Lessons

Lesson Info

Course Introduction

Great pleasure to welcome back to creative life toby fairly as I said earlier this is the second of three courses that she's doing we're really excited to bring her back to creative life she founded toby fairly and associates of full design and consulting company a decade ago and it's through her brand and vision that she's really engaged the design community she's actually got some very interesting background she had to that degree in accounting she's got an mba so she brings a really unique vision to the way that design and business can co exist toby's awarding his eyes for high profile celebrity clients have been featured on tv they being featured in magazines all over the world and her blawg is currently read by one hundred twenty four countries across the world we're so excited to welcome about please welcome toby fairly I'm really great time it's a pleasure to have you back a creative life thank you social workers back now there's also a chat going on that you've been doing and g...

oogle hangout a swell annual sony will turner the editor in chief of house beautiful who happens to be a friend of mine so we had a great time hanging out on google together on we talked to that we touched on some of the topics and it was fun to hear his take to because he's the he sees everything that comes through the magazine, the trends and everything so we had a great time fantastical house beautiful is actually a co sponsoring this event and we're pleased to have them on board as well. Toby, I'm going to get out of the way I'm going to give you the quicker they can take it away. Welcome back to creating life. Thank you! Hi, everybody it's exciting to see such a great group here. Last time we were a little bit smaller groups so it's gonna be fun to have all of your input? And I think we've probably said this before, but I love this to be a conversation so that we don't take things too seriously and that's kind of the whole idea of this course on finding your designs that one of you said that you get kind of overwhelmed or are too attentive to details and you can't make decisions and that's what? I really hope that when she leave here in three days, you have a confidence to really embrace things that you love, knowing that I'm going to give you a lot of guidelines. But there's no hard, fast rule ls to how your design style should be that's the fun part we get to just decide it's our own home, it's you know, whatever kind of space we're living in, I said that's the really fun part and we're so what's your homes designed personality you know, why should I care about what my home design style personality is? Well, let's just kind of set the tone for that for just a couple of minutes and think about why is it really important for us to know what our designs style is? And I think some of you said this yourself already it keeps you from wasting a lot of money, buying a lot of things that maybe you get home and they just don't go together, right? So how many of us have spent years trying, tio, what I would call put band aids on our house? Because we're trying to make things work that don't work? Or maybe we should get rid of some things, or find a common thread with the things that we have in our house and make some decisions and that's what we're going to be able to do today, you get to decide exactly what goes in your house, but sometimes when I'm working with clients, I do say, you know, we need to make some decisions, maybe all these things can't go in one room, so hopefully, after you go through the course over the next three days, you'll be able to go home and look at all the things you own with a completely different set of eyes that you didn't have ever had before, a fresh approach to to really see in common themes and threads and making things work together in a great way so it saves you money right by understanding not only what works that you already have but not buying things that aren't going toe work when you get them home and a lot of us are not just designing spaces for ourselves. There are other people that live in our home spouses, partners, kids, roommates and other people, so there are other styles and other elements to take into account and we're going to teach you how to make those work together. It might also keep you from some of the impulse buys that you go out yes, particularly trends because over the next few days one of the things we're going to talk about it's what's trending what's trendy right now and whether or not you should purchase those sorts of things says sometimes we go I love of chevron or quattro foil or purple or whatever's out there, I'm going to buy it, but maybe we get home and it wasn't a great purchase for us. So hopefully after these next few days you'll be able to be a little much more mindful and stop some of those impulse purchases we want you to buy from the heart and things that you love but maybe make sure that there's going to be a place for them when you get home also, it's going to help you just play in a strategy for your home long term, because some of us, most of us I can't go out and buy everything that we've want right at one time, and I'm even going to teach you why that's not a great thing because you we don't want our house to look like we went to the local furniture showroom and brought everything home at one time it's not very interesting, and it doesn't in any way reflect our own personal style, right in our unique design personality, eh? So we're going to help you create a longer term strategy, which I think is going to be a good thing and it's really about going to be about cultivating a self awareness. So you said you love