Charlotte Moss at the Boston Design Center

 photo by Brook Slezak, via Southern Accents

I was thrilled to finally have the chance to meet the lovely and talented Charlotte Moss yesterday at the Boston Design Center. Charlotte is a truly inspiring person and I can say that the 500 designers in attendance were all sitting on the edge of their seats to tune into everything she had to say in her trademark soft spoken Southern drawl.  Charlotte is doing the book tour thing promoting her latest - Charlotte Moss Decorates.

Seriously, how beautiful is this book jacket?? 

During the talk, I was tweeting some of my favorite quotes and takeaways and thought I'd share them here as well.

Tweet: Just made it in time for Charlotte Moss at the Boston Design Center. She seems surprised that the audience is mostly all designers.

Tweet: I thought decorating happened only when my father went out of town. You have to have a plan, you have to work fast

This, of course, brought the house down!

Tweet: If you don't know how to see, you'll never learn how to decorate.

Tweet: Charlotte's a big scrapbooker of her trips, dinner parties. Loves her iPad and listens to TED lectures, Glee, Hot in Cleveland while scrapbooking. "It's my therapy. "

This is one of Charlotte's inspiration boards. She showed several boards in her slide show and talked about how she keeps her camera with her at all times to document everything she sees, because you never know what will become the inspiration for a design down the road.

Tweet: Charlotte photographs all her floral arrangements to record what works and to practice her photography skills.

Tweet: CM carries a notebook w/ all the dimensions of her house, including tabletops, mantels, so when she's out & about, she knows the right sizes

Tweet: Seeing the small things and noticing the details.

The mantra from this new Charlotte Moss book (which is seriously beautiful, btw) is "Why not?".

I picked up this cute set of note cards with bamboo pen. The ribbon is going right on my inspiration board over my desk!

We interviewed Charlotte at The Skirted Roundtable last year. You can listen to that podcast here.

All images via CharlotteMoss.com except where noted.

If you would like my help on your design project, I would love to chat with you! Please email me. Thanks!

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Podcast Interview: Design Star: Jennifer Bertrand

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Jennifer Bertrand, the very sweet (and very pregnant!) winner of HGTV's Design Star Season 3 phoned me today to fill us in on what has been going on with her since winning the show last August. We had a lovely chat - which you can listen to by clicking the podcast player above. Please note - in my introduction, I mistakenly said Jen was winner of Season 2 of Design Star - that was Kim Myles (David Bromstad was Season 1 winner). Also, please forgive my coughing and hoarse voice - am recovering from a cold! I also interviewed Jen last summer, which you can read here.

A teaser single episode version of Jennifer's new show Paint Over! will air at 4:00PM on Thursday, January 1st. A chance to take a break from football! Click on over to HGTV for some of Jennifer's makeover and paint tips. Oh, and on January 8th - Jen squares off against S2 winner Kim Myles on "Design Showdown".

Jen - thanks so much for stopping by and the best of luck with everything!

Design Star Casting Call!

Click here for all the details. Deadline January 5, 2009.

Design Star Jennifer Bertrand Will makeover your space

Jennifer Bertrand, winner of Design Star 3 is working on a new HGTV one-hour special and is looking for applicants.

Jennifer will transform rooms with her signature wall murals, stencils, faux finishes and fresh eye for design. If you have a room in your house that needs to be made over — any room at all — then apply to be on Jennifer’s show.

Looking for:
1. Home owners living in the northeastern United states, especially the Philadelphia, New York and Washington, D.C., metropolitan areas.
2. All room types including kitchens, bedrooms, living rooms, dining rooms, home theaters and atriums.

To apply, please submit the following information in an e-mail and send to NGPcasting@nancyglassproductions.com.

• Names and ages of people in your household
• Property address (preference given to homes in the northeast)
• A photo of you (and your family, if applicable)
• A photo of the exterior of your home
• A few photos of the room you’d like to have made over.
• E-mail and phone number(s) where you can be contacted

Please provide photos in the highest resolution available.

E-mails missing any information will not be considered.

Good luck!

HGTV Press Release.

Design Star 3 - And the winner is...

OK, so, I'm watching the Design Star 3 reunion show. They haven't yet announced the winner. I missed the first few minutes - so I don't know why Mikey Verdugo isn't there? The scandal around Mikey was that it turns out he shot some gay porn video a few years ago and it came out just around the time he was sent home. He seemed like a nice guy and while not a design star, not a bad guy. So, why is he not at the reunion? The online rumor mill had it that HGTV dis-invited him because of the videos. If that's the case - bad show HGTV. You may have "moral" standards and gay porn isn't your thing, that's fine. But people do things when they are young that they regret when older. Vanessa Williams anyone? I don't know if Mikey regrets it or not. None of my business or anyone elses, really.

I've been open in my lack of excitement about the show. Really, the only reason I kept on with it is just that I figured I'd finish what I started. And, I was happy that HGTV offered me an interview with D. Paul DeRouen right after he was sent home and that Jennifer Bertrand emailed me about doing an interview. My boredom and frustration has to do with HGTV's production quality, not the designers, who I always respect for their willingness to put themselves out there. HGTV is sorely lacking in real, educated, professional high style designers. So, I do wish that Design Star would feature only candidates who bring up the level. HGTV needs more Candace Olsen's and fewer Kim Myles'. I have spent some time reading the HGTV message boards and also comments on blogs related to Bravo reality shows and it's obvious who have the more educated and knowledgeable viewers. If HGTV were willing to raise their quality just a bit, they might find there is a world of passionate viewers out there ready to be wowed.

As of just now, this is the result of my online poll:

Oh... a Top Design advertisement in the middle of Design Star! It's battle of the reality design shows!!! I haven't officially mentinoed this here yet, but I've been asked to be the lead blogger on Blogging Top Design this season. Very exciting!

I think they will finally announce the winner after the ads... waiting with baited breath... sort of...

Actually, I will say that both Jennifer and Matt have great backgrounds and are very appealing people. So, despite my complaints about the show - the cream has risen to the top this season.

CONGRATULATIONS!

Jennifer Bertrand has won Design Star!

And congrats to you Matt Locke for being a real gentleman!

Matt Locke!

When covering the reality design shows, I never get around to opinionating on the judges all that much. Design Star has had the same judges for three seasons. I think it's time for a change. I think that they start comparing seasons, which is unfair to later series contestants. Also, they get boring. I though that Vern was particularly pompous this season. I saw him in person at a Boston design show a few years ago and he was an engaging speaker. But, on this show, he's very "blah". To use his most used expression. So, what do you think? Which just would you like to see replaced? And if you have a suggestion for a replacement, post a comment!

Which judge would you like to see sent home?
	Cynthia Rowley
	Martha McCulley
	Vern Yip
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