Save The Date!

Thursday, June 21, 2012

12:00 noon

GTA West Chapter season finale at Il Fornello, Oakville

More information to come.

Janette Ewen at SOFA

April 3, 2012

"Stuck in a Design Rut" with Janette Ewen

A very inspirational visit was had by all recently at SOFA with a
standing room only presentation from Canadian Stylist Janette Ewen. Best known for her regular appearances on City Line, and more recently co-hosting HGTV's 'Inside the Box' with Ty Pennington,  Janette discussed the top trends in home decor, and  where to look for inspiration to develop and maintain a creative mind.

She shared her inspirations, from travels around the world, to walks in her neighbourhood, and included some sites to find and organize ideas.
http://www.houzz.com/
http://pinterest.com/
http://www.sweetspot.ca/SweetHome/janette_ewen/page/1/

Thanks to SOFA for organizing this event, it truly was inspirational, and a pleasure to meet Janette.

Speers Road Broadloom Event in April 2012

GTA West at Speers Road Broadloom

Many CDECA decorators attended an event at Speers Road Broadloom entitled 'Hands On' Installation and gained extremely valuable knowledge.

Carl French from Speers Road Broadloom organized a professional flooring trainer to attend. His name is Dave Adams. He is a real specialist that works with a number of flooring products.   We we given information on the newest in vinyl flooring; Polypropelene Carpets and how easy they are to live with as well as wood step covers. 

 

 

 

 As in the past Carl arranged for lovely refreshments provided by Janna French-Kugler of SPECA Marketing and Event Planning.www.specsplanning.com 

 Thanks to Carl for arranging to have his suppliers on hand for this informative evening.

Gardening Tips for Decorators

A Good Time Was Had by All

All eyes were forward in eager anticipation as some 50 plus decorators and designers watched the designers of Sheridan Nurseries perform their magic. No one was disappointed.        

The SOFA Spring Container Design Seminar was packed with information and tips for successful container gardening. Proper drainage, enriched potting mix, slow release fertilization, and proper watering all contribute to success. The perfect container, the thrillers, fillers and spillers, all customized, create the complete design.

Thank you so much to SOFA and to the inspiring designers from Sheridan Nurseries. I know this decorator made a detour to Sheridan Nurseries on the way home to set up my Corporate Account, which entitles me to 20% discount off regular retail price. Happy gardening fellow decorators.

The month of April brought us to our CDECA Annual General Meeting and once again our meeting was held at the Estates of Sunnybrook in Toronto.  Attendees enjoyed two professional development seminars, a fabulous lunch and great networking with peers and affiliates as well as the Awards Presentations to our Winners of the 2012 Design Competition. As well as all the fun there was the business of our general meeting and the National Board of Directors for 2012 - 2013 were duly elected.
If not for the generosity of our wonderful affiliates we would not have had such a successful day.  Many thanks to all who supported this event.   All in all a great day for everyone.

Karl Lohnes spoke on the topic of 'Following Your Instincts, Not The Trends

Fawn Cheng spoke on the topic of 'How to use Acient Wisdom in Modern Colour & Design

GTA West Goes to the Hamilton Home Show

On the weekend of March 9th - 11th, we had 12 members of the GTA West Chapter of CDECA participate in The Greater Hamilton Home Show.    Planning started months ago when we checked out several local venues throughout the GTA West and the decision to participate in this particular show was twofold – we were given an excellent booth cost and they were rolling out a new area entitled “Designers Walk” where the main exhibits would be design/décor related.  Along with our organization there were indoor and outdoor exhibits with different décor items displayed and available for purchase.

Prior to the show everyone was asked how they wanted the booth to be designed and coincidentally all were in agreement of a colourful, nature inspired/organic look:

In promoting the show, the management in turn was promoting CDECA with print ads, brochures, social media and signage which all included our Logo.  There was also an opportunity to highlight CDECA and what we do through a TV interview with CHCH TV.

We actually participated in two booths.  We created a lovely booth with all the bright and sunny colours of spring and summer along with an organic theme.  We approached some of our affiliates and they were generous enough to provide furniture, custom carpeting, custom table and many accessories and art which really made our booth amazing.  We received many positive comments.  We were promoting our own businesses as well as CDECA and had a video running of past winners of our Design Contest.

Secondary to this we assisted the venue in their “Ask a Decorator” booth where there again, was more advertising of our organization’s participation.

All in all it was a positive experience and some of our decorators gained clients from this event and we brought CDECA’s name forward as the place to “find a great decorator”.