What excites me about having my own color collection is the fact that I love color and I use color in all of the spaces that I design, so to have my own favorite version of each color that I can use is very exciting.

And I also just want people to have the best version of each color for their own space.

Picking the right shade of your favorite color can be really daunting, and can lead to people playing it safe and avoiding color entirely.

There is a lot that goes into making a shade look good in a real space, so it is impossible to have a one-size-fits-all solution. However, I did a lot of research to figure out the most versatile, agreeable shades of each color. I’m hopeful that this collection will make decision making easier.

No matter what your lighting is or what wood tones you use, these colors should blend in naturally.

What excites me about partnering with Up Paint is that they have more behind their brand than just a typical paint brand.

There's all of this environmental research that they're doing and they are really trying to expand upon the paint industry, which I think as a designer, it's really important to care about the planet.

I think interior design as a whole can be very bad for the planet, and I recognize that. I like to try to be conscious about the work that I do and making sure that I'm not making a bad environmental impact.

And I think that what Up Paint is doing is really cool. I think that more companies should be working towards minimizing waste, and I think that upcycling paint is a really innovative idea, and I really am excited to be behind it.

For the Emily Rayna collection, I wanted to make sure that I included every color. I think that everyone has their own specific design style that is something you absorb throughout life. Everyone has that one color that they love and feels like home.

So I really wanted range.

I wanted to pick the best version of each color so that everyone can have an opportunity to engage with this paint collection.

And then I did the research behind the scenes to figure out what shades of each color work with the most different types of spaces, and that's kind of how the collection was born.

I think that it's really easy in today's day and age for people to just follow trends and just do what's easiest for their own spaces, but I don't think that that fulfills a person enough. And you only have one life to live.

So I think that everyone's spaces should really reflect them and what genuinely interests them.

And so that's why I think that this color collection is a really great opportunity for people to explore new colors that they might have been a little bit afraid of, but they have interest in. Even if it's not necessarily the trend, it's something that they love.

I think that my background in commercial design has made me not afraid of color, which I'm really grateful for, and I think that that shows in my designs.

I do like to start with function for everything. But when it comes to color, I can be very bold and I love to use pops of color throughout spaces, which is typically not something you see in residential design.

But I think that bringing a little bit of that commercial design energy into spaces is what makes it uniquely my design.

You can design your space to be anything that you want it to be, and it doesn't have to be cookie cutter, it doesn't have to look the same as somebody else's. You can experiment with color.

I hope that my story can just inspire people to try things out of their comfort zone.

I wasn't a social media person at first, I just really loved interior design. So I started sharing my ideas online, and that’s how I've had all these amazing opportunities.

So I hope that my story can inspire people to kind of put themselves out there.