colorful conversations

Archive for the ‘Inspiration’ Category

• 02.10.10 

  Dare to live colorfully

  We DARE you. Go ahead, defy the social norm. Dare to live colorfully. Here at Company C, we challenge ourselves every day. It’s easy to get caught up in mundane day-to-day activities. It’s hard to put down your Blackberry. Time eludes us all. We know. That’s why we dare you to unearth and truly embrace Colorful Living.

  

  Sara Joncas - Create Your Own Adventure

  In January, we announced a Facebook contest asking you, our fans, to post a photo and short description illustrating what Colorful Living means to you. What a refreshing few weeks we’ve had here at Company C! Through reading your posts, we reaffirmed that we all share the same vision–to be inspired by the joys of Colorful Living every chance we can. Thank you for being so bold!

  All that said, it was very difficult to choose a winner because there were so many uplifting responses. Not to mention that Colorful Living is meant to be personal; each one of us sees the world through a different lens and has a different outlook on life. Our focus was on the posts that embodied Colorful Living as a lifestyle. So, drum roll please…

  

  Mary Kate Goodwin-Kelly - Go out on a Limb

  The winner of the 6′ x 9′ rug of choice is Sara Joncas, who believes “Colorful living is… Creating your own adventure.”

  And drum roll again…so many posts were so inspiring that we couldn’t help but choose runners up, who will receive a 2′ x 3′ accent rug of choice:

  Mary Kate Goodwin-Kelly “Living colorfully entails going out on a limb every once in a while.”

  

  Brenda - Energy for Creativity

  Brenda “Every day, I have authentic color in my life. I am an art teacher of young children. Through their artwork and their energy for creativity, I am happily surrounded by color!”

  Make Colorful Living your standard. We dare you.

  Have ideas for future Facebook contests? Post your ideas on our wall at www.facebook.com/colorfulliving.

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• 02.04.10 

  What is Colorful Living?

  Our tag line at Company C is “designs for Colorful Living.” We’re often asked how did we come up with this statement?

  Just before starting Company C, Walter and I listened to a cassette tape —Live Your Dreams by Les Brown. We both love design, love business and love to travel… so how could we live our dreams—and create a business out of them?

  I can remember listening to the tape as if it were yesterday. Our son Alex was 6 months old (he’ll be 17 next month!) and we were traveling in our white Isuzu Trooper on our way to our family cottage in western Massachusetts with our golden retriever, Major, happily catching air out the window. We listened intently to the tape and were very inspired…that trip set in motion our dream to create our business—Company C!

  Walter and I both love adventure. Traveling. Living in the great outdoors. Skiing in the Rockies. Kayaking on Frenchman’s Bay in Maine. Cooking fabulously colorful meals (Walter). Mixing paints by the ocean (me—and trying to make a painting out of them!). And we share these adventures with our two teenage sons, friends and family. So living colorfully needed to be an important part of our business.

  We love color and it’s our signature at Company C. Our design team experiments with many color combinations every day. We add adventure to the combinations, always keeping them fresh.

  Colorful Living has a double entendre for us! So…Dream…with your mind soaring to the sky, imagine what you can create.

  What’s Colorful Living mean to you?

  Chris & Walter Chapin

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• 01.08.10 

  Here’s to a Colorful New Year full of colorful possibilities…

  

  We announced a Facebook contest a couple of weeks ago, challenging our customers and fans to share their colorful New Years resolutions with us. We had an outpouring of wonderful responses! It was extremely difficult to select a winner so we decided to have one grand prize winner with three additional runners up. So here goes…

  The 4′6 x 6′6 rug of choice goes to Heather Hilton who resolves to… “look around my life and find positive things in everything I do. I will remember to be amazed at the love around me and not dwell on the negative.”

  Runners up who will receive a 2′ x 3′ accent rug include these inspiring individuals….

  Pamela Talbot Syverson
  I resolve not to make any resolutions whatsoever. Because every day is a new beginning – to discover, explore, learn something new, let go of yesterday, rearrange my life. And I won’t be disappointed if I don’t keep a resolution because I just start all over again tomorrow.

