Hello! Welcome to episode 50 of I’d Rather Stay In. In this episode, we sit down with our friend Susannah Brinkley Henry (@feastandwest) to talk all about color theory.

Quick links

Susannah’s drawing Instagram: @huequeue

Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes by Eleanor Coerr

Episode transcript

Welcome to I’d rather stay in the podcast for cozy introverts. We’re your hosts Stephie Predmore

and Megan Myers.

This week’s episode color theory.

Hey, Megan. Hello. How’s it going?

pretty cold. Actually, it’s cold today.

Chilly. I don’t know today. I felt chillier than the other day that was colder than today.

Welcome to the Midwest. I know it’s I think it did feel a little chillier today, just because it wasn’t particularly like it wasn’t sunny. It was trying to be a little drizzly. So that always makes it feel a little bit colder than it is. But I know I know your boys are like what is happening?

Well, actually in Minnesota, it’s snowed and stuck today. Who Yes. And my in laws since picture of their backyard, which they always do when it snows. And Max was all like, no fair.

Just really wants to know and I was like, you don’t want snow in October, man. There’s plenty of time, but

by February you won’t want the snow anymore. So Exactly. Hang in there kid. Oh, funny. Funny. Well, today. Eden started crawling. So I guess I should start baby proofing.

I guess. I mean, we did minimal baby proofing with my kids. Let’s be real. That’s probably what it will be here too. Yeah. I mean, you. What did we do? I think we put the we put the little plug covers on. Mm hmm. And

I think that’s mostly it.

I was gonna get some locks for the kitchen cabinets.

Yeah, we did like to cabinet things. But to be honest, I think we had them on that already, because the cats would open up the cabinet

inside. So they were already cat proofed. Right, which happens to be the same as baby proofing. Yeah. And then I need to get a couple baby gates. I have some baby gates because we have dogs. But I need to get like a couple more because we live in an old house with two sets of stairs from stairs and back stairs, which means there’s extra extra stairways you have to block off to keep her from tumbling her little button down them. So I guess we’ll be making a target run in the near future to do those things because I sent you a video and she was like crawling on the carpet. And you’re like, well, this is just on the carpet and the rugs. And Ed was like hold my beer and then she was crushed. And she was like I can do it on the hardwood too. I was like oh, yep. Okay, we’re screwed. There we go.

Well, you are here on Sunday for our taco Palooza. And she was trying real hard, so she

wouldn’t be long.

She’s been she’s been ready for a while. So I actually think she will be happier now that she can like be on the move. But Whoa, boy, she’s gonna be keeping us on our toes. She also I pretty sure I heard her say data tonight as well. So she was just like pulling out all the stops tonight. And I was like, I need you to go to bed because I can’t handle one more thing.

She will probably sleep very hard after all of that. I mean, she seemed like she was getting tired. So I was like,

go to bed tonight. Because I can’t handle you possibly saying another new word. or doing another new trick. I can only handle so many things. When they’re

when they’re that young. It is kind of hard to tell to sometimes because when they’re trying to talk and you’re like, did they see it? Or are they just mumbling?

I know. She was like it was a very she was definitely trying to say something. Alex interestingly thought she was she trying to say Anya and I thought she was saying data. And it was a little hard to tell what she was trying to say but she was definitely It was like a distinct like trying to say something. So she was definitely working on a new word. We just are in a slight disagreement about what it was. I thought it was funny because I was like she’s saying it cuz he was really bummed at her first word was Mama. And then he’s like, see data and then she like kind of did. He’s like, I think she said Anya, like okay, but whatever. Sorry, the gift horse in the mouth.

sorry to tell you dude, that it’s pretty much always Mama.

Amy then it’s fine. Okay, so yeah, this was no fear. Just gonna be baby proofing and on my toes for the rest of my life

this weekend. We are talking about color theory. And that is a concept that I’ve been interested in for a while. And it just so happens that we have a friend who shares this interest. Please welcome to the pod our friend and co worker Susannah Brinkley Hendry.

Hi, guys.

Hi, Susannah. Welcome. Thanks for having me. We’re so excited to have you here. So tell us about yourself.

I am a graphic designer, which you know, because I work with both of you. I live in Charlotte, North Carolina, and I’ve lived here pretty much my whole life. I’m native Charlottean. And that is our fun name that we call ourselves.

Just to say I wouldn’t have guessed the name.

Yeah, it’s not charlatan, it’s Charlottean. It’s very specific.

It’s funny.

Yes, so I am a graphic designer. I have a food blog. I just a general and creative person. I make lots of cocktails to share my blog. I haven’t made one in a while though. So maybe not the best cocktail food bloggers lately, but in there. I mean, you’re talking

to two people. Well, Megan has recently updated her blog. I have not.

I mean, it was a post that. So I took photos for an April and I posted it this month. So it was I wouldn’t call it an accomplishment. You’re all doing you know what we’re all doing? Great. We have full

time jobs. Yeah, what’s happening also, you’re doing Inktober this month, which I was

made to pick it back up again.

we’ll link to Susannah’s Instagram account for that, because it is pretty fun. As well as her food blog account for you guys in the show notes and on our Instagram, because you should check her out. She has all sorts of fun colors on her her platforms.

So let’s talk a little bit about how you got into art and graphic design first.