everything you like all kinds of styles, and we a lot of us do like a lot of different things, but you'll be surprised to know that if you put all of the things that you really love in a group, you would see more common threads that you think and you would start being able to get. Oh, actually, I don't like everything, but I like these three or four things, and I keep going back to those because most of us do we buy. From instinct, right, sal, you bath kind of from your good things that you see, when you love me by him, and most the time we're creatures of habit and we're buying similar things over and over. We'll be able to then identify on, give ourselves some, you know, confidence to keep building on that style which I think is a great thing. So we want you to have when you leave here, eh? New understanding of your style so you can go home and really polish up your home and make it reflect you even more than it has before. One of the things that when I was writing this content, everybody and creative live gets so excited when we start sending our power points and our content, and I love to see what people respond to. And one of the things that so many of the the team here responded to was when I started talking about your home should tell a story about you and the people who live in it, and even to take that a step further. We were talking yesterday where were the day before about how a lot of us go woman will tell a story, but when I'm grown up, or when, you know, have money to buy things that I really liked, and what I want you to think about is your story for your home starts right now, even if your budget isn't as big as you want it to be, or even if you know you're going to be collecting things over time, the story still starts right now, so making sure that you're thinking about that, that even if you're young or even if you're in an apartment, if you're not in your forever home, the things that you purchase, hopefully you're going to go with you. Hopefully every time you get in a new home, you're not going to say, I hate all of that stuff let's, throw it out and start over. We want you to be collecting and understanding your story all along the way, and so that's, one of the things that hopefully we're going to help you do this week, tio so that's why I should care. So why is it important? Well, design is self expression and that's the fun part. So you a lot of you get intimidated and go, is this what toby would do? Is this one of designer would do is this with the magazine with the and I love for you to look at those things to be inspired or look at what I'm doing to be inspired but really it needs to be fun for you interest you were saying you loved I left how confident she was she is I didn't hire designer I did all of this by myself and I'm really happy with the way it turned out that zoo exactly what we want everybody to feel like about their own home whether you hired a professional or not and you worked as a team you still at the end of the day want to go this really is an expression of me and my family and the people who live here so that's one reason that it's really important you want to live in a place that feels like you right? You don't want to tell you don't wanna walk in a space I design and go oh this feels like toby you want a designer or yourself to help you create a space that feels like you and the people who lived there most people go and can't walk into my own homes the photograph we used for the cover of the last sculler siri's with all the orange and black was about my family room in my last house and I get so many comments about that and when people come into the space the first thing they always say is it's so comfortable in here I feel like I could really relax and here and that is a real compliment to me because I'm going to tell you over the next few days what my design style is not going to tell you yet, but one of the things that really my style and bodies is a southern sensibility I'm a southern girl I like to nurture people and it's his such a compliment to me that when people come in my house they think it feels comfortable like they could hang out there because that's really what I'm going for and that's what I want my family to feel like two so you will be able to learn what is that about you? What are those feelings and emotions and gold is that you want your house tohave on dh you can really use things elements furniture, upholstery, paying all sorts of things to help create that kind of atmosphere s so that it really support you and even inspires you when you get up every day. I just moved into a new house about three months ago, I think and I had dinner with one of my designer friends last night or the night before and he was laughing because I've been showing the before pictures on my block and he was there but it needs a lot of work and it's really funny some moved from this really beautiful space that inspired me every single morning and now I'm living in a space it's fires me in a completely different way to go work really hard, eh? So I can get this one, you know, up to par, but he could. I believe that a police said, I'm kind of horrified and delighted that you put those before pictures out there, but, you know, it's, it's a process and it's going to be fun, and I want to feel about my new house, like I felt about my old house in the mornings when I get up, I want to look around and think it's, beautiful and it's relaxing and it's inspiring. So what are those things going to be free? You even you might write down over the next few days? What are some of the feelings and emotions you want to feel in your own space? Because we can create those three year design