How to enter:

• Follow @scinteriors on Twitter
• Tweet @scinteriors a message about a design item that you love and tag it with #tweetyourlove
• The item must be design related
• If applicable, please include a photograph of item
• All design items must be suitable for all twitter audiences. Pornographic images are not suitable for this contest

Prize: 60 minute Virtual Design Session (“Prize”) with Stacey Cohen of Stacey Cohen Interiors. ($120) value.

Rules & Regulations

One daily entry per twitter account may be accepted

You must be 21 years of age to enter. Contest is valid to entrants who live in the continental United States only.

Employees of Stacey Cohen Interiors, Triple Crown Creative, etc. are ineligible to win.

Sponsor: Stacey Cohen Interiors, LLC. 101 West Grand Avenue, Suite 200, Chicago, IL 60654, U.S.A.
SCinteriors will be tweeting the love of Stacey’s favorite objects through the month of February.

Must follow Twitter Rules & Guidelines:
Anyone found to use multiple accounts to enter will be ineligible.
Multiple entries in a single day will not be accepted
Hashtag use: #tweetthelove and only hashtags relevant to entry will be eligible to win.
Unrelated hashtag may cause you to violate twitter rules
Follow twitter rules https://support.twitter.com/articles/18311-the-twitter-rules

You must follow @scinteriors to be eligible to win

Entries may be submitted from February 1. 2011 at 12:01 am through February 13, 2012, 11:59pm, CST

Winner will be announced February 14, 2012 at 4:00 pm CST. Winner will be notified via direct message on twitter. Winner’s twitter name and submission will be posted to Stacey Cohen Interior Blog http://www.staceycoheninteriors.com/blog/,

All entries will be judged on the following: 33% Creativity of Design, 33% Originality of Entry, 34% Overall Style. In case of a tie, the score given to “Style” will be the tiebreaker.

talking holiday with Katherine Kelly

I am giddily grateful for all the years I have loved my planning of parties, wrapping of gifts and testing tastes and treats, fore this year, the media angle has bestowed upon me, television and radio segments abound the Chicagoland area.

intimate party (mp3)

Last minute party (mp3)

It’s a part I have been prepping for over the last dozen years and my design ideas are old and new, naughty and nice, but best of all, with the holiday cheer in mind.

talking holiday with Jeanne Sparrow on WCIU

I shared some holiday table tips on WCIU.  Whoa, it was an early call time.  I am not sure who functions at that hour on a daily basis, but it is not me.  Once I stumbled around some basic points, I dropped my bevy of “ummmm” (even though my mom specifically told me to be aware of that word), I got to talking about my design esthetic and how I like to entertain.  Hopefully you enjoy it as well.

Table setting with:

White table cloth 8’ table

1. Adler plates (blue greek key design)

1 kids plate (clear) to decorate with gifted finger paint

White/Glass chargers

White cloth napkins w/ white tulle and a small star ornament

Wrapped gifts on plates with ribbon

Glass tea cups

2 juice canisters with frozen berries

1. Adler candlesticks (9 animals & 1 eve hand)
2. Adler tree vase with cranberry branches

1 2-tier desert trays, cookies, pretzels, etc…

1 2-tier appetizer tray with latkes and dipping sauce

Bowl with pistachios

Canister with candy canes

Thanks so much to our friends at:

Jonathan Adler http://www.jonathanadler.com/

Style Shack http://www.styleshackgifts.com/

Haberdash EDC http://haberdashmen.com/

These are my talking points, I’m sure once the camera rolls, I’ll forget most of them…

WCIU Holiday Table Prep

KEY POINTS:

1. Minimal Eclectic.  A deconstruction of traditional Holiday decor and reassembled for a modern and eclectic table.
2. It’s about bringing everyone together and not being stressed about it.
3. You can create a great table with items in your home

WCIU TABLE SETTING POINTS:

• I. Purposeful Placement
• A. Design: Only 1/3 of the table will need to get washed and put away.
• B. Devour: 1/3 of the table is decorated with eats and drinks
• C. Decor: the rest of the table is gifts and decor.
• D. Deconstruction of traditional decor

A. Design – My holiday table and parties reflect my design aesthetic:

1. Modernist, Minimalist, Utilitarian

1. This helps keep the base palate edited to a few basic color themes

2. Personally, I serve and eat food from Glass and White Plates.

1. It really makes the food the focal point and then can adapt to any holiday throughout the year.

[showcase items as begin talk point 3 [“So we have a table for 8.  I have 5 glasses of this, 4 of these, some dinner plates with gold, some clear. I do seem to have 10 matched appetizer plates and a medley of stemware and serving pieces”]

1. I like to start my table by gathering the items that are most necessary for the party.

1. Plates, napkins, glassware and stemware.
2. With limited storage in the city.  I gather all of it together, and never mind if all of the base pieces match or not.
1. It helps create an “eclectic look” that so many want to do, but may be afraid it looks unfinished.

B. Devour – set your food on the table

1. Not all your food, leave the big stuff on a buffet.  But grab all those small dishes and candy bowls and fill them with salad accessories: walnuts, cranberries, dressings
2. Put your spirits on the table.  Place pitchers filled with sparkling water and holiday punch on the table to keep guests from getting up.

