Do you struggle with finding what you truly love vs. what you think you love because of current trends? It is a really common struggle for so many of us. I even deal with it myself. As we scroll through social media, we are thrown so many images for inspiration. I really love that about social media, however, I had to learn to find my own cozy style and what I truly loved vs. loving really pretty images. I have created some ground rules that really help me through my loves, trends, and fads. Because at the end of the day we want to make sure our true style shines through with touches of current trends and fads. Let’s dive into Tip #19 in my design book, Cozy White Cottage Seasons.
Your personal cozy style should be just that…personal! It is going to look different to everyone. I never want anyone to feel that their home should be an exact replica of mine, but I love offering inspiration to spark ideas of your own. I am going to share some simple steps that you can take and use as you journey out to find your own cozy style. My approach is to identify your cozy style, and make that your baseline. Once you establish your baseline cozy style, sprinkling in trendy elements. Those trendy elements will come and go but those baseline cozy style will always be there, so let’s get to how to find that baseline style.
Step 1:
Scroll and Save! Start either a Pinterest board or save them to your Instagram folders, or my favorite the old school way of cut-outs and moldboards. This is the fun part and should naturally take place over time. I do this digitally here on the blog from Tuesday Treasures, Scroll Stoppers, and Friday Fiends. I share that to inspire others, but also those are perfect examples of ways you create your own cozy style mood board.
Step 2:
Look at the photos and boards from step 1. Write down descriptive words that come to mind when looking at them! Take notes on what you love about the spaces you save. Truly assess and study all of the images. From there, you should be able to come up with some adjectives and key words that all of the images have. When I think of our home, I tend to think in phrases: cozy white, authentic antique, updated historic, cottage farmhouse, eclectic collections, French farmhouse. You can use key words like that to even search and expand your folders of inspiration. There is always a place for an old school handwritten journey to collect your thoughts. Jose and I have started keeping a few little collections of hand written notebooks, journals, and sketchbooks to brain dump and collaborate. What I love about doing this way is because panning throughs is all right there, keeping something on digital devices is awesome because its always with you, but my brain digitally loses stuff all-the-time. So in efforts of keeping it simple, this works best for us and I recommend people try it too!
Step 3:
Set boundaries for yourself! Don’t feel pressured to buy things just because they are on sale or you are seeing them in everyone’s home. Think about those descriptive words when purchasing items for your home (or really everything you purchase). For me, I really try to stick to a neutral color palette when it comes to both our home decor and even what I wear.
Finding your own cozy style won’t be an overnight achievement, and that is ok! I challenge you to tinker, play, and try new things! If it isn’t for you, try something else.What are key words that come to mind when you think about your own cozy style? I would love to hear on Facebook or Instagram and I invite you to join my Facebook Community Group to chat further about it there! Thanks for coming to another book club- see you tomorrow!
xx Liz Marie
