How We Live Home Tour With Cherise Rollins

How We Live Home Tour With Cherise Rollins

Joy, color and self expression. Words that come to mind when you see Cherise Rollin's pillows. Ispaci, her company transforms designer textile samples into beautiful new creations including lumbar pillows, travel pillows, body pillows and more. I discovered her on Instagram and immediately fell in love with her pattern mixing skills and knew her home would be just as vibrant! Take a look at her Los Angeles, CA home.

Tell readers a little about yourself and where you live. Hi, I’m Cherise. I’m an artist and creative entrepreneur living in Los Angeles, California. I moved to LA about 5 years ago from Philadelphia to become part of a larger creative community and to be more connected to my creative passions.

After arriving in LA, I had a deep desire to use my hands to make something. I’ve always been obsessed with textiles, so I purchased a sewing machine and taught myself how to sew a zippered pillow. I had a vision for a new kind of pillow, one that is fully expressive, mixing fabric patterns, colors and textures in a body pillow size, fluffy and super huggable. This pillow brought me so much joy and I wanted others to feel this joy too.

I launched a business making one of a kind pillows from small textile remnants and samples. Sustainability is my solution to making each one different. I’ve built an incredibly diverse fabric inventory often designing custom pillow collections for customers around their room style and personality.

When I’m not making pillows you’ll find me creating earrings from textile scraps and repurposed leathers - I’m a girl who loves bold accessories. 

How would you describe your decor style in three words and who or what influenced that style? Textural, colorful, diverse. I’ve always created my home around what I love most in life at the moment. So it’s constantly changing, I don’t create towards a style and I’m not constrained by what may tie in with the space.

I create from my gut and bring in colors, patterns, textures, art, and elements that I feel deeply connected to. It’s gotta bring me joy, and if it passes that test then I find a space for it.

Surprisingly, lately I’ve had a more minimal approach when it comes to my home. I keep the walls white then go nuts with the textiles mixing diverse styles together. Because textiles are my first love, I bring them into my home on large and small scales, and let them set a colorful, cozy, comfortable mood.

I’ve collected textiles on my travels around the world and received as gifts from  Mexico, India, Ghana, Turkey, and Japan. I usually add textile art on the walls, then add body lumbar pillows on sofas and beds with a layer of rugs and patterned floor pillows.

Do you have keepsakes or family heirlooms incorporated into your home decor? If so, what are they and why was it important to incorporate them? 

Yes, My Grandma Josie is my heart and she is the reason I started making things. As a little girl we’d sit at her kitchen table and create all types of crafts out of ordinary items, it’s the inspiration behind why my art is often about taking discarded items around me and transforming them into something new and beautiful.

She’s a master quilter, knitter, embroiderer, seamstress and everything in between. I have her colorful afghan on my bed, her embroidered doilies on my dresser and coffee tables. They’re a central part of what makes my space feel special and every time I see them I think of this incredible woman who has been an amazing matriarch to our family and who is my creative heart.

I get my artistic gifts from her so I’m reminded to keep following my heart and to never stop making things to share with the world. 

Have you completed a brag-worthy DIY project? If so, tell us about it. I have a shower curtain that I love but when I moved from my apartment to my house I didn’t have a use for it in the new bathroom, so I sewed fabric panels to the bottom of it making it longer and used it as the centerpiece on a wall full of curtains that stretched across the entire room.

Then when I moved again, I added more fabrics to it to cover an ugly utility closet door on my balcony patio. In my current space, it now covers the steel tin roof of the outdoor oasis we created in the alleyway, so it’s traveled with me from space to space and just takes the form it needs with a little extra creative problem solving. 

Why was it important for you to incorporate African decor into your home? What types do you have? (e.g Art, pillows, bedding, masks ect.) My sister brought textiles back from her trip to Ghana, and I fell in love with the bold bright prints. I knew I needed to make custom pillows from them, but I wanted it to be a design that also had a modern feel so I mixed other fabrics into the design so that they could live in harmony with the other diverse elements in my home.

For those that are hesitant to incorporate African decor into their space or don’t know where to start, what's one piece of advice you’d give them? Don’t overthink it. If you find a pattern and color that speaks to you, grab it. Consider adding pillows with African prints, they can easily move from room to room so if it doesn’t vibe with one space it’s easy to move to another room and I promise it will make you smile.

Wall art works the same way. Start with a natural element like a wood carving to hang on the wall, or something smaller to place on a shelf. Even colorful African coasters will bring a spark of pattern and color to your coffee table.

Try to find out the story behind the pieces you’re drawn to, this will make you feel that much more connected to them. How is it made and by whom? Especially if these are hand crafted items you will begin to appreciate all the details of the art and will be that much more excited to embrace it in your home space. 

At Reflektion Design our mantra is, See Yourself at Home. How does your home reflect who you are? As soon as you walk in the front door, you know I’m not shy about color or pattern and that I love textiles.

You’ll also see that I love to travel and there's elements from around the world. My home tells my story and that I love being at home! I’m an introvert at heart and home is my favorite place to be with my dearest loved ones.

It’s my safe space and my sanctuary - it’s where I go to fill up, charge up, rest, relax, love, cry, celebrate, and grow as a human. The love and attention to detail in my home mixed in with all the coziness will definitely tell that story.

My home also reflects my creative entrepreneur side from the stacks of stored supplies to utility shelves full of textiles bins on the wall. Today I’m blessed to have a separate art studio with more work space.

Where can we find you online? On Instagram @ispaci - which is the word “space” between “i” because my mantra is helping you create a beautiful space around your unique personality.

I also have a fun pillow shop with one of a kind pillows for purchase, all handcrafted with designer textiles and premium inserts www.ispaci.com. 

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Looking for items to bring more of you into your home checkout the shop: www.reflektiondesign.com

What is your favorite design element in Cheris' home? Use the comment section below to let me know what you think!

P.S If you enjoyed this home tour, check out our previous tour featuring builder, Nicole Jackson you're gonna love it!