  Mary Martin Keller
  I resolve to not fear color, but to use it with abandon!

  Debra Prescott
  I resolve to lighten up and have more fun this year.

  And we would like to give a honorable mention to Vicki Ginsburg. We all felt her poem needed to be published for all to read because it is amazingly creative! Thank you, Vicki!

  

  I have a “prototype” by Company C,
  That truly makes my room,
  My wish this year is to be rich enough,
  To have my whole house bloom!

  I dream and plan that Tuileries
  Will grace my parlor floor;
  But Maison and Brittany Blue had been on my mind
  For a very long time before….

  

  I delight in all the florals…

  the petal, the leaf, the plume.

  To be surrounded with such beauty

  Is more than I can presume.

  Rise and Shine each morning
  Will greet me by my door;
  And the garden of colorful Giverny
  always makes my spirits soar~

  

  So now, my Dear Company C,
  Please bring me this visual perfume.
  And please do not ever tell me
  That it will require me having a groom!

  My pocketbook is meager
  (Oh, I hate to be a bore);
  Show kindness to this faithful Fan
  And send Love straight from your Store!

  Check out our Facebook page for more colorful resolutions! www.facebook.com/colorfulliving

  We’re a fan of Facebook contests so any ideas, please throw them our way! We have some ideas for Mother’s Day, Birthdays, etc….but we need more fun contests so let’s hear it.

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• 12.22.09 

  Living in the future!

  I can’t believe another design season is quickly coming to an end. We’re shooting our Fall 2010 collection this week and yet it feels as though we just started our design concept boards days ago.

  What I find most satisfying is pulling the look together at the photo shoot. I love how our initial design concepts of the collections come to fruition in our room shots. The process can sometimes feel like giving birth—one forgets about the agonizing pain after we see a beautiful baby! At photo shoot, I forget about some of the frustrations–design prototypes being approved and the photo sample coming in a few shades lighter, prototypes arriving later than promised and furniture made the wrong way. But when it all comes together at the shoot, it’s fabulous and the fun begins—playing with rugs, pillows, throws, colorful chairs and beautiful flowers. What could be more exciting!

  I’m so lucky to shoot with a such great team—Joe Lamere our photographer and his assistant Nancy Belluscio, Paul Newman our stylist and Frank Higham, owner of a landscape business in season, but filling in as our trusted prop supervisor and furniture relocation specialist…and all at Company C. We have a lot of fun despite the amount of ironing, dusting, vacuuming and moving, and not to mention the occasional rust blop from the iron on a delicate silk pillow that shows up right in front of the lens!

  All in all, we took a lot of great shots of our Fall 2010 collection from the 150 year old Historic Holt-Chase house. We lost daylight early since we’re close to the shortest day of the year, but what we did get was nice perspectives–great built-ins and architectural details as backdrops for our living, dining and bed rooms.

  Can’t wait to share these with you soon. In the meantime, Happy Holidays!

  Chris Chapin

  Design & Creative Director

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• 12.18.09 

  Tuscan White Bean Holiday Dip/Soup

  Winter is the perfect time to be in the mountains gliding through fresh powder, or strolling the shops looking for the local bakery. When it’s time to come in doors nothing is better than a smooth and savory dish to warm you head to toe. You may want to try my Tuscan White Bean recipe. It smells so good on the stove, everyone loves it and it’s easy to make. Think rosemary, sage and garlic.

  This perennial favorite is great when entertaining or any time.  And with a little more Chicken stock, the dip can easily be made into a soup.   Share it and enjoy!

  Cheers, – Walter

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• 11.02.09 

  Dedicated to a world without breast cancer….

  Our first-time Passion for Pink event was very successful! We would like to thank all of you who participated; as a result of your support Company C will be making a donation of nearly $40,000 to benefit Susan G. Komen for the Cure®. For two-days, Company C donated 15% of sales from our website; three retail stores in Hingham, MA, Portland, ME and Concord, NH; national base of wholesale customers; and our tradeshow in High Point, NC to benefit national and local breast cancer awareness, research and education.