stop, I think it's, toby and I, we were chatting the other day, and I was saying that one of my many failed relationships with the interior designer, but I felt that it was because it wasn't really my space right for that reason so it's very interesting, though, but I was very comfortable with the design, but it's interesting how you do adopt other people's designs on their own design, I think. Esthetic right? So you felt like you were living in someone else's house sort of our that eventually I began began to become my style because I really I was very comfortable in the environment and I really, really liked it, but it it's interesting how you can sort of absorb other people's thoughts you can and, you know, it's education and exposure to things helps you develop your own style as well. So I think about people who worked for me or people that I worked for is a designer and the things that I took away from their style in it's the same thing each of you are doing it, and I often try to teach people that it's not going to be fun to go out and copy what you see in a magazine what a designer does even other designers look att at other designers work it's not about replicating a ring, but it's about looking and understanding and seeing the details and seeing which ones resonate with you and bring those into your home. So you might even just be that you look at a room and you go, oh, I love that that sofa is a skirted sessa and all of mine are leggy, and maybe I didn't realize I needed some softness and that might be the only thing you take away from that inspiration photo you're not you know, copying, but you're just being inspired by so we'll talk a lot about that and help you to kind of develop that keen eye for understanding on we're going to look at a lot of rooms over the next few days, so we're going to be covering as I said, we're going to talk about trends, we're going to talk, we're going to cover some of my favorites friends that are designers and some that aren't my friends, that air style icons and see what they have brought to the table for us to be inspired by. We're going to take a quiz in just a few minutes and see if you can decide from the four categories that we created, what style you are, which is going to be fun and then on the third day, we're going to talk about where to buy the things that we've decided that you need in your home, so the whole shopping smart so that you know, okay, I know who I am, I've decided what my style is and I know it's missing in my house because I want to hit these feelings or emotions that I've written down where do I go get that stuff? So we're going to talk about all of those things and it's going to be really fun? So one thing to keep in mind your style is going to change as you get older, as you mature, or even just as jake was saying, as you're exposed to other things, it's not just about age sometimes, but it takes time, so I want you to think about starting to tell your story now, but knowing your story today is not going to be what your story looks like later, we were kind of joking about that. Do you think about your life story? You don't just pick one tiny little moment, it's, all it's about everything that happens in your life that tells your life story? Well, that's, really the same thing for your home? So when you travel and pick things up that you love, or when you are introduced to a new material or fabric, or you get educated in an area like antiques or something, and you start bringing those into your life so you don't have to know everything right now to start embracing things that you love, and it will become more and more interesting and more and more a reflection of you as the years go by. And as you continue to refine what this looks like, so on, but can change with your lifestyle. So that's kind of what jake was saying to you, it might be that when you're younger for a number of reasons, maybe you don't have the money to invest when you're younger but maybe just haven't been exposed to things just life experience sometimes has a great impact on our style or maybe you get a new job maybe you used to work in corporate america and you move into the arts and you're suddenly exposed to all kinds of things you never knew before that could greatly impact your style it's fun but don't get nervous about it just let it be fluid so the whole idea he idea here is to be relax and open and we're gonna have a good time and knowing that each person style is going to really be their own way have some great projects from our students which is fantastic they will see very keen and you know we were designing yourself and you know what's interesting is we do have people we have andrew ji joining us from poland and yes men in cameron should the u k so I think what also be interesting will be perhaps different stars of design depending on location absolutely are round understand different things where have you say cambridge I said cambridge should sure sure sure wait if we can't confuse people over the next three days with a british accent sent an australian accent and a southern accent way honestly would be a miracle of anybody if this translates on them they've got yes man and mariana as well from mexico in turkey's we've got the full monty doing a full monty. Oh, morty means good don't mean what you think of me inside, that that makes this whole course even more important, puts it all into context that there's so many options, depending on where you live. It's is geographic, it's, it's, everything, it's, there's, so much that encompasses your personal style, your heritage, you know, all sorts of things, so that's going to be fun for us to look at over the next few days.