Last week I attended a great event at CIL Headquarters in Toronto where I learned about the hottest colour and paint trends for 2016.

A panel of CIL paint experts lead the way for a group of fabulous lifestyle and home décor bloggers (not only in person, but across the country via Webinar!), and we were able to ask questions and learn all about what’s new for paint in 2016.
 

We discussed the CIL paint online Ask An Expert service Where you can ask CIL paint experts a question and have it answered within 2 business days.

Décor and color specialists, product and technical experts, and even experienced painters are all available to answer your questions online!

How quick they get back to you really impresses me! You can ask your questions anytime, 24/7, and an expert will get back to you with advice. It’s a really cool service.

So what is the CIL paint Colour of the Year for 2016?

Soft blush pinks are expected to be on trend for 2015, such as Chemise Pink (60YR 75/075 MC10), CIL’s offical paint Colour of the Year. You will find soft blush pinks will be super hot in the year ahead, incorporated in all elements of home décor, from walls to furnishings to accessories. It’s all about tranquility in 2016.

As for paint techniques, three kinds will stand out in 2016 including gold accenting, neo-traditional look and tone-on-tone. decor.

I love the gold accenting trend! Since I picked up a gold paint pen for my DIY globe project, I have found myself wanting to accent everything in gold!

You will likely see more doors and mouldings painted in more colourful hues instead of the standard white we are used to seeing. Even banisters which often have white spindles with a brown or black railing may start to see bolder and brighter colours to add fun to your space.

A tone-on-tone scheme uses colours of different intensity throughout a room, a look that can be dramatically altered by lightening or darkening the base colour. You will see this trend in all aspects of home décor in 2016

We learned about some very cool paint products that will be popular in 2016 including cabinet and furniture paint, and metallic gold paint.

It seems like most people are taking on DIY projects and painting vintage pieces to create a modern look. We have done a few of these projects ourselves and have loved the results. CIL Realife Furniture and Cabinets seem to do a great job at refreshing an older piece of furniture, or just to add a pop of colour to a piece that just isn’t the right color.

For a cabinet painting demonstration, visit http://www.cil.ca/Advice/June-2015/Painting-Kitchen-Cupboards. The paint CIL carries for painting cabinet’s is pretty amazing! It’s a fool-proof formula where your strokes don’t need to be perfect, but it dry’s like they were!

Shimmery metallic paint – such as CIL paint’s Disney Magnificent Metallic Specialty Finish , tintable in 24 colours including gold-tones, is ideal for adding a touch of trendy gold to traditional elements in the home.

I gave this technique a try at the Meet-The-Experts event, and it actually wasn’t hard at all! It’s so fun to create your own canvas art, and to accent it in gold all I had to do was drag the brush from top to mid way to create an fading feathered effect.
 

 
Here is a video of one of the experts showing us how it’s done!
 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WgFMZgl8x9k

I learned a lot at this event! We did an excellent tour of the CIL facilities that night as well, and I learned about all kind of things related to paint that I had no idea about! We couldn’t take photos in the production area, but I can tell you making paint is sort of like baking a cake! There are lots of ingredients (including some that really look like flour) which are mixed together, and voila! It was really neat to see.

One major thing I learned about is how important a primer is. I get a little lazy when it comes to painting, but I learned it’s important to not skip primer. Primer is cheaper than paint, so it’s better to prime and then paint so you need less coats of paint. The last thing you want to do is buy more paint because you need more coats!

CIL paint products are available at The Home Depot, Walmart, Canadian Tire, Rona and other independent paint dealers nationally. The price for a gallon of interior CIL paint ranges from $28 to $55, depending on the product. More information and paint discount coupons can be found at www.cil.ca.

Now for the contest!

One lucky sparkleshinylove reader will win 2 cans (an $80 value) of CIL paint to do their own project at home!

Enter via the Rafflecopter App below to win. The contest begins Friday, August 28th 2015 at midnight, and ends Monday, September 7th, 2015 at midnight. The winner will be announced on the blog following the contest closing. This contest is open to Canadian (excluding Quebec) residents only; prizes are limited to one prize per winner – i.e. while a person may enter multiple CIL paint online contests, he or she may collect a prize from only one of the contests entered.

Good luck to everyone who enters!

a Rafflecopter giveaway