  We had customers coming in because of our “color with a cause” theme, and they were drawn into our space because of the interactive board and color pink. Reading all of the quotes on the interactive board was extremely inspirational. Customers paid tribute to loved ones, signed their names, posted quotes, etc.

  We worked with Becky Burke, chair of the Komen VT-NH Race for the Cure.  We were very excited to call her with the results. Seventy-five percent of the donation will be dedicated to local community breast cancer education, treatment and screening programs. So the donation will make a real impact in both New Hampshire and Vermont.. The remaining twenty-five percent will go to the national Susan G. Komen for the Cure Grants Program to fund breast cancer research. For more information about Susan G. Komen for the Cure, breast health or breast cancer, visit www.komen.org or call 1.800.IMAWARE.

  To see more photos from the event, please visit our facebook page at www.facebook.com/colorfulliving.

  Dedicated to a world without breast caner – Susan G. Komen for the Cure®.

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• 10.30.09 

  The Colors of Autumn…

  We just love the colors of New England autumns…Why not bring them indoor. Here are a few inspirational combinations…our colorful Rise and Shine rug in Marigold paired with a sofa in Pickering Stripe Goldenrod, our Camden swivel glider in Village Toile Moss, topped off with Thicket pillows capturing the deep reds of maple trees. 

  Prescott Park rug in colorful bursts of warm autumn colors paired with Lucetta Marigold, Village Toile Wheat and a few Prescott Park pillows.

  Read the rest of this entry »

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• 10.19.09 

  A Pet-Inspired Holiday…

  We recently launched a collection of holiday pillows and accent rugs. The majority of the products in the collection are inspired by pets, more specifically by dogs. Not being a dog-owner myself, I went to the design team to learn more about the inspiration behind this new collection. I probably should note that all four members of the design team are dog owners.

  Here are the comments that I received when asking why they’re so inspired by their dogs. We’d love to hear your feedback as well! Are you inspired by your pet? Tell us about it! Read the rest of this entry »

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• 10.14.09 

  Share your passion for pink!

  We recently announced that we’ll donating 15% of ALL sales on October 17 & 18 to breast cancer awareness, education and advocacy. Our goal is to contribute funding for research that could improve the diagnosis and treatment of cancer. This life-threatening disease continues to have an impact across the globe and here at home. We’re inspired to find new and innovative ways to get involved as we dream of a world without cancer.

  To publicly show our support, our retail stores and showroom in High Point, NC will display an interactive message board during the month of October. The boards were unveiled today! We’re inviting everyone to share the passion of pink…our guests are encouraged to write on the wall: a tribute to a close friend or family member, your own personal story, a donation in your name to a terrific cause or what pink means to you. If you’re unable to make it to a Company C retail location or the High Point, simply respond to this blog post and we’ll write the message on your behalf.

  We’ll also be promoting our Sachi Pink 2×3 accent rug. This rug is available year-round with 20% of the sale of each rug going to support breast cancer.

  For those interested in learning more about breast cancer, please visit one of the following web sites. If there are additional sites that you’d like to share, please let us know.

  http://www.komen.org/
  http://www.cancer.org/docroot/CRI/CRI_2x.asp?sitearea=LRN&dt=5
  http://www.nationalbreastcancer.org/
  http://www.nbcam.org/
  http://www.breastcancerawareness.com/

  Thank you for your support,
  The team at Company C

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• 08.19.09 

  Freedom to Create!

  Freedom to Create!

  What powerful words…the philosophy and tag line of the MacDowell Colony in Peterborough, NH.

  The MacDowell Colony was founded over 100 years ago by Edward and Marian MacDowell – its mission “to nurture the arts by offering creative individuals of the highest talent an inspiring environment in which to produce enduring works of the imagination.” Read the rest of this entry »

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