Description

We have been talking a lot about ways to cut back on spending this holiday season-and a lot of people think one great way to save is with the decor. Lifestyle expert, Susie Coelho, says you have to put your creativity to the test, and she is here to show us how.

Transcript

Host: You know, we’ve been talking about a lot about ways to cut back on spending this holiday season and a lot of people think that one great way to save is with the décor. But how do you do that without looking like your scrimping on getting in the spirit. Lifestyle expert Suzy Qualo is here. She says that you’ve got to put your creativity to the test and she’s here really to show us how and you’re not kidding. You’re literally showing us. Suzy: I’m not kidding because now, everybody’s cutting back, cutting back, economizing. We’re all feeling kind of cramped and like we can’t buy anything, can’t do anything. We’re feeling sort of really just tightened up here. Host: But one of the things you say is we really have just to button down and say, what are your resources, what are your skills and be honest about that. Suzy: I really think people should expand this holiday season because it’s a time to be creative and that’s what we love to do during the holidays so I’m just going to show you a few ideas. Now we all know that the natural look, in fact, we were in Central Park yesterday walking. We arrived from L.A. and went through Central Park which I love and this is exactly the color palette that we saw. It’s a natural harvest palette. If anybody’s having trouble pulling together a palette, they can just walk outside, generally to their outdoors and see what the leaves are doing. We have the mango colors which you can see in Central Park, those beautiful yellow leaves. We’ve got persimmons and apple type colorations and we’ve got the pinecones and the nature which is really indicative of the branches. So when you’re looking for sort of a style and you want to go with a natural sort of eco look, this would be the look you would go with. I think we sort of see here that there’s a few things that are really hot this season as far as trends. One of them is battery operated candles. Now, this particular one is wax so it just looks like a candle. You can see it’s battery operated. Host: I’ve seen these a lot too and it’s great. Suzy: Yes. LED technology and it’s scented. Host: Okay so it still does smell. I like that. Suzy: So it’s really fun. All you have to do and I do this with my nine-year-old. Everyday, we have candles laid out on the table and we just go like honey, light the candles and she flicks the switch and the great thing about this is look, you don’t want this stuff to be flammable and when you’re tucking something in and amongst branches and leaves and things that are dry, this way, you don’t have to worry about it if this goes over and it’s easy and it’s efficient. Host: And that goes with one of your other points which you say lighting is really the key. It sets the mood. Suzy: I think it totally sets the mood and I think that this lit at night, you can see how beautiful this would be. Host: Now, let’s go over to this other section here too. This is a totally different theme? Suzy: Totally different. Now, what this is, is I’m showing a little bit more contemporary sensibility. I took this cornucopia that I bought at a craft store and I spray painted it just with spray paint and gold. Host: Look at Suzy go. I like that. Suzy: And I’m not even that crafty, believe it or not. I’m a lifestyle expert and I do all this but I don’t love too many little little things. But I could certainly spray paint that and then what I’ve done is I’ve taken these elements that you can get and again at any craft store. This is actually from my collection but—and I designed this particularly because I want people to be able to get a lot of items and be able to use them in unusual ways. So normally, you would think, this is just supposed to be stuck in a vase but look, I’ve used it as a filler for a cornucopia and all I did and this took me literally four minutes. I put this in. I just tweaked these things. I added this one. I just, you know, they come like this in a package. You just ruche these down. I even used it right here to make sort of like a little tree effect. It’s like just get creative. Host: Suzy, before we go, we have a few seconds left, texture, why is that so important? Suzy: Texture is really, really important, whether it’s shape or whether it’s arrangement or whether it’s texture and the shiny, and I love the shiny next to the burlap. I’ve used a burlap base here which you can get at any craft store and the beautiful sort of linen overlay so really use textures and you can see how the look and the feel of all of this like textural is really what creates the look. Host: Thanks so much Suzy. And you heard Suzy talking about her products, you can get more information on them just by going to our website, bettertv.com and then clicking on the links tab.