Sure. I really don’t remember a time in my life where I wasn’t interested in art and design. When I was little my parents. Like we always had our projects like for fun. My mom’s very creative person. And my sister is a fine artist. My dad and brother are more analytical, but I believe that they’re creative in their own way. We we just always created stuff together. And I went took art classes as a kid as a teen and just really, I loved art class at school. I remember like all of my projects, it was just like my happy fun place. And then, as I like ordered started thinking about what I wanted to, like, you know, do with my life, I went through all of the design professions that I possibly could have, like, I was going to be an architect. And then I was gonna be a fashion designer and I was gonna be an interior designer, I went through all of the phases. And I went to an arts high school that we have here. And all of the electives at our school were like arts focus, there was musical theater, and there were like jewelry design and band chorus like they’re all of the arts, but we had no sports. So it’s like a

it was like the show glee. But it was cool to sing everywhere.

It was like my dream. So it was

really fun. I actually really loved high school because we didn’t have any of the like, of that stuff. Like stereotype stuff. So it was just really different fun. And, and when I was in high school, I took fashion design classes, costume design classes, art class, like painting and visual art classes. And then I ended up on the newspaper staff one year and my teacher was like, can you do graphic design? And I’m like, Hmm, I don’t really like not not tried it. And he’s like, Okay, well, you can be our layout editor. And then you do this thing. Here.

I think you should. Yeah, basically.

So he handed me QuarkXPress and like, showed me how to do a few things. I’m done. Like I started laying out our our high school newspaper and then I just kind of fell in love from there. And we also had graphic design classes in my high school so I took those for the rest of high school and I was just like really fun and decided to pursue that for college and have been a graphic designer ever since.

I love it. Like I knew it was sort of a fluke like can you do this? Oh, here you go. That really got you into it. Yes. I

have the high school situation too because I know a lot of places now are moving tours that kind of thing where they have like magnet high schools. But my high school was like the typical, all the things push together. But I do like to go to only art school will be a bit crazy, like all I can think of is like fame. And movie.

Yeah, musical

meaning to anything real to compare it to

it like you actually would leave, I feel like you would actually leave high school knowing what you wanted to do. And it sounds like you did.

Yeah. And a lot of my classmates, like are doing really cool things. Like one is a casting director for reality shows and like she took all the film classes and you know, somebody out, lots of them have been on Broadway. And I think there were, there’s even some students who were like graduated recently who are on Broadway now like me, girls, and they’ve been in Hamilton.

And then the

Harry Potter show, What’s the name? I’m blanking on her cursed child? Yes, yes.

Yeah, there’s a student from I couldn’t remember the word account earlier. So

we’re equal.

I think mine is worse than yours.

That’s so cool.

Yeah, I love that. So what exactly is color theory? For anyone? That’s like, I don’t really know what that means.

So it’s complicated, but the simple answer would be that it’s like the art and science of color. Because color is both a science and an art, if that makes any sense. But I’ll describe a little bit more. So the science of color would be like how light works, because light, you know, is on a spectrum. So like, when you see a rainbow, of course, like you’re seeing, like, the particles traveling through light rays. Mm hmm. So that’s the science part of things or like, even more specifically, how a computer monitor works, it’s traveling, or your phone, like any kind of screen, there’s little pixels that are made up of little bricks of red, green, and blue light. And the technology in your computer is all the time adjusting, you know how much red green and blue to put through the screen. And, you know, make each pixel of your whole screen come together to be something you can use. So that’s all the science side of things. The art side of things is that color is used in emotional ways to help us make decisions to make us feel a certain way. It’s something I use every day as a designer to, you know, convey certain feelings or to highlight certain things. Of course, color is something used in you know, artwork and paintings, it’s used in all kinds of design and advertising, to stuff like, you know, home decor to make you feel a certain way or, you know, help, you know, you’re like you might choose blue, because it’s a relaxing color for your walls. And then that could make you have a really comfy room. So it just, that’s kind of the art side of things. It’s more about like, the feeling, the way things portray. And then of course, like, color as well, we use this like ink or paint or, you know, color pencils to draw things to try the art side of things.

So one of the questions that I have about color theory, and also it’s not on our list, so I apologize by you, like you mentioned that blue is a common color. So when it comes to certain colors, like why is a blue call mean why do people say that you shouldn’t paint your kitchen red because it makes people hungry? Like, why? Why are those things those meanings with those colors.

So that’s definitely a cultural thing because color means different things depending on where you’re from. But in like Western cultures, those are those things are true. So blue, blue has a lot of associations with it and it’s just kind of things were brought up from seeing since we’re really little like blue as you often see it and logos for a bank or for a store. It’s very corporate kind of color, but it can you know, then you have different tints and shades. So darker blue and lighter blue, they make you feel different things. So, you know, light blue is like the color of people paint nurseries. You You might have a little boy, I don’t necessarily subscribe to that. But that is a common thing. So you might have a light blue room for your kid. And you know, that’s supposed to be, you know, calming. And it’s also something that is associated with identity at a very young age. Again, don’t agree with that all the time. But it’s definitely color is something that we’re taught at a very young age without really even being taught it just because we’re it’s around us everywhere. So it’s kind of like pre established. To

Yeah, yeah, exactly. every single week,

man, man, we really break the patriarchy. And all the time.

Yes, exactly. The patriarchy. So

So why is color theory important? And why should we care about it?

