear them without looking a little child-like but you could try the pastel versions or deeper versions, eg. PINK & LIGHT GREEN

BURGUNDY & PINE

NAVY & ORANGE

AQUA & CORAL

Why not have a go!

Next post I'll be talking about TRIAD and SPLIT COMPLEMENTARY colour combinations, to give you even more ideas.

On Kasmira's blog "What I wore today", she mentioned her style mottos- The first is: “wear what you like.” The second is: “today only happens once.” She says, "why not take a risk with your outfit today? It’s only one day of the many you’ll have in life. Tomorrow, you can wear something different". That sums up why up why I love to try different colour combinations, life is full of so many beautiful things why not be one of them!

xx Vanessa.

p.s. Kasmira's outfit today is also a great example of COMPLEMENTARY colours with a neutral thrown in, check it out for inspiration.

Colour my world

Colours can be intimidating. When you understand how to wear them, you can look more attractive, healthy and interesting. The wrong colours can make you look sick, tired and bigger than you are. We often go to so much trouble to decorate our homes to get the right feeling or mood but we don't often bother with ourselves. Sometimes we fall into a rut of wearing safe colours and combinations because we just don't know what else looks good. I thought I'd give you a bit of a colour theory lesson and some ideas to add a bit of diversity to your wardrobe.

We learn when we're little there are 3 colours we start with. These are the Primary Colours- RED, BLUE & YELLOW.
We mix these to get the next lot of colours, these are the Secondary Colours.
RED + YELLOW= ORANGE
RED + BLUE= PURPLE
YELLOW + BLUE= GREEN

Then we do a bit more mixing and we get the Tertiary Colours.
RED + ORANGE= RED ORANGE
ORANGE + YELLOW= YELLOW ORANGE
YELLOW + GREEN= YELLOW GREEN
GREEN + BLUE= BLUE GREEN
BLUE + PURPLE= BLUE PURPLE
PURPLE + RED= RED PURPLE

Now you probably understand how this works but you might be thinking RED PURPLE, what colour is that? I'll give you some of the names retailers use for these colours.
RED- True Red, Crimson.
RED ORANGE- Tomato Red, Clear Red, Vermilion.
ORANGE- Pumpkin.
YELLOW ORANGE- Clear Gold, Light Orange, Ochre.
YELLOW- Golden Yellow, Lemon, Yellow Gold.
YELLOW GREEN- Lime, Apple, Sap Green.
GREEN- Forest, Emerald, True Green.
BLUE GREEN- Emerald Turquoise, Teal, Turquoise, Jade, Viridian.
BLUE- Royal, True Blue, Sky, Ultramarine.
BLUE PURPLE- Purple, Periwinkle, Indigo.
PURPLE- Violet, Amethyst.
RED VIOLET- Plum, Magenta.

We can then go on to make endless number of colours by adding varying amounts of WHITE, BLACK or BROWN to the list above. When we add WHITE to a colour we get the muted, pastel version. When we add BLACK or BROWN we get deeper, richer versions which often become more neutral because BLACK and BROWN are considered neutral colours. Here is a list of the pastel, muted versions and the shaded, toasted colours.

RED+ WHITE= Pink, Bubblegum, Rose, Pale Pink
RED + BLACK/BROWN= Burgundy, Wine
RED ORANGE + WHITE= Salmon, Blush, Rose Pink, Coral
RED ORANGE + BLACK/BROWN= Rust, Terracotta
ORANGE + WHITE = Apricot, Peach
ORANGE + BLACK/BROWN= Tobacco, Mahogany, Chocolate
YELLOW + WHITE= Cream, Buttermilk, Icy Yellow
YELLOW + BLACK/BROWN= Mustard, Camel
YELLOW GREEN + WHITE= Light Lime, Apple Green, Dirty Apple
YELLOW GREEN + BLACK/BROWN= Khaki, Olive
GREEN + WHITE= Mint, Icy Green, Pistachio, Jade
GREEN + BLACK/BROWN= Pine
BLUE GREEN + WHITE= Eau de nil, Icy Aqua, Aqua
BLUE GREEN + BLACK/BROWN= Deep Teal, Sea Green, Slate, Petrol
BLUE + WHITE= Icy Blue, Powder Blue, Sky, Wedgewood
BLUE + BLACK/BROWN= French Navy, Navy, Prussian Blue
BLUE PURPLE + WHITE= Bluebell, Hyacinth, Periwinkle, Mauve
BLUE PURPLE + BLACK/BROWN= Deep Periwinkle, Dark Plum
PURPLE + WHITE= Lavender, Icy Violet
PURPLE + BLACK/BROWN= Cardinal
RED VIOLET + WHITE= Warm Pink, Fuchsia, Soft Plum
RED VIOLET + BLACK/BROWN= Deep Plum, Aubergine


Now that you understand how we get the colours, in my next post I'll start to show you how we can wear them to look our best and possibly try them in a new way.

