One Love: White Pottery

Nothing looks more fresh than bright white pottery. We especially like to mix matte and glossy whites with glass and silver. No matter what your budget is, you can find the right white piece for you.

For example, all of the vessels shown in the grouping below are available at West Elm, and prices start as low as $10 for the small bud vases.

If you're ready to make more of an investment, Jonathan Adler is a great source for fun, funky shapes and textures. We have the Pinch bowl and the Belly Vase on our coffee table.

And for a different look, on our console we've grouped the Platinum Abacus vase from Jonathan Adler, a tall textural white vase from Room Service, and a CB2 black-and-white vase (no longer available). They are a good complement to our Geneva sound system.

There are many other options for incorporating white into your styling -- look for white arts-and-crafts pottery (like the McCoy piece below) or vintage white enamel pitchers at flea markets. These look great next to more modern pieces.

Ikea offers three sizes of white enamel pitchers for bargain prices.  Just fill with some bright orange gerber daisies and you're all set.

Decorating with Books

Despite all the cool e-readers and tablets that have popped up in the last few years, nothing can replace a real, paper-and-cardboard book. If you look around our homes and office it's easy to see how much we love books. This can become a decorating problem -- how do you organize and store your books without bringing clutter into your space?

Sometimes the best thing to do is just embrace the different colors and sizes of your books and let them play a part in an eclectic, haphazard and lively decorating scheme, as in this photo from an anthropologie catalog:

                           You can also play around with the colors of your book spines, grouping them together by color or contrasting the brights against the more neutral. In this fun space from HouseBeautiful, a stack of colorful books really pops against this fabulous black-and-white book wallpaper!

And neutral books look great when combined with other white, tan and silver objects inside this white cupboard.

(image via TineK via decor8)

We always incorporate books in Visual Jill decorating projects -- stacked up as a perch for other objects, or placed strategically to bring just the right color to a certain spot.

Don't overlook the decorating power of a book!

Mad about Tangerine Tango

Pantone's 2012 Color of the Year -- Tangerine Tango -- has been making quite a splash in the design world.

Here at Visual Jill, we've always loved this vibrant orange-red -- just look at our logo, above. Last week we were so inspired that we actually painted our dining room wall Benjamin Moore's Orange (2011-10).  It adds such energy to the room!

Of course, our affection for orange doesn't stop there! We restyled our couch with some new pillows too.

(Gold, orange and black/white pillows from CB2, Faces pillow from Erica Tanov, orange side table from CB2)

And elsewhere . . . we've infused some Tango into our entryway via pillows, artwork, a throw and a scarf . . .

(Pillows from CB2 and BoConcept)

. . . and brought the brightness to our kitchen through a new teapot and our favorite barstools!

(Tea kettle from Le Creuset, Jam Lift barstools from KCC Living)

The Tangerine Tango craze is showing up all over the blogosphere and print publications. Last Sunday's San Francisco Chronicle Style section focused on the hue, and the Note to Self blog pulled together a sampling of tangerine goodies too.

We're so glad the world is embracing this sunny, optimistic color. We think it's here to stay!

Diamonds are a decorator's best friend

Bold graphic diamond patterns are hot in the home decorating world right now. The British Ideal Home magazine called out this trend in its November 2011 issue, and we're now seeing diamonds everywhere.

We just purchased the frizzle pillow from CB2 -- and we love how it looks next to our funky retro diamond flea market lamp.

We also love the Chicago building prints from CB2, featuring abstract photographs of famous architecture from the windy city that look like geometric shapes.

Over at West Elm, the Souk Rug and the Embroidered Diamond Links pillow offer other interpretations of the diamond trend.

We say -- invest in diamonds this winter!