I think, because it’s something that influences your decisions that you don’t really know. Like, that’s something that I’m trained to do. Because I can be using color all the time, but a consumer who might be making a purchase, and choosing between something that’s on sale or something that’s not on sale, you don’t know that color, as very important to the person designing that retail display, and helping you decide what to get. So like, for example, when you see something that’s on sale, it’s usually a red sign or a yellow sign. And both of those are used for sales because they signify importance. So they’re drawing your eye to those colors, because they want you to buy what’s on sale, because maybe it’s a promotion or something they’re trying to get rid of, or it’s just, you know, something that they bring, that they’re that they really want to highlight, because it’s in season or whatever. So those colors are so important. But it’s somebody standing in the grocery aisle that knows nothing about color, may not have any idea that those colors are influencing them. So I think it’s important to at least be a little bit aware of it, it can affect your mood. So like I was saying before, having a Blue Room can be really calming, but having like, yeah, like a red kitchen can make you really angry. And you know, depending on the person that may not be the best choice if you really love red, it might be alright. So I think a little bit of it as preference. Right?

So interesting to me.

A we were you were talking about using red and yellow and sales and things like that. And the three of us we all work in marketing. So obviously marketing is something that we think about more than I think most normal humans. But as you were saying color plays a huge role in branding and much more than I think just a normal lay person thinks about and to be God because be beyond just this is the color I like for my logo, like hey, I really like blue, can you make my logo blue? So can you tell us a little bit more about that when you are designing a logo or a branding kit for someone? How do you think about color

so there’s a lot of different aspects so it’s sometimes it’s industry specific is colors can be very, can be very related to industries or at least it’s something that we associate in our minds so like

like I said resor for sales reds.

reds can represent passion or or war love, they’re really energetic. And so depending on your brand like that may or may not be a good color fit for you. I can run down some of some of the other colors too so like orange often is like health and vitality it’s very happy color can be very energetic Damon’s gallows and shiny energy. It’s very cheerful color. And you often see it with like, like kids stuff. You see yellow for things that might represent hope. Like like the way we use a yellow ribbon for like, you know, hang a yellow ribbon on a tree like you have a soldier overseas. Greens very natural, earthy, it assistance for like money and wealth. So you might see a bank use green or likewise like a something very earthy, like a conservation group or something might use green. Blue can be very corporate but again if you you know make it dark Lighter can be, you know, friendlier or more friendlier or more sinister can be like if you go more like really, really dark with it. And then purple is can be very regal and can be very romantic. It’s the signup luxuries you might see lots of like spas like Massage Envy is color is purple is it’s very luxurious. And then there’s like the neutral color like black, white, brown, gray. You know, Black can represent like elegance and power. White can be represent, you know, purity, it’s like in the Western culture, it’s like the bridal color. Again, don’t subscribe to that either.

Do whatever color you want.

It can also represent like winter, and colors can really play into the seasons too. And then gray is very neutral, moody. Sometimes can some people think it’s a very depressing color, but it can also just be very, you know, neutralizing you know, being in a gray room doesn’t necessarily make you happy or sad. My office is like a bluish grey and I find it very like comfortable. And then brown it can be like old or kind of like an old feeling. It can also feel like earthy.

It can also be very well.

I saw someone say the other day that beige is like an offensive color because they should, we should just have more color in our life than beige. I thought that was amazing.

As someone with a with a hallway that is currently like beige bagel colored, which is being changed soon. We’re having it painted in December. But I agree it is an offensive color. They have offended by that decision. But whoever in the 80s decided that beige was like going to be done neutral color and houses was a bad decision.

That’s a that’s funny, I was gonna mention that same thing. Why houses because you brought up gray and our last house, we had a choice of not very many colors when we had it built for the colors, but we chose gray. And we really liked it. But I noticed that a lot of the newer houses now like gray is the color that everyone paints their house when it used to be beige. And I just think it’s super interesting that all of a sudden, not all of it wasn’t all of a sudden. But all of these houses now are being painted gray instead of beige. So I’m wondering if yours we’re all gonna hate gray.

I hope not a lot of my house is gray.

It’s totally possible because color is so cyclical. And you know, the fashion houses are picking the colors that are gonna be hot, and then season you know, in the spring, or in the fall or whatever. So they’re in their planning ahead. And that’s true for home decor. Like it may be you may have like an emerald green, or a room with emerald green accents. And those were really hot A few years ago, but now you want like a new pillow. That’s emerald green and maybe really hard to find because that color might just not be in anymore and the places that we buy things from definitely try to keep with what’s in fashion. So it’s definitely possible that gray could be out of fashion and another decade. But I also have like this creamy, horrible beige color like

that’s all over my house. I hate it.

I hope that probably particularly drives you crazy like as a designer, you’re like

there was a lime green bathroom had to go. I lived the pet for like three years. Like this is this has been too much of my life.

Too much of my life staring at this lime green bathroom, it can no longer exist.

Yeah. So speaking of trends and stuff, what what is your opinion about when Pantone and Sherwin Williams and all of those companies choose like a color of the year? How do you feel about that?

Also fascinated to see what they pick because I usually don’t agree with it.

But I know that they have usually do send quite the opinions about

you really like they announce it. I don’t like this.