Keep blossoming!
Vanessa.

Blogs: The new family circle.

I'm not that old but I remember life before computers, the Internet, iPhones. Most of us learnt how to be a mum/ homemaker from our families. I know my Mum's generation (baby-boomers) and my Nan's, still lived to a degree with their families and they always had them near to lean on and learn from. I haven't had that for most of my married life, we spent the first 7 years on the other side of the country from our parents and then 3 further years overseas. When we did move back to our home town (city), it wasn't the same. I'd become independent, I wasn't used to asking my family for help to do things and they weren't used to offering.

Now while I admit this is a little sad, one of the great blessings of our modern times is the Internet and blogs! The Internet can be used for many awful and silly things but there is some wonderful sites too. It's wonderful how you can find blogs on so many subjects that inspire you to try new things and teach you things. Even though some of us may be far away from our family or just don't have families that can help us learn, there is a family of wonderful blogs out there willing to teach you the things you want to know.

Three new blogs I have recently found and love are U Create, Home Cooking, & Knock Off Wood.
U Create is written by Kari and it is wonderful for craft ideas. She shares lots of other blogs too, so you might find some others you like.
Home Cooking is written by Ellie from Montana in the USA. She has some wonderful recipes! American cooking is quite different to Australian cooking but I'm inspired by it.
Knock Off Wood is written by Ana from Alaska, USA and is a fantastic blog about furniture making and carpentry. I have a soft spot for this as my Dad's a carpenter and I love the fact that a women is giving us ideas and showing us we can build stuff too. In fact I'm going to build a book case for my daughter with my Dad using Ana's plans.

Let me know if you find any other interesting blogs out there that can help us blossom.
xx Vanessa

How's your joy?

Another week has come and gone and I haven't blogged anything! I had such great plans, alas I had a funny week (not funny ha-ha, funny peculiar). I haven't felt myself this week, I've felt stressed, a bit low and a bit like I've got too much on my plate! My mind has been full of things I need to do and I want to do, but I've felt like it was so full I haven't known where to start. But today's church message really helped me.

We had a visiting speaker, Dr. Ian Jagelman who is our Pastor's lecturer and mentor. His message was about joy. I could give you lots of verses he shared but I want to share the crux of what it meant to me. When we spend time with Jesus, we feel happy and He wants us to be happy! Happy people can be life changers, because let's face it there are so many sad people out there, people want to be around happy, joyful people. I now feel I can face the coming week with a better attitude. So often I've felt like a Martha instead of a Mary (busy working instead of enjoying Jesus' company), I have wanted to change but kept feeling "if I don't do this stuff it won't get done!". Well maybe it won't but ultimately my life will be better if I have a closer relationship with God. I'll be happier, my husband will be happier and my kids will be happier (because if Momma ain't happy, nobody's happy!).

The Proverbs 31 woman seems so perfect, she's looking after her house, sewing and knitting for her family. Saving her money, up before dawn making breakfast, has her own business, looks good. Being good at all this stuff is great but ultimately "a woman who fears the LORD, she shall be praised".

So I'm going to endeavour to spend more time with my mate Jesus this week and to focus on the things that make me feel happy and very blessed. The collage above is the things that make me happy- my husband, my kids, my friends, chocolate, reading, my hammock, the beach, handbags, shoes, clothes, colours, jewellery, painting and my God. Yes I know some of these things are silly and frivolous, but I figure God made me and He put in the shoe/ handbag/ clothes loving part of me, and He never makes mistakes!
xx Vanessa.

Time flies...

Hi Everyone (anyone?!),
Sorry I haven't blogged for a while. I thought having my kids at home for Summer holidays would mean I had more time to blog, silly me! We have had a wonderful time together though and I can't believe they're back to school on Monday.

I have mixed emotions about this, as this year will be the first time in 10 years I haven't had a child with me the majority of the time. My youngest starts Pre-Primary and in 3 weeks will be at school 5 days a week like his big brother & sister (they ease them into it so he'll be at school 3 days next week).

