And welcome to your new (or your first!) issue of Dream Home Decorating News. This month's issue is about easy ways to freshen up your home with small-but-powerful color changes.

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Thanks for joining me today, and enjoy this issue!
Renate Hering-Shepherd

PS) If the newsletter is difficult to read as an e-mail,
read this issue online.

1. 'Instant' Makeover Idea: Quick Creative Color Accent
2. Your Color Questions: Illustrated Project Ideas
3. New Before & After Stories
4. 2011 Color Of The Year: Honeysuckle
5. Legal Stuff

'Instant Makeover' Idea:
Quick Creative Color Accent

Small, quick and easy shifts in the color mood of your home require no big investments, but they do pack a punch!

All you need to give your home a New-Year color boost is

• a largeish canvas (or a slab of wood/MDF/chipboard),
• a brush, and
• some paint, e.g. acrylic or wall paint.

Even if you don't think of yourself as 'artsy', just go ahead and splash some paint color of your choice onto the canvas of your choice ... it will definitely look great ;-)

A single-color canvas will give your home a fresh new accent, without interfering too much with your decor. You can combine it with photographs or color prints, framed or unframed, or just display it on an otherwise bare wall (as above).

If you're feeling adventurous, you could mix several hues of your chosen color, or experiment with grouping or layering your paints. It's great fun, and the results are worth it!

Alternatively, try your hand at gilding:

You don't need real gold leaf: any high-quality metal foil, or even decorative metal paint, will give you a shimmering panel that doubles beautifully as a background for candlelight, e.g. on a mantelpiece - perfect for those long dark evenings!

As an added bonus, gilded panels will give your home a wonderfully "rich" look, all at very little cost.

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Your Color Questions:
Illustrated Project Ideas

Color questions continue to pour in, and here are the most recent ones to have made it into the pages of Dream Home Decorating:

• Dave's kitchen/dinette needs a more varied color scheme
• Melanie is wondering how to brighten a dark dining room
• Sandy wants to pretty up a very bare new façade
• Giulia bought the "wrong" sofa for her family room, and
• Kathy is looking for a color that will make her front door 'pop'.

Of course, there are more color questions for you to browse, as well as a list of great color combinations and a brand new article about creating successful color schemes.

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New Before & After Projects

Several Dream Home Decorators have sent their recent Before-and-After pictures and stories.

Wanasai (Australia) shares the adventure of her "extreme makeover":

• The dreadful initial state & makeover plan for her little town house
• The design problems that needed solving, and
• The 'Stand Back and Duck the Flying Plaster' stage - new doors, windows & a corridor to let in the light!

Risa (Canada) has given her living room a new, fresh and inviting look, and Sharon (USA) has treated her home to a merciless clutter purge and some truly dramatic color changes, because, well, grey just doesn't cut it any more ;-)

Have you recently completed a makeover, too? Do tell!
We look forward to hearing from you!

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Pantone Color Of The Year: Honeysuckle

The Pantone Color Institute, arguably the world's best-known color company, has announced Honeysuckle (or rather, Pantone 18-2120) as "color of the year".

What does this mean for YOUR interior decorating projects?

• If you don't like the color ... just ignore :-)

• If you do like the color, you'll probably find that it's currently more readily available - so you may want to use the opportunity to complete a few projects while you have a glut of this warm pink color around.

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Legal Stuff