Usually in retrospect, I’m like, okay, I couldn’t see why they chose that. But they’re using, you know, psychology and surveys and you know, tools like that to help them predict what might be popular in the future because they’re, they might be developing pigments and dyes and you know, things that take manufacturing time and really thinking about what might be popular in like a few seasons from now. So that’s already kind of determined which is kind of scary. Like they already probably know like, what’s what is going to be in season next Christmas time, like what wrapping papers might look like or what colors they might be and what decorations might be popular that’s already being forecasted by lots of manufacturers and so that’s kind of crazy to think about but when Pantone puts together their color of the year, they’re they’re thinking about that they’re thinking about what people might want to buy, they’re looking at everyday trends what people are wearing, what maybe even what influences are doing what what’s popular on Pinterest and and really thinking about like what represents this time I’ll be and they also predict ahead so like they already picked the color for 2020 so the next color that they put out will be the color for 2021 which I always think is weird because it’s like the year hasn’t happened yet.

This year just like when he you get new cars and or like the 2021 cars you’re like it’s still 2020 people what is happening

I think for the color they’re like that you’re supposed to start buying that stuff up. I don’t know I think it’s interesting though because the color for this year was like a normal color and basically it’s classic blue cloth and I’m considering everything that’s happened this year like a nice a nice calm regular blue actually worked out really well to be a color for the year

election blue as well. I thought that was a very interesting pick. Was it for an election here

I am yeah it is really an interest Sherwin

Williams color the year actually is also a blue but it’s a dark blue. I believe interesting. Yeah. But if I’ve noticed in past some of the past years have been kind of

Oh no, a Sherwin Williams already announced or 2021 color of the year.

Who What is it?

Or Bane bronze?

That doesn’t sound good?

I’m not. I’m not.

I don’t it’s a

it’s brown, brownish gray.

It’s like dark grayish.

Yeah. No, it reminds me of that. Do you guys remember that showed Trading Spaces?

Yeah. Do you

remember there being an episode for this woman like truly with her whole entire being hated the color brown. And her friend that she traded houses with was like, I’m gonna make your house Brown. I would make you like it. She gets to her house and she’s like, everything is brown. And it is horrible. And I can’t believe he did this to me.

Yes, she’s so mad. Which I mean like, I can’t

blame her either. That show mean. She said when she didn’t want and they did it anyway, they did exactly what

she didn’t want. And that was probably their fault. The

The show was always so insane though. If you if you had to get what was her lady her name? Are you are you and I are both trying to remember her name. The lady put the straw on the wall. The Yeah, I don’t remember what her name is. But she was always a craziest person

know that shows a host Yes, Hildy. Oh my god yet shows did the wackiest shit. Like she was the type that was like, Oh, they hate Brown. I’m gonna encourage everybody to new Brown. I would glue straw in the wall. What is wrong with you? Oh, man. The was a great show. It was a great show.

It was pretty entertaining. It was

very, it was very entertaining. And I enjoyed. I enjoyed it a lot. I also enjoyed like cringing and like, Oh my god, what did she do?

Wow. Yeah, yeah. You

know, if Hildy was on it was gonna be a wild episode.

Like, oh my god, this crazy lady. So Megan has a Megan has a question that relates to the show Fargo I believe.

So, in our teaser for this episode, I mentioned something that I had heard actually on the show, Fargo that I watched horrified Lee in my dark house. probably not a good idea. Anyway, at one point in the show, they say that the human eye can detect more shades of green than any other color. And I’m wondering a if you know the answer, why and B if it’s true.

I don’t know the answer to that. But I would it wouldn’t surprise me because green is such a prevalent color like everywhere in the world, and maybe not everywhere in the world, but it’s something that we see a lot and trees and you No on grass and plants, and it would make sense to me that, like, there’s so many colors and shades of green, and it’s something that we see a lot. So I think it would be if it’s something we adapted to that makes perfect sense.

Yes, it feels like a very

like, if you’re looking at like the spectrum of colors, like I just feel like it’s like it’s kind of there in the middle. It’s not like an extreme on one end or the other. I don’t know. There’s just something about green.

Yeah, just also screen like color is very.

Like we sit, we have more colors today, at our fingertips or in our like, that we can see than we ever have in human history. We think about it, if you were a person living in Scandinavia, centuries ago, you did not have probably lots of shades of red, like you might have had some berries, maybe some flowers. But you may not have had access to a lot of it, you probably sell lots of greens and trees, lots of browns, lots of shades of white snow, probably saw some autumn leaves. But you probably didn’t see purple, you probably didn’t see a lot of orange outside of autumn leaves. So your color spectrum that you would have had in skin maybe as you know, several centuries ago would be very different than somebody who grew up in western North America who lived in the desert where all of their colors are orange and they never saw snow or the color white maybe unless it was on a flower or something. So just like what was it nature available to you? based on where you lived it’s just very different for everyone in the world does

isn’t it? Yeah,

yeah. It is really interesting to think about

and yeah, like whatever colors you hadn’t fully edge could be what you dyed clothes out of. And so like your clothes would have been different colors just based on what berries and fruits and leaves, mushrooms and things are available to you just because of

where you are in the world. I think it’s so interesting. And it’s

really interesting. Yeah, cuz I remember I remember in school talking about the fact that purple was the color for royalty because it was really hard to come by.

Yeah, they smashed nails. shells.

Poor little snails. Yeah, they’re gonna eat them anyway.

And I clear

it was not well for the snail.

It was expensive because like snails are small so you needed a lot of them to make the color purple and then it was sometimes illegal to have purple like because it was only for Royals and if you weren’t royal you couldn’t have it.

