Recently, we brought you our first installment of Designer Diaries, where we spoke with Home Depot Director of Trends & Design Sarah Fishburne about her design process. Today, Sarah tells us where she found inspiration for Patio 2012:

Above all, our design team is inspired by color, but you would be surprised where some of that patio inspiration comes from!

Every fall, our team heads to Paris for the Maison&Objet trade show. We gather ideas, follow trends, and make note of new and interesting color combinations.

These fabric samples were used to create the Arden Nazir Larkspur throw pillows, fabric by the yard, and the Arden Nazir Larkspur bench cushion.

Fabrics are also an essential inspiration to our design team – some of our patio collections’ fabrics were inspired by rugs. Or perhaps a fabric inspires a glass mosaic pattern. Our design team is constantly reinterpreting inspiration for new and exciting projects.

These two fabric samples became the Poolside Casablanca Malibu Blue Geometric Pillow and the Poolside Dawson Stripe Blue Stripe Pillow.

The Maison&Objet trade show in Paris is always a huge source of inspiration, as is Paris in general. I find inspiration just walking along the Seine, maybe the color and patina of a copper pipe fitting on a beautiful old building, the color of the Seine River, or the fashion in a window display. All sorts of things will catch my eye, and I’ll use it in some way in our next collection. That’s the funny thing about inspiration, you really never know where it will come from next.

In the case of the Martha Stewart Dana Point Collection which was available from 2008 to 2010, our design team used a metallic pewter faucet finish as their inspiration – giving vendors the faucet and asking them to match it exactly.

Like I said, you really never know where inspiration will come from — in this case, a simple bath faucet inspired the finish of an entire patio collection!

Thank you, Sarah, for giving us a glimpse into your creative process.