[I like to freeze fresh fruit and let them act as ice cubes and a cute pop of color]

1. Decor: Everyone is a part of the holiday

1. All parties are more fun when there are gifts involved.  I always Evite my friends and we have a $20 grab bag limit.

[Here we have a bunch of mock-grab bag gifts (10-12 gifts wrapped in all different papers) to place into center of table.]

1. This starts to bring in color and segues into the different traditions of your friends.

[There is snowflakes, starts and trees... blues, reds and greens]

D. Deconstruction of Traditional Decor

1. My friends a Ligne Roset provided me with the start of a tree, and we added the branches.
2. Gather 9 different candle sticks as a modern menorah

[Place in center of table, with the candles around it and the presents under it]

WCIU Holiday Table Prep

I host a holiday hoopla sneaky santa grab bag party for a growing number of friends every winter.

I am adamant about the holiday decor being holiday – neutral.  My base theme consists of: snowflakes, snowmen, white, blue and sparkles.

the menu: latkas, tomato/mozzarella salad and champagne punch.  Guests are more than encouraged to bring anything to add to the menu and if no food, an extra bottle of prosecco.  More prosecco is encouraged to keep the sneaky santa more festive.

And now on the first night of haunkkah, I am rushing out of the office to get some last gifts before lighting the candles and singing the songs.

creative menorahs are more fun

click here to watch the interview

Design Star Audition Video

As I mentioned, the video that lives on my website is edited, If you make it all the way to the blog…. Please enjoy the Audition Video that got me on to Design Star.

And like all good Videos, there are fun outtakes.  Watch how our little handheld captures how I feel about talking about Bachelors Pads and Martha Stewart!

Behind our scenes

And if you still want more… read my blogs from Design Star.  They are here, categorized as “Design Star” I wrote them every monday after the episode aired.

Click here to see the Design Star Category

I have some tweets you can see, but that’s enough of me and design star.  Hope you enjoyed, we are wrapping it up and archiving it as we really move into SCi 2.0 and 2012.

We do not know what to do with this “nook” (that they call a”den”) in our condo!  We thought we would use it as an office area, but we tend to either use our dining room table or sit with our laptops on our couch.  Could you please give us some fun suggestions?  Thanks!

Ben and Rob

Well, guys, I can see your dilemma.  Since that little space is neither here nor there for a room or a closet, I would create a modern day butler’s pantry.

While the butler is no longer vogue, their pantries are so functional, it shocks me they have disappeared on the design forefront. You start with three basic design elements: lower cabinets, countertop and upper cabinets and then creatively expand from there.  Creativity can lead you to glass front doors, a mirrored or marble backsplash and mindful interior storage systems.  It is a great place to install a wine fridge, ice maker or even a cigar humidor.

Once your design is complete, put your decor to use.  Here is a great place to store all of your stemware, flatware, barware, tablecloths, napkins and serving pieces.  The counter surface can be used as a bar or buffet when hosting cocktail and dinner parties.

My final element to add is a great light fixture or sconces that set a great ambient tone.  Have fun with it and I bet you will entertain a whole lot more!

For designers we had to clock in hours on a shared server, he gave us laptops. For designers who used to carry around large portfolios to show off their work, he gave us the iPad. For business owners who would have to call in from landline to landline to check in, he gave us the iPhone. And he made them sleek and beautiful and design envious. As I designed on the apple products, I wanted to make sure my
designs met the standards of sleek modernity of Apple.

Steve Jobs made working and communicating easy and fun, he
shared wonderful views on life and will continue to be an inspiration.

The first showroom I went into was Dessin Fournir Companies. They had an entire section of wall paper samples that took some time to look through. I wrote down a handful of product numbers I was interested in getting samples of. One of the most interesting product lines was by Rose Cumming, and thankfully the showroom associates were nice because I asked for a LOT of Rose Cumming product samples. A few of my favorite patterns included stars, and various flower prints.

Rose Cummings Josephine Wallpaper

Rose Cummings Galaxie Wallpaper

After realizing how many samples I had just picked up at only my first show room I took it easy at the next few places and only asked for samples I really liked or ones I knew Stacey would really like. But of course not soon after I walked into the STARK showroom and it was all over from there, they had an entire room dedicated to wallpaper, craziness. I was like a kid in a candy store, I wanted to look, touch and see everything, there was wallpaper made out of cork, suede, leather, hemp, and even random recycled materials. I also looked through a section categorized as novelty, that was an experience, I never realized the extent of artistic creativity a product like wallpaper could encompass. There was another section that included mixed fabrics, my favorite was a sample that had a pattern defined with purple velvet and another that had a patterned defined by raised cracks and folds.

STARK wallpaper Moreska

STARK wallpaper Brick

After visiting the STARK showroom I realized how heavy my samples bag was getting. When I got back to the office I took inventory on all the wallpaper samples I had collected. Even though there were plenty of other showrooms I could have also gone into, the selection of samples I had collected in under 2 hours was a pretty good start, and hey, who’s to say I can’t go back next week for another Merchandise Mart adventure !