I don’t remember a whole lot from grade school history, which is probably for the better because most of it just turned out to be crap anyway. But I do remember that very distinctly we’re learning that we may not have learned about the truth about Christopher Columbus or white supremacy but we did learn his truth about the color purple.

The end so

so okay, as we’re as we’re kind of like we’ve we’ve done a little bit of an overview of this idea of color theory and how it’s implemented into various aspects of life but before we before we go, what are some like tips for someone who is wanting to kind of implement this concept into their own lives that give their you know we talked about if you’re if you’re painting your bedroom, like maybe you think about like some blues and some calming colors, but do you have just any other tips if someone is like, I want to incorporate this and of the psychology of color into my life?

Yeah, so I think it depends on like, what the if you’re, if you’re painting a room or decorating a room, what is that room for? So you want to think about the purpose of wire and there and you know, are you there to sleep or either to eat Are you just there to relax like those are all different things and then you may choose a color that kind of fits that mood. So if you want to relax, you know for a bedroom or for a living room area like cool colors are great relaxing colors, greens, blues.

You know, even neutral colors like let go

Could be a really good fit for that. And if you need a happy place you know you may want to go for a yellow although I have heard that I’ve never sold a house but I’ve heard that they’ll make you paint yellow if you have it anywhere except the kitchen because it doesn’t sell well. I’ve heard that before.

Interesting. They did not do that before we bought our house because there was a lot of unnecessary yellow in it. Just

unnecessary yellow sounds like a bad name.

I mean, our kitchen was also salmon colored so there was a lot of there was a lot of bad color choices happening in our house that we fixed immediately.

As as we are all like immediately reacting to that I think it’s really funny that we just have immediately like oh

oh, this is wrong. Yeah.

I have a friend whose mom is a home stager and she always joked about purple people is usually people who have a purple room usually have more than one purple room. If you like purple enough to have one you probably like it enough to have Yeah, more than one.

Yes. I we had some friends when we lived in Indiana and my mom had a couple friends who their best their favorite colors were purple like the both of them their favorite color is purple and purple was everywhere. A lot

of purple.

Wow. I promise I will not paint more another room purple. Yeah,

that’s right. Because your bathroom is like I can plant called eggplant. Yeah, actually, it’s Blackberry. I think they call it but it’s very eggplant is very eggplanty. It’s a beautiful color in your bathroom. But if it starts to seep into other areas of your house, I promise you Susannah, I will fly you up so we can have an intervention. Good.

Don’t worry, I’m not the kind of person that will just randomly start painting myself so will be a whole process for me to even get to that stage.

There would be a lot like red flags along the way. I can break it down.

blackberry sounds like it would be a really nice color like just hearing it I’ve always wanted to be somebody who got a name that colors like for the nail polish or the paint swatches like whose job is that? How can I get it that’s

really nice.

We were talking about this at work the other week cuz we were talking about there was like a weird makeup palette that had some really strange

and had a cottage cheese eyeshadow.

Yeah, I don’t want that on my eyes. Well, there was

no that was like yogurt. But the color was like brown. Right? Yeah, it was like a brownish or purple or something. It was not the color that yogurt should be no. Clear. And I was like, if that’s the color of their yogurt. We’ve got bigger fish to fry.

I mean, it sounds like they have a job opening for anything colors.

I think so I think we should be looking into this. Yeah.

Yeah, maybe. Yeah, Navy coach, because I also was I always like to look at the name of the like the crayon colors.

Oh, yeah.

And they see the essie colors are always really like good puns. Yes. So I always really liked those. But there were a lot of when you’re looking at paint colors for the house. There were a lot of really, really disgusting sounding colors. I can’t remember any of them right now. But I was like, why would you name anything that? It sounds horrible?

Why? When I was a kid, my parents Let me paint my bedroom and I picked this light blue color. And it was called Blue Fox. Now it’s like that foxes aren’t blue.

like eight years old, I just like this is like

I could do better than this. Navy. Color naming prodigy. Yes. Well, if anyone listening has an opening for a color namer you know who to call? Do

I have one more question? I did not want us to forget that we wanted to talk about we all use co star which is an app the for astrology basically. And, and their daily updates. It gives you advice for things that you should do and things that you shouldn’t do. And very frequently colors show up in those lists. Mm hmm. And how do you not do a color?

And what does that even mean?

Do you like today? Do gray?

Yeah, mine told me today to say like, not reply all and like, but I will I’m at work. Like what do you want me to do? If I have to I might have to sorry, I don’t know.

And I also says Do bottom which

also I want to be clear. When, when my guess is that we use costar mostly, we just go in and see what it’s telling us to do or not do and then send each other. Yeah, and then make fun of it. So we are actually taking this seriously, like our listeners know Megan and I are hippies but we’re not quite to that point.

I’m yeah, interesting I say what it says but usually I’m like, okay, but I don’t understand what they mean when they say don’t do a color because frequently mine says don’t do yellow and like my house is yellow, the outside of my house is yellow. So should I not be in my house?

Like,

should I not paint something yellow? Should I not eat yellow foods? What does that mean?

I think usually like what I know of astrology, which is not that much, but they often will tell you to, like use the gears, whatever their predictions are to not make to help you with your decisions. So like, maybe do red means wear a red shirt or wear the red lipstick or fingernails red like maybe it’s to help you make a decision or maybe don’t gray is like, maybe don’t be in a gray room today. I don’t know that it means avoid that color at all costs, because that’s kind of impossible. Like I don’t think it means like, take all the red pens off your desk.