Although I'm looking forward to the time to do other things, I'm going to miss them! I'm starting to get teary now!!! BUT I know I have plenty of things to occupy my time, my kids go to a fantastic school and I'm looking forward to a year to get myself together. Actually that's what my husband and I have "themed" this year, "Let's get it together, together". I don't know about anyone else but I have frequently come up with these grand plans to get it together (declutter, organise, plan etc...) but when I'm the only one doing it in a family of 5, it soon goes by the wayside as it's just too hard. Circumstances got us talking about getting it together and about growing up. That we have to get some of these issues sorted now, we're not getting any younger and we have 3 kids depending on us. And the upshot of that was we are now determined to get it together, together. We're working together to affect change in several areas of our lives.

Part of my plan is to blog more frequently and stretch my boundaries more. I have lots of great plans, now I just have to put them into action.

I have been thinking about clothes a lot lately, as I've been trying to compact my wardrobe. So I'm going to talk about going through your wardrobe and having a clothing cull. Also I'm going to talk about colours. Colours are one of my favourite topics (as my friends know!), I'm nuts about colours. So I'm going to talk about Colour Theory, how colours work and how you can push yourself into trying new colour combinations. It should be fun!

Have a great weekend.
xx Vanessa.

Happy New Year!

So 2010 already!!! Do you remember being a kid and thinking that the year 2000 seemed such a looong way away. Do you remember what you were doing New Year's Eve 1999? It seemed such a big deal didn't it, people were worrying about Y2K, stockpiling water & food. Others were planning the New Year's party to end all parties! And now in the blink of an eye (so it seems), ten years has passed.

For a lot of people 2009 was not a good year. People have been happy to see it go and start a fresh with 2010. I can't say 2009 was particularly bad for me, we had tough times sure, but there were good too. I think 2009 was a good year for sorting out priorities. My husband lost his job but he didn't like it anyway. He handed the situation to God and he was blessed with a new job that he really enjoys. I had two days to myself a week for the first time since 2000 as my youngest son started Kindy. After years of wanting more time for myself, I had to learn to have some "me time" in that time and not catch up on housework. In my opinion, the western world got asked it's priorities this year as Financial Crisis meant people lost jobs, homes, savings. We all had to ask ourselves do we need all this stuff to be happy, to be fulfilled? I think it's been a great opportunity to reevaluate what we want as the centre of our lives.

So on to 2010! Have you made your New Year resolutions? I can't say I'm much for New Year resolutions only because I know most people (me included) don't keep them. When we don't we start to feel a failure. I think we should have any day resolutions and that we should give ourselves permission to start again any day or every day. What do I mean? For example, last year in January I started feeling like I wanted to lose some weight. I knew I'd had a BIG Christmas and really over done it. My clothes didn't fit and I felt lethargic and down. I dieted a bit, lost a bit, but deep down I knew exercise was the answer. I've never really exercised except for occasional walks. I spent a couple of months researching and thinking (& praying) about what to do. I'd had enough of doing something for a short period of time then quitting because I didn't enjoy it or because it didn't fit my schedule. I wanted to find the perfect thing for me and I did. It was going to a gym and having a personal trainer. I started mid week in the middle of the year. I have lost 10 kilos (I'm still considered overweight but I feel good so who cares!) but the change in my fitness, health and confidence have been amazing. There have been weeks I've only gone once or twice but I but never hammered myself for this. I just thought of everyday as a new start and resolved to do my best. I have not been to the gym for 5 weeks now, due to injury and illness (and holidays). I could beat myself and feel guilty, feel a failure but I'm choosing not to. I know I needed the break to recover and now I've got to the point again where I'm hanging out to go again. I'm just starting over.

Something else that has been life changing for me this year was a book I read in October by Mike Gayle called "The To- Do List". When I saw it at the library I thought it was a Self Help book and grabbed it running out the door. But it's autobiographical and hilarious (it does have Language in it too, just to warn you). "Gripped by a determination to sort out his life once and for all, Mike writes a To-do list of all the things he has meant to do but never quite got round to." I related to so much of it, I laughed, I cried and when I'd finished I sat and wrote my own to-do list. I focused on the things that were always in the back of my mind that I should do, not the stuff that you do all the time anyway (like washing & ironing). The important but not necessarily urgent. I decided it was time to grow up, work out my priorities and get myself together. Writing this blog stemmed from that, to keep myself accountable and to also help anyone else out there feeling the same. In a day I'd written a list of 183 things and over time it got up to 200. Afterwards I felt free, I didn't have to have those things cluttering my thoughts anymore as they were on paper. So far I've crossed off 71 things from the list and it's amazing how I feel so much more peaceful.

So I hope 2010 is a great year for all of you. It would be wonderful to look back this time next year and think how amazing 2010 was! Let's blossom together.

xx Vanessa.

P.S. The photo above was taken by my talented husband, early in the morning at Denmark, Western Australia.