Leanne Ford’s new magazine shows you how to Feel Free
It’s is not your mother’s shelter magazine. “Feel Free ”is about the home as a canvas to express how you see yourself and how you want to be seen. It validates the “free to be me” sentiment.
HGTV star and designer Leanne Ford has channeled her freestyle, free-range creativity into the new quarterly magazine that is available now. Since it launched Sept. 23, the designer has received lots of of positive feedback, with people sharing projects-inspired by the issue.
“It has been a joy to see the response,” said Ford, who grew up in Upper St. Clair.
“Life if not about being perfect. I want people to be able to play and create because we are not good at being perfect.”
The back of the magazine expresses its mission: “Freedom of expression, freedom from perfection.”
Ford co-stars with her brother, Steve, on the HGTV shows “Restored
by the Fords” and “Home Again with the Fords.” She was working on a coffee table book when she realized she had far more to explore and share than could fit between the covers of one book.
“I wanted to talk about artists living today and those who came before them,” she noted.
“I wanted to talk about artists that I love and I wanted to talk about art forms and how you create art within your home and with in your space. I have always loved using my platform to introduce the world to artists.”
Ford describes Feel Free ($12.99) as an art and home magazine.
“I have historically always used the house as my canvas,” she explained.
Even when working on projects with tight budgets or deadlines, the designer has always used art. But readers do not have to have an artistic bent to get something out of the new magazine, she said.
“Everybody is creative — if you have dreams, your brain created those,” said Ford. “We are all creative in some way.”
There is a section in the magazine called Free $.99 which explains
how to make your own inexpensive artwork. In the first issue, a painter’s drop cloth is used in several innovative ways.
There are perforated pages of art that you can pull out and hang on the wall. “It is all a call to action,” she said.
Ford moved back to Western Pennsylvania two years ago and has made it her home base for all of her enterprises.
“I have never felt more creative or inspired. I love being back,” she insisted. “It has been amazing.”
The magazine will always reflect her Pittsburgh roots, she said. The first issue spotlights Frank Lloyd Wright’s Fallingwater in Mill Run, Fayette County.
She has no shortage of people she wants to introduce and subjects she wants to learn more about and explore.
“I get a little overwhelmed thinking about the possibilities,” Ford admitted.
“The fun thing about Feel Free is it is a vast category of all things creative.It is so much bigger than me.”