And I have like, see, like, what are you doing every day? I actually, I had

I had a professor who refused to use red pens, because she thought that they were like too harsh in her grading when she was editing papers, or editing, choose my magazine editor. So she would edit people’s articles with purple instead because she felt it was nicer.

I mean, that’s color theory right there. She’s trying to like, maybe not make you resent her by if she were to markup your paper a lot and like read is so glaring, it’s very easy to see. So it’s hard to miss, like where somebody is marked on a paper. But it’s also potentially she wanted to have a relationship with you and not, you know, be your superior by always like marking things off with red. Like, it’s

just it’s a choice teacher. So I’m not a teacher, like, I don’t know, write a better paper and then you won’t have as much red on it.

sorry to tell you but you have a child so you’re a teacher now. Well bless.

Sure, because to me, there’s a lot of paper, well, you should have written a better paper. It’s fine. Everything is fine.

So far, they actually don’t correct things that much.

Sad to say.

Anyway, so you asked me earlier what you could do color theory in your own lives. So yes, we

did a little bit of a slight rabbit trail there didn’t wait a

second it happens. So part of it’s like it’s not just room decorating. It could be your you know, your closet, like maybe you wear a lot of back and you want to introduce a new color. So some of that’s like knowing what colors you look good in or having a friend who knows what color you see you look good in and you know, that can just sort of give you a mindset shift like wearing the red dress might make you feel really confident or wearing the black dress might make you feel sexy. Like it just really depends on the person and your preferences and what you what you feel comfortable. And so I think a lot of color theory is comfort. But also I personally believe it’s important to go outside of your comfort zone sometimes with color and just try new things because there are so many options and it’s easy to be the Trading Spaces woman who hates Brown, but like maybe there is a little bit of brown that you could have in your life like a brown pillow or something like that. That is something that you could learn to love. Well no, it’s it’s it’s it’s color theory is different for every person and and what is comfortable for them and what is helps their mood. And it’s gonna be a little bit different for every person. So you can look up the like meanings of the color orange, but if you really love orange, like do orange co star

love it.

Also I feel like I feel like I should have mentioned this at the beginning of the episode but better late than never. Susannah, you and your husband Chris just celebrated your first anniversary and for your wedding. You did all the colors. We did

so Growing up in the south, like, seeing lots of weddings, and everyone always picks pink. And maybe not everyone. That’s unfortunate.

blush and bashful your colors are pink and pink.

Correct.

You know, it’s usually in a southern wedding, it’s like, you wear the white dress. The dude wears gray or black, blue, maybe. And then the bridesmaids wear one color. Yeah. And I’ve just I, I couldn’t decide I was thinking about maybe doing shades of green. Green is my favorite color, I do wear a lot of green. And I have a lot of green in my home. But I also love all of the colors. And I, I think that they’re all useful and valid and worthy. And I want to, you know, as a designer, I try to be fair to them and use them equally. So. I don’t know. And for my wedding, I was like, I got to do this one time. And I don’t I mean, hopefully, that’s the that’s the goal. And I plan. But I just like I don’t want to do it like everybody else. I don’t want to just pick one color and be stuck with it. And why not get to use all these other colors. So like we had colorful invitations or like all the different pieces for different colors. And we had a ribbon curtain that I walked through and I came down the aisle so to speak. And the ribbons for all different colors. We had colorful macrons on the cake. There’s a lot of like color accents everywhere that just made me really happy. And it was a really fun day, like, surrounded by all my favorite people. And all you know all of the colors. No, it’s just like, it’s like a carnival. Oh, so fun.

Yeah, I looked really fun. It looked so amazing. Like I saw the pictures later. And so unfortunately, neither Megan or I could make it down there for it. And we both looked at the pictures later, like, Oh my gosh, it looks so because I know, like thank you. I know some people that could not have pulled that off, like, in a really beautiful way. Like it would have looked tacky. And you have such an eye that you were able to do it in a way that was really lovely. And because also I think if I’m remembering correctly, your venue was very, like neutral colored. And so it was like the pops of color.

Yeah, it was like wood floors had some brick walls and some white walls as well and like white card white linens and curtains. So it was no, it wasn’t in some ways, like there wasn’t a lot to work with. But also that might you have like lots of creative freedom. So even if you did just pick one color would have looked beautiful in there. But I wanted to, you know, bring in as many as I could. My mom and I and the help of several friends and my husband, we made this huge backdrop that we stood in front of and we made it out of plastic tablecloths, and we spent hours cutting out strips of plastic table cloths and weaving them into this. What do they call it like us? You see it in construction. I forgot that like a snow fence, but like plastic fencing. And so we like tied them to that. And then we have these like three huge panels behind us. And it was my mom and I went on this huge truck all over town to find every color plastic tablecloths.

You also spent months making all of these paper cranes.

Oh yeah, in all different colors.

I blocked that out of my memory.

Yeah, they’re sitting in a box. And I’m trying to decide what to do with them. And I think I want to like put them in a big light box to hang on the wall. But yeah, we made 1000 paper cranes. And part of that was like I got to use up all the origami paper that I’ve been collecting since I was a kid. I learned paper cranes when I was 10. I had a friend from Japan and she taught me to make origami and I loved the sadako and the thousand paper cranes story. And love the idea that if you made 1000 paper cranes you got to make a wish. And so I wanted to you know have a wish for our marriage. So you know we live a long and happy life together but it was also a fun, creative project that became less fun.

When you’re like the 10th

grade, I was gonna say like you’re in that first hundred and you’re like, look at me there I go, like cranes 742 and you’re like, fuck

these cranes. That was not the worst part. Once they were made. Then we had to string them on twine or like on fishing line to hang from the ceiling. Oh, that was the worst part. It’s so hot glue stains on my kitchen table.

So, let dear listeners if you were getting married, how do you think I think I’ll make 1000 paper cranes. Susannah would say Don’t worry, I’d

say limit yourself to like two to three manageable DIY projects.

And not by not like DIY everything. pick pick your thing pick your one thing. nearness. Yeah, because we did do a invitations to backdrop. DIY ribbon curtain and that’s appropriate and artsy person is you’re like, I could do it. And then you’re like, I should have paid someone to do this was worth

it is someone. I have to be reined in. Sometimes it’s helpful to have the analytical people in my life be like, okay, so you just

can you chill?

Suzannah always calls herself extra clock. Yeah, love it.

It’s the best. Oh, man.

What’s bringing us joy

Susannah, thank you so much for coming on and chatting all things color theory with us. Let’s talk about Join now. So Susannah, what is making you happy this week?

Okay, so you sat us could be a fluffy thing or a fun thing. And I’ve been thinking about this a lot.

And I’m gonna say it’s my Animal Crossing garden.

Your Animal Crossing garden is amazing. It’s pretty cool. Like, we’ve got to talk about you guys. You know that Megan and I both just got switches. And so we both just got Animal Crossing. Megan has gotten to play it a little bit more than I have. I am like, I’ve done. I’ve done like nothing compared to any

I have played at a shameful amount of time.

poll of me, I mean, your children are a little bit more self sufficient than my child is. So I guess there is that. But we both went to visit Susannah on her Island this weekend. And we went like at the same time. And her Island is so cool. And your garden is beautiful.

It’s so organized. And pretty. And then like, max was watching me play. And he was like, Where are these flowers even come from? Because you have like, every kind of flower. And he was amazed by the different colored pumpkins and everything that was there. And it was like, I know, it’s so cool. Oh,

it’s been a lot of time.

Cuz I can tell you how to grow the flowers and the pumpkins later.

But it’s

it’s very fun. But I’ve enjoyed collecting the flowers either from friends, friends that I have that play who have bred all of the different flower colors. And then I’m just trying to like, breed them myself, or collect them to complete the garden. And it’s just been a very Zen project and you can’t kill them, which is a bonus. Because that’s what I would do in real life. Yeah, absolutely a bonus.

Like I was lamenting, I was like, Man, I’m almost as bad at remembering to water my plants in Animal Crossing as I am in real life, and you were like, they’re still gonna grow anyway. I don’t know why, but I’m not gonna take up my pocket space with them with a watering can and that’s silly. So I just leave that on the ground. ever again. Cuz every time I try to like water a plant anyway, like, goes three feet to the left of the plant. I’m trying to water and I get mad. And I’m like, I don’t think I’m getting any miles for this. So anyway, if you don’t play Animal Crossing, none of that made sense to you. But suffice it to say Suzannah has a beautiful island band. Why? Thank you.

Megan, what’s bringing you joy?

Well, I was also gonna say Animal Crossing, actually. Well, this my switch in general.

It has been really fun.

I do enjoy video games. And it’s kind of fun to just like, have something that I wouldn’t necessarily say it’s a mindless like they’re, you know, certain things you have to do to be able to finish games. Like I’m also playing Zelda and that’s like definitely there are so many controls in Zelda. Like never doing the right control button like if you’re having problems watering things. Animal Crossing, like Ben China play Zelda and like, shoot an arrow at something. Yeah. It’s like impossible. I struggle

with Skyrim a lot. Yeah, like I’m not good at the bow and arrow thing on Skyrim is not my forte.

And then they’re like oh, well you can aim with iMovie like just moving the controller like in your hands and I’m like that actually makes it worse.

Then I have all

the different bows and Zelda do different trajectories

so now

complicates it. I was literally sitting here. Think Like I should get Zelda and now I’m like, I don’t think I should get Zelda. I don’t think that’s the game for me

now you can borrow and I’m done. It’ll be done in approximately three years. That’s cool.

Put my name down on the waitlist.

But I am enjoying it. I do play Animal Crossing way too much I play it I get on multiple times a day because I am trying to collect all of the animals that you need to collect for the museum. And they’re only available at certain times of the day.

It’s a struggle. Yeah, they’re here, we only have certain I only have like the same time every day really to play it, which is in the evening. And then on the weekends is really the only time I have like other times of day and the other day, Alex was leaving for work, I think was on Saturday, Alex was leaving for work. And he’s like, he was like, oh, like what are you gonna do today? Well, because Friday night, we had a pizza and Mario Kart date night. In essence, he’s like, I get to play Mario Kart is like, actually, I think I’m gonna get on Animal Crossing and see if I can collect some bugs that I don’t have yet. And he was like, What? It’s, uh, you wouldn’t understand it’s fine. Totally. So you can time travel?

I know that. No, you can. So there’s like different ways you can do it. You can set your like, if you’re only ever going to be playing at night, you could set your switch to be like, you know, six hours behind you or something so that every time you play, it’s nighttime. Or sorry, is daytime. So you could set it so that like when you play, it works for you. But you can also like, go back in time. I’ve not tried it yet. But supposedly you can pick other times of the year. And sometimes you’ll go to somebody’s Island and you’re like it’s December like how is it snowing? When it’s actually September early? Oh, my gosh.

All right. That sounds too crazy. To me. That does sound crazy, but

I can’t wrap my head around it either.

No crazier than some of the other things that happen in a video game so it’s fine

it’s all fictional.

My kids do tend to have lots of logistical not logistical but law logic questions we’re gonna play video games are like why is this possible because of blah blah blah. Like it’s a video game.

It’s not fun. Tom. nook is a raccoon.

We are talking to a raccoon.

I have an extremely large loan to a raccoon.

Yeah, the loan is much too large. But yet here we are. Anyway,

Chris called it a capitalism simulator.

That was a great description for us. He’s a slumlord.

Anyway, despite that, it is bringing me joy but what about you? Stephie

Um, well, Animal Crossing is bringing me joy but so I actually have two answers. One today Susannah sent around a link to it was a puppy live cam. And it was amazing. I checked in on the puppies it was these little lab puppies for some group that train them to be service dogs. And it was in connection to some conference, some Adobe conference. I think that they were live streaming this anyway. They were fucking adorable. And I checked in on them multiple times. And there was a few times during the day where I checked in on them and they were all like five puppies. They were little yellow lab and black lab puppies. They were just asleep in a pile on top of each other. It was the best. And then they were so cute. At one point I had them up on my screen and I had eaten in my lap and she was like mesmerized by the puppies. As Are we all did we witness one fall off of it? I did. He was like he was like in his little in a little puppy bed. And like towards the edge and it had like a little lip on it. And he like stretched and like did that little like puppy thing. I mean all dogs do it but it’s especially cute when they’re puppies. Really like stretch and twist. And then he didn’t realize he was like at the edge of the bed and he just like tumbled right out of the bed was the cutest thing and then the human like scooped up the bed and was like I don’t think you need that right now. And then my second thing is that I ordered some new pajamas from Old Navy because they have pajamas on sale and I’m really excited because I don’t know the last time I bought myself new like winter pajamas. New like flannel jammies, and I’m really excited to have some new flannel pajama pants. The end. I do not have flannel pajama pants. I feel like I will have to get some I mean you live where it’s cold now. So yes, you will. You will but I All of my winter pajamas in particular are just really sad. And then Kathleen sent me a link to these cute baby pajamas. Old Navy has the cutest baby jammies, and they were Christmas and they say fala llama and they have like a Christmas llama. So I definitely bought matching pajamas for Eden and her older sister for Christmas because I don’t know when we’ll see her bio family during Christmas. But I know at some point we will and at some point, we need a picture of the sisters and their matching Christmas jammies. Definitely. And I was like, Well, if pajamas are on sale, and I want the free shipping. I should get myself some pajamas too. So I’m extremely excited to have some new cozy pajamas. That is

exciting. I do love cozy pajamas.

best, best. So yeah.

Speaking of Kathleen, I wanted to give a shout out to our friends, Kathleen and Ade, because they sent us they both send us these giant boxes full of Trader Joe’s snacks. It’s amazing.

It was amazing because we don’t have a Trader Joe’s here the closest one is like two and a half hours away. And it’s just not happening during a pandemic. And so they had both was Ade started it she was sharing on her Instagram about the cornbread biscotti at Trader Joe’s and then Kathleen got some and I was like lamenting that I was like Oh man, I miss having a Trader Joe’s and literally the next day Ade was at Trader Joe’s buying us corn bread biscotti and then she’s like is there anything else you want and they were out of a bunch of stuff. And so then Kathleen was like, oh, mine just restocked a bunch of stuff. And so then she went, they both shipped us these big boxes of stuff. And so then I went to there’s a store here and we have a spice shop here in town that does some really fun stuff. And so I went and I got them a bunch of like, really cool like hot chocolate mixes and stuff that I’m going to mail out in reciprocation of the Trader Joe’s fall treats was pretty great.

I have not cracked into everything yet. But

the stuff that I have tried is delicious. Excellent cookies for days. Basically so

many cookies. I am very happy camper.

Also the kids don’t like the biscotti. So, Bob and I do yeah. And he’s like why don’t we have all this? I’m like our friends send it to us. And he’s like, Okay, I’m like you clearly like it. You’ve eaten like five pieces of it

already. So not gonna go bad. Like if y’all the southern you don’t open isn’t gonna go bad. So it’s not like you’re supposed to eat it. You don’t have to eat it all this week. Bob.

You’re just confused that there’s so much of it.

You have really generous friends. What

people like us. Oh, gross,

Next week’s episode

confusing. Anyway, that’s an excellent shout out. I thank you for remembering that. We have We have wonderful friends and previous guests. So it’s also great. So next week, we’re gonna chat about a hot topic. If you’re paying attention to current events at all birth control.

We will be sharing our own experiences and why we believe having access to birth control should be a right not a privilege. Until then, leave us review on Apple podcasts and listen to us on your favorite platform. You can also follow us on social media at irsipodcast or send us an email at idratherstayinpodcast@gmail.com we’d love to hear from you.

Bye

Transcribed